IMDb user comments for
"The Catherine Tate Show" (2004)

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37 comments in total

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13 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Am I bovvered....??, 26 August 2005
Author: jstallick from United Kingdom

I totally disagree with the previous reviewer's comments, although obviously it all comes down to taste in the end.

Catherine Tate is a brilliant comedian. Some of the characters are so spot on it's spooky. Who can believe that the elderly character Nan is being portrayed by the same actress who portrays the sullen schoolgirl Lauren? OK, not all the sketches are as funny but it is worth watching for the absolutely hysterical moments that punctuate this show. Timing is brilliant and some of the characters will I am sure become classics. In the new series the hit rate is even better!

I think Catherine Tate deserves to be called the new Queen of Comedy!

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14 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
No! This was hilarious!, 23 February 2005
Author: Sunah from Berkeley, California

I laughed all the way through the one show I saw. Catherine Tate sets up several situations...in this case a housewife who jumps at the slightest noise, a new mother who will do anything to keep from waking the baby while people try to give her a birthday party, a hateful grandmother being visited by her grandson, and several others, and revisits their scenes in turn throughout the show. The premises are skimpy, it is true, but I didn't notice that until this other reviewer pointed it out because her characterizations were hilarious. I'm a Californian so I really had to focus to make out what some of the characters were saying as she uses various accents from all over England. I would be very pleased to see more of Catherine Tate.

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11 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
This woman is a comic genius!, 18 March 2005
Author: Greg Couture from Portland, Oregon

I beg to differ with the other IMDb-er who finds this show, and Catherine Tate, unfunny, trite, and so forth.

Her show comes through on BBC America on my TV cable service and I only recently discovered it. It might help if I had a slightly sharper ear for British accents, especially those of the "lower classes" (no offense intended), but I have no doubt that this lady is an extremely gifted comic actress, a virtual chameleon (assisted by some extraordinarily talented makeup artists), who has provided some of the most solid laughs I've enjoyed in some time.

In my book she's right up there with her fellow Brits, Mollie Sugden, Paricia Routledge, et al. and her Canadian counterparts, Andrea Martin and Catherine O'Hara. And let's not forget an American, the inimitable Joan Cusack, who deserves her place right alongside her peers from outside our borders. My enthusiastic compliments to you all, ladies!

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9 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
The Catherine Tate Show and Little Britain are in different Leagues, 2 October 2005
Author: aidious from United Kingdom

Little Britain is a very funny sketch show but it is nowhere near as well observed as Catherine's masterpiece. Compare Vicky Pollard and Lauren. Many assume that Lauren is Catherine's attempt to imitate and cash in on Lucas's Pollard. But the character of Lauren was invented long before that of Pollard and is a far richer observation of today's inarticulate, low-aspiring youth. Pollard is a much more surreal character, someone who wouldn't be of place in Royston Vasey. Lauren however is scarily real.

Also the 'Nan' is possibly the second funniest 'Nan' creation in recent times, second only to the slightly more sublimity that is 'Nanna' in The Royle Family.

In fact, the majority of sketches on the Catherine Tate Show are very strong. It is just that people assume that a show that has so many different sketches with such a limited number of performers will be stale, but it's not. In fact, it's fantastic.

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Awful and talentless show!, 23 January 2008

Author: bazzatuk from United Kingdom

Only online do I find anyone who will comment that they enjoy this show! I ask around with friends, at work or customers that I speak to daily - I have yet to find anyone who thinks Catherine Tate is anything special.

I found myself watching several times in an attempt to determine the reason the BBC directs so much focus and promotion of this show. For a long time she has been a favourite of the BBC, evening appearing in an episode of Doctor Who to destroy that as well.

I can sit and watch an entire episode without finding anything remotely interesting or funny. It'll take a lot for me not to laugh, I love comedies and this isn't comedy.

Coining instantly recognisable phrases is about all this show is good for. "Am I bothered" or "How very dare you" repeated episode after episode is not funny. Little Britain started off well but eventually fell into the same trap and repeated material over and over.

In recent years I can't think of any TV programme that has had me reaching for the remote as fast, as when this comes on. Maybe Big Brother comes a close second, more Junk Food TV for the generation that wouldn't understand talented television if it hit them twelve times in the face with a large cod or halibut.

You needn't ask if I would recommend this to anyone.

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8 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
I'm glad it's not just me, 20 June 2006

Author: Enoch Sneed from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Having heard about this "prize-winning comedy" (a description the BBC seems unable to separate from the show's title) I tuned to see what it was all about.

I'm no curmudgeon. I love to laugh as much as anyone. I just found myself asking why I was being asked to find this funny. An old lady who swears like a truck driver, a snob who tells everyone off for their lack of manners then breaks wind at a funeral, a couple who are disgusted at finding "dried shitache(sic) mushrooms" in the soup at a restaurant. Just to take the last example, what am I supposed to laugh at here: the couple's ignorance of new food fads, the mispronunciation of 'shitake', or am I just supposed to feel smug because I know what is really meant by 'shitache'?

My wife (a teacher) tells me Lauren the bored teenager is all too typical of her students, but she was truly offended by sketches showing a woman with red hair having to enter a 'ginger refuge' where she could be with similarly afflicted people and kept safe from the prejudices of the outside world. Our son has red hair and throughout his school life was a convenient scapegoat because he stood out in a crowd. If he was bullied on account of his colouring and stood up for himself it was always his fault because we 'know' redheads have bad tempers. This 'comic' scenario left a very nasty impression.

I think the trouble today is that humour has to be seen to be terribly 'clever' and 'ironic' - you have to be able to get the joke behind the joke. I prefer the days when comedians were funny just because they were funny: Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson and - if you wanted character comedy sketches - Dick Emery, whose characters were broad without being spiteful.

I won't be watching Ms Tate again.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Face? Bovverd? Look! Face? Bovverd?! Well, yes......, 31 July 2005
Author: newwavenewcraze from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

.....however, mostly in my case, "bovvered" = "although slightly bewildered, rather impressed."

I saw my first proper episode of The Catherine Tate Show fairly recently and I too beg to differ with accusations of Ms Tate's comic writings being sloppy or unfunny. From the punchy satire on Middle England's housewives who consider nannies with a regional accent as their worst nightmare, to the downright bizarre (the food van woman's ruminations on Archbishop Desmond Tutu) via gags that are genuinely disarmingly coarse (lazy nurse Bernie's revelations on the medicinal properties of yoghurt). I had plenty to laugh about.

However, I also have my reservations, mainly to do with Lauren...although the character herself is extremely funny, I do worry about that joke being recycled again and again in every episode, a la Little Britain. Granted, that kind of thing is probably testament to a character's popularity, but this may well be a double-edged sword both to Tate and to Lucas/Walliams; while it creates favourites with an audience, I can understand why it could fuel some criticism of being a one-joke-pony. Nonetheless, Tate manages to give her audience a slice of life in exaggeration; a classic device, but no less relevant or entertaining.

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5 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Not really that funny, 10 July 2006

Author: tatterwip from United Kingdom

The Catherine Tate show is made up of numerous sketches that, usually, revolve around the same selection of characters. Some - I have to admit - are a laugh, but the problem is they go on for too long! Especially the "Am I bovvvered!" girl. This character and the "Swearing Granny" sketches go on for so long that they begin to grate on the brain. I know, I know! I live in the 21st century and I can turn the TV over. But currently on the Beeb, they are repeating the show in between Still Game (Brilliant) and a new series by Steve Coogan, Saxondale (Also brilliant) Catherine Tate CAN act, and can do comic characters, but characters that would much more suit a film that a TV show.

Once the predictable parts of the sketches get into your mind (after one watch) the show gets really old, really fast.

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Dreadful, safe, slot-filler 'comedy', 3 July 2008

Author: harekrishna from Leeds, England

I'm going to have to add my whiny voice to the other anti-Tate posters on this board. I'm constantly astounded that people think this programme is funny or even watchable. I don't find it offensive, racist or sexist as some people seem to - quite the opposite, it's so tame and predictable that you'd have more fun auctioning dogs.

There are a lot of people saying Little Britain is funnier than this - a fair enough comment, but they're really just comparing rubbish to a slightly less smelly kind of rubbish. They're fundamentally the same show and there's far, far better stuff out there.

Please, to overseas viewers who've heard about this show - don't bother, I'd be mortified if you watched this and thought this is the pinnacle of modern British comedy. Watch something like Big Train or Spaced instead, which have genuine laughs in every scene, and skip this kind of tired catchphrase comedy that really should have been laid to rest with The Fast Show (which was, at least, inventive and occasionally funny).

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Am I larrfing? Not once., 4 June 2008

Author: bootlebarth from Australia

British expatriates in the big brown land of Australia look forward to comedy TV from Dear Old Blighty. Often we're richly rewarded. Think of Blackadder, Father Ted, The League of Gentlemen and others. But sometimes we're horribly disappointed.

If a Roll of Dishonour was compiled for alleged comedy, Catherine Tate would be a prime contender for the unfunniest performer in the most lazily written and repetitive series of all time.

I used to think Benny Hill and Paul Hogan were about as bad as it gets, then My Family turned up and finally The CT Show came along. This dire series is founded on the entirely false premise that moronic catchphrases and characters mature with repetition, becoming funnier each time. The exact reverse is true.

See one Catherine Tate episode - and even that's one too many for any discerning viewer - and you've seen them all. Invention and surprise should form the backbone of comedy. This series has neither. It's embarrassingly bad. The 'star' constantly seems to be reminding anyone unfortunate or foolish enough to be watching how clever she is at wearing different wigs and putting on different accents.

This is pseudo-comedy for idiots who have conditioned themselves to give forth programmed laughter at the sight of a ginger wig or the sound of a limp catchphrase. The CT Show is fit only for masochistic couch potatoes who want something to make them feel very annoyed. It frightens me to think there are a lot of people who like such dreadful rubbish.

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