Man Stroke Woman (2005–2007) User Reviews

One of the Best Sketch Show Out There

[abigreen19 · 9/10 · 1 June 2010]

Obviously, as with any sketch show a few of the sketches wear thin or rely on 'stupid' humour that not everyone will love, but taking all of this into consideration it is still one of the best sketch shows that I have ever seen.

'Man Stroke Woman's' strength really comes from the actors, and they really are ALL a very funny and talented bunch. Nick Frost is arguably the most famous of the group, but this doesn't mean that he is given the most screen time. They all have an equal time on screen and they all use their time brilliantly.

The programme relies on taking man/woman relationships and finding the funny side of them, occasionally pulling them into the ridiculous but still in a totally hilarious way. What's great about the show is that there are only a few sketches that are repeated throughout the series and most of these still manage to remain funny with just two or three exceptions.

It's true that sometimes the repeated punchline of 'I don't think we should do role play any more' or 'you can never just say I look nice' do wear thin over time, but the lead up to these punchlines is still extremely funny and different every time.

Overall it's a brilliant show with brilliant actors and I think everyone should give it a go. It won't be to everyone's taste but I urge everyone to at least have a look.

Great Skit Show

[frodo18 · 9/10 · 22 August 2008]

Recently had the pleasure of seeing both seasons. Loved it and my wife agrees we had a good laugh (multiple times) throughout the whole series. There's a lot of everyday situations that we go through played out to the extreme and I love this particular satirical view on life. All the awkward moments of dating, parenting and married life - really taking on the 'What If?' approach quite well. The acting is stellar on all counts. I do particularly like Nick Frost's ability to play a great husband in one scene and then completely back-flip and play a useless drunk Uncle in the next. Man Stroke Woman is right up there with other greats such as 'The Office' 'Little Britain' and 'Catherine Tate' I do hope they get a 3rd series!

1st series - funny

[lambjw · 13 December 2005]

I thought this programme was a breath of fresh air. Yes some of it is variable - what sketch show isn't but I think the four main actors are just great together. Some of the sketches are down right silly. Others excellent observation - taken just that little bit (well quite a lot sometimes)further. Many are ensemble pieces often with all four and there are some really good running jokes "you can't just say I look nice", the guy thats always crying, the "posh" cosmetics assistants and particularly this evening I thought the three on the sofa discussing their horrible "perfect" boyfriends excellent stuff.

Try not to compare it other shows and where the actors may have come from. Look at it for what it is - a bit of a laugh at men and women together.

If you get the chance watch it. I think it works. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Best sketch show in a long time

[jrtrinder37 · 10/10 · 17 July 2007]

The great thing about this sketch show is that it does what a sketch show should do; focus on one aspect of life and develop it into comedy! The format of a sketch show has been done so many times in the past 30 years that it really doesn't mean anything anymore. But Man Stoke Woman is about adults in there 30s and the relationships between men and women. There is no catchphrases, no silly costumes (well perhaps one small one worn by Nick Frost) and together with a fresh cast and good scrips, the show is by far the best of the 'new comedy' to air on BBC3 in the past few years. I think the people who don't find this funny are the types who focus on repetition, although nothing really wrong with the 'Little Britain' formula, it does get tired easily and the writers get lazy. The great thing about this show, is that you don't know what to expect. Nick Frost is probably the best known out of them all, and he shines along with the rest of the cast. I really wish they'd do more together as they work off each other so well. Here's hoping that they'll be more. Although I doubt there will be. Shame. Can't wait for series 2 DVD release.

Comedy Done Right

[LiddleWitch · 10/10 · 7 February 2021]

I watched this when it first came out, and to this day, 15 years later, I still re-watch it. It's incredibly funny and the cast is perfect! I love the way they play off of one another. Sadly, we don't see many comedies like this anymore.

Superb, original, memorable AND McNeill is fit as ****

[beeste-1 · 10/10 · 18 October 2009]

Absolutely superb. It's difficult to set up and execute a really funny gag in under 2 minutes and they do it very well indeed. This team is very talented and although possibly not on a par with Python, quite comparable to Little Britain in quality with less yuk factor and similar running-gag/callback stuff that is very funny. McNeill and Frost in the sexy role play stuff are hilarious. McNeill is a talented and well qualified RADA actress with enormous range, but when she's looking very cute indeed dressed as a sexy nurse . . . A highly memorable image indeed for a bloke, and one that will have girlfriends in living rooms throughout the land tutting and rolling their eyes :-)

Good but uneven.

[moonvine27 · 6/10 · 2 November 2012]

Brutally tragicomic and pretty good. Parts are hilarious and the performances are great but it's also uneven and falls flat well more than once. That said, I wish I was that funny. Also, the one thing I requested NOT to see prior to viewing this, namely Nick Frost's hairy moobies, were on display no less than three times in the first episode. I wouldn't mind SO much if the women were allowed to meet (meat?) the same standard. Since the standards of the IMDb review are not, shall we say, Hemingwayesque, (min 10 lines of text required) I'll mention in passing to interested parties that there is girl kissing in one of the sketches.

less than the sum of it's parts

[chris-83359 · 3/10 · 10 April 2021]

The main problem with this is that it is up against some pretty stiff competition. By that I mean "Big Train" and "Smack the Pony". I don't include the Fast Show as that is a different beast. You could even include "Bruiser" in that list.

Firstly although there are 5 "names" here and one I hadn't come across before none of them have set the world on fire. When you look at the list of people who came out of those three shows you have Oscars and Baftas falling out out of the sack. Plus one of the funniest men to ever grace our screens, yes I am looking at you Mark Heap!

So here we have Nick Frost, the second luckiest man in Showbusiness (take a bow Paddy McGuiness) who owes virtually everything he has to one vastly more talented friend (take a bow Paddy McGuiness). Amanda Abingdon ditto the above but make that luckiest woman. Then there was the guy who was in Game of Thrones as a bit part and also in Strike as a bit part. Then there is Daisy Haggard who had a bit part in the wonderful Episodes. So, you get the point, none of them have the talent or more importantly "charisma" to hold your attention.

Then the writers are quite.... errrm..... average? I mean it's not that the ideas couldn't have worked. It just wasn't tightened up enough and the cast didn't have the quality to pull it off. Take Smack the Pony, some of the ideas were very similar to these ideas (but 6 years earlier), silly men vs. Sillier women, people vs. Life kind of thing. But the hit to miss ratio was 10 to 1 in Smack the pony where two sketches per show might have been a bit weak or Big Train where one or two sketches fell flat ....... across the whole series.

So.... The cast added to the writing just don't hit the mark at any point. There is not one solid guffaw, not one belly laugh in the whole thing. Yes there are a few chuckles and yes there are a few points where you think "That's a good idea" but there aren't enough and they aren't enough to make you really smile.

Repetition. Ok it can really work. The Fast Show showed what can be done. But they did it with an utterly stellar cast. Paul Whitehouse? C'mon. The comedian's comedian Mr. Versatile. Need a teenager? Call on Paul. Need an 80 year old alcoholic? Call on Paul. Bruiser showed what you can achieve with weaker writing but a talented cast who can hold their own. Colman, Freeman Mitchell and Webb made the absolute most of what they had to work with. I think if there had been a series 2 of Bruiser it would have rocked the world. Then Big Train. Brilliant writing / Brilliant cast.

Not one performance in MSW leaves you thinking, ooh they're good. The women are painfully unfunny. Fiona, Doon, Sally and Sarah are funny in Smack the Pony. Not only are they funny thay have the confidence to know they are funny and the ability to pull it off. Amanda, Daisy and the other one are just not funny.

Why have I written all this. To show that this isn't a dumb 3 out of 10 thrown out by a bored housewife in Montana who fell across this somehow. The same woman who would give Big Train a 3 out of 10 because she just doesn't get "humor". This show is a 3 out of 10 because it fails at just about everything you could ask of a sketch show. The only surprise here is that they got a second series.

Do yourself a "favour" and watch Big Train and see how it should be done. Be warned if you laughed, even once, at Man Stroke Woman you won't stand a chance of surviving.

The main blame is with the writer's. None of it is that funny. And when you have that to surmount you have to be more talented than this group to pull it off. I saw it to the end and no, it didn't get better.

More Hit Than Miss

[bs3dc · 16 February 2007]

"Man Stroke Woman" is one of the better adult comedies produced for BBC3 - and indeed the BBC in general (just look at "After You've Gone") in recent years and was deservedly repeated on BBC2. The acting talent on screen is great - and better than the material in my opinion. The cast deserve to get onto more mainstream content, which at the moment is pretty poor since it appears to have run out of ideas. In particular the mainstream seems to rely on the same tired comedy actors they have for years instead of giving new talent a chance. Hopefully BBC3 and "Man Stroke Woman" proves to be a good platform for rising stars.

Like any sketch show, some of the sketches are repetitive and don't work for some people, but at least they don't make the mistake of allowing them to run on too long which can really try the patience of the viewer. Also the writers don't rely on swearing (though there is plenty) and bodily functions for about 90% of the gags like "Tittybangbang" which inexplicably managed to get a DVD release and a second series despite the jokes wearing thin after a couple of episodes and very few fresh sketches seemed to be introduced in the latest run. In comparison, the characters in this show are new and although some don't really work, the others manage to make up for it on the whole. My favourites at the moment are probably the irresponsible uncle who takes his 12 year nephew to pubs, strip-clubs, and blind dates and also the woman who predicts terrible futures for children based on how they act at the playground - to the horror of their parents.

The new series of "Man Stroke Woman" seems to have run out of steam a little bit after the last few episodes were really good. It is inconsistent like the recent series of "Mitchell and Webb" which had some really funny episodes and some in which I barely laughed. I wonder if the footage is purposefully edited in this way to create at least some great episodes instead of six lukewarm ones.

It definitely won't be to everyones' taste and everybody will have particular sketches that they like and dislike, the range of humour is quite broad. Hopefully it may be re-commissioned as it is actually funny compared to the many pretenders out there currently that are just weird or trying to be too clever for their own good and forgetting to put any humour in.

Tries too hard

[ineffectualpoet · 3/10 · 11 February 2007]

This comedy has potential and undoubtedly follows in the vein of "embarrassing situation comedies" dominating our screens nowadays, i.e., the office, curb your enthusiasm, extras; you catch my drift. Seeing as i'm a fan of all of these brilliant comedies you'd think I'd like this sketch show. But unfortunately, there is a fine line between imitating a popular style and using it, stretching it out so far that it becomes tedious and predictable. In short, this sketch show falls among the latter. There are some strong and pleasing sketches but the rest are clichéd. The "comedy" evolves from the actors after a few sketches, however after a while even their performances become tedious and predictable. The only plus side to their performance is their dominance over the script that fails to evoke any comedy. We tend to overlook the writing and focus on them. If anything, their performances save the poor scripts and without them I wouldn't have glanced at this show. If you pull out the actors and focus on the script, it is mediocre and poor. However, thinking back, I may sound self-contradictory because there was one highlight. One that stood out for me, was when Nick Frost woke up from a one night stand, trudges silently downstairs and comes across a picture of him and the lady he slept with, married, including another with a child. Eventually, he realises, it is another liaison with his wife. That, i found funny. But the rest slightly poor. However, i did have some expectations for the second series yet unfortunately, the second series failed to meet these expectations. It is rather inconceivable to know that the show's producer & writer is none other than Ash Atalla, the producer of The Office. Nick Frost & Amanda Abbington are great actors, and frankly they are the only great thing in this show.

One of the top UK comedies from 2005

[Shepja87 · 30 November 2005]

What makes Man Stroke Woman stand out from other sketch shows is.................it has lasting appeal. It has elements of a wacky Monty python style, but a realism to it. The fact is has no canned laughter makes it better than other sketch shows such as Little Britain. Like pretty much all sketch shows though, it does have some repetitive jokes, but there are a number of twists and unexpected wordings, that it keep the humour to it. Only thing that is repeated is a Punch-line.

Example of which is the couple where the woman is wearing something quite strange, like a scarf which is part floating in the air, a handbag which foams, and a lingerie outfit that has body hair on it. Each time seems more strange, but the husbands reaction keeps the laughs, whereas the same punchline 'You can never say i look nice can you?' kind of dampens it.

Desite the presence of some bland traditional sketch show traits, it can still pack in more laughs than others.

8/10

BBC 3 comedy at its best

[stewrat · 27 December 2005]

This is what the new age of British digital television is about, giving new writers, comedians and shows opportunity that they might not have had before on terrestrial television. Man Stroke Woman was never going to make everyone laugh and was not going to be funny 100% of the time otherwise it would have debuted on the main channels. If this were a BBC1 or even BBC2 show it might well not have survived the first episode but on BBC3 we've been given the chance to see the series as a whole and see what parts have worked and those that should not return. I expect to see more experiments with shows like this over the coming years and hopefully Man Stroke Woman will be a future example of how it works.

The creative team have managed to tackle traditional humour along with the surreal and yes, childlike jokery that appeals to the audiences of today in a half hour slot and they've assembled a capable comedy-acting team to carry that off. As a modern sketch show there's thankfully little in the way of 'over-the-top' characterisation that saturated our screens in The Fast Show and Little Britain, and more of the 'everyman' characters and situations that would turn up in likes of Big Train.

Jokes are repeated through individual episodes and throughout the series, occasionally getting tiresome but it's worth it for the gems that arise. My personal highlights have been the couple shopping for flowers, cakes etc for their wedding and getting financially screwed every time the proprietors discover that it's a wedding, as well as the man who doesn't seem to know about fishing, pregnancy or even what an aeroplane is and his reaction to it all for the first time.

Hopefully a second series will head our way soon.

Man Stroke Woman

[TheDarkKnight12 · 1 December 2005]

This show relies on it's cast, with Nick Burns from Nathan Barley and Nick Frost from Spaced/Shaun of the Dead we anticipate a programme that's much funnier than it actually is. Undeniably there are some good sketches, e.g. the Where's Josh? sketch but others are just poor - the shag marry kill sketch is boring, the problem is that they have two or three of the same sketch per episode and when it's boring it stays boring. This comedy is average, i can't believe there weren't better scripts or ideas to create but once again we see typecasting and reputations which boost sales, or viewing figures. Not a complete waste of time, but definitely not laugh out loud in may places and a quite frank disappointment. I though that the title meant it had some male humour and female humour throughout but when i watched it with some females friends they only laughed at the bits I did meaning i've either got butch friends or they genuinely don't find the humour aimed at them funny. I'd give this 5/10, I'm not surprised Nick Frost jumped on the bandwagon since he started out as Simon Peggs flatmate and to get ahead he's clutching at straws. The money spent on producing this could have been put to better comedies incorporating new talent instead of this semi- funny waste of space.

utter crap

[demondrink · 14 March 2006]

This is just the latest in a long line of programmes that have started off life on BBC3 and then been promoted to BBC2. The idea is that non-digital viewers will be so entranced by what they see that they'll go out and upgrade to digital so that they can get all these wee gems as soon as they come out. It's a good tactic, undermined by a small flaw: most of the programmes are rubbish. This one is no exception. It's all over the place. No cohesion, no central binding attitude that stands it out: it's hard to avoid the feeling that every idea put forward during the initial production meeting was included in the final script, however risible it might have been. It's not as bad as Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps (which is actually so bad it has made the reverse jump back to BBC3), but only in the sense that Mussolini was not as bad as Hitler. If this is the standard fare, I'm going to stop watching television as soon as the analogue signal is switched off. Getting more crap for your licence fee is not a reason for upgrading.

Not utter crap but could've been so much funnier

[lexo1770 · 20 March 2006]

Man Stroke Woman is a sketch show, and as such suffers from the problem of all sketch shows: if you don't have an episode-length story every week in which to let the audience get to know the characters, then the jokes had better be pretty damn thermonuclear. In this case, they aren't, and an excellent cast can't make them better than they are. Example: a dinner party sketch, in which a character (Meredith McNeill) tries to top someone else's story of something-funny-that-happened by her own pathetic retelling of something else not very funny that happened on a quite different occasion, doesn't work because it fizzles out on screen exactly as it would have fizzled out for real. If the writers had taken the other characters' reaction and amplified it beyond the bounds of probability, it could have been truly hilarious. If, for example, they'd all turned on her and actually kicked the crap out of her because her story was so rubbish, now that would have been funny. Potentially very offensive, sure, but very funny. But nobody will listen to me because I'm just some guy on an internet site. Maybe I can interest you in my autobiographical novel.

Time and again, sketches stop just when potential comic momentum is starting to build up. Surely we've had enough sketch shows. Bring back the sitcom.

The worst sketch show I've ever seen

[richie_patrese · 13 March 2006]

Just caught the repeat today and I can't believe this was ever broadcast, let alone enjoying a repeat showing. There was not one laugh in the entire show, and the whole thing felt like the writers were trying too hard to guess what "wacky" situations the "kids" would find hilarious, while all the time trying to make up for the fact that they have no talent as comic writers.

Poor Nick Frost - he may reckon this is his personal Big Train, but it's not even as good as Simon Pegg's ultra-turkey Hippies. Hyperdrive was very poor too. The sooner he returns to his position as Simon Pegg's lapdog, the better for him.