Glitchy

Note: This review is from 2015

Preview of ITV2's new hidden camera/sketch hybrid

TV loves a hidden camera show, but ITV2's latest offering, Glitchy, promises something different, combining the stunts with parodies of familiar programmes more akin to a sketch show.

Mezmo, the Dynamo/David Blaine style street magician is by far the best example of this. A former criminal who never left his old ways behind, he produces shock in his victims, incredulous at his audacity, not to mention fear for their possessions. It's nicely done.

But in other skits, such as the property show The Rentalists, the unwitting participants are just left to stand by in idle embarrassment as the joke happens around them. In this case the presenters are a couple who have a passive-aggressive row in front of the house hunters before heading upstairs for noisy make-up sex. The comedy is pretty basic, a common complaint in Glitchy

The show is a vehicle for Ryan Sampson, Grumio from ITV2's big hit Plebs, who plays things very broad. Are You Good Enough To Date My Daughter seems almost entirely based on a bad drag act as Sampson becomes an appalling oligarch's wife. Although the skit, chopped into several instalments, ends appealingly on a unexpected and extravagantly weird note, the long-set up is none-too subtle.

Too often the joke is obvious, for example the over-hyped fly-on-the-wall programme looking at the goings-on in a Halifax phone booth. A spoof home shopping channel selling a corrosive facial cream entirely predictable when such networks have been relentlessly mocked ever since they've been on air. Likewise the nonsense-spouting business twats on an Apprentice-style show seem a very obvious parody.

With a plethora of short clips that seem designed for social media sharing, Glitchy is all perfectly, absolutely fine filler, but little more.

Decently performed by Sampson and with a strong supporting cast including Ellie White, Gabby Best, and Colin Hoult, Glitchy's writing is the embodiment of average; straightforward first ideas developed with little further twists. It feels like a show that's been developed as a producer's idea with jobbing writers bussed in (and tellingly there are no mention of any writers in any of the publicity material), rather than a passion project for anyone.

• Glitchy starts on ITV2 at 10pm tonight.