Review by Jay Richardson

With the One Man… format seemingly set to endure, the shift from Shakespeare to epic blockbusters like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, and now a cult US television series, is an intriguing one.

No one's doubting the niche but substantial audience for a Breaking Bad send-up. But a characteristic of the best contemporary American drama is that it's often funny in its own right, making it a much tougher pastiche than George Lucas's humourless space opera.

Obviously a great deal of Breaking Bad's success came from the casting of Bryan Cranston in the lead role, the endearingly pathetic dad from Malcolm In the Middle transformed from mild-mannered chemistry teacher and family man into drug kingpin with incrementally deranged, gripping brilliance.

So it's telling that Miles Allen's condensation of the show's 62 episodes into 60 minutes shifts the emphasis more on to the straighter character of Walter White's partner-in-crime, Jesse Pinkman, who (in Allen's impression) provides the pre-recorded narration around which he acts all the other characters. Although ironically sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman, is, ironically, criminally under-represented – somewhat frustrating given his ongoing role in plot progression and in providing comic relief,

Of course, Allen needs to do a substantial amount of paring back and stripping down of the narrative and focuses on the impressions he's strongest on – Walter White Jr is the first he offers, the importance of getting the audience onside with the derision of a cerebral palsy sufferer crucial. Wisely, he makes the audience appreciate the risk he's undertaking here and focuses his mockery on the teenager's obsession with breakfast cereal and lame-ass fundraising website for his dad's cancer.

Also, in fairness, not only is Jesse the emotional core of Breaking Bad, and, for significant portions, the audience's surrogate for witnessing Walt's descent into evil. But Allen has absolutely nailed Aaron Paul's vocal inflections, deriving great mileage from applying his 'bitch' catchphrase to anything and everything, Elmo from Sesame Street or Gollum from Lord of the Rings for example.

Indeed, a dubious quality of this show is that Allen so often looks beyond Breaking Bad to showcase better impressions, gratuitously relating it to Pulp Fiction, Harry Potter and Family Guy. Admittedly though, his suggested recasting of Bill Cosby as Walter White is a hoot.

He jams virtually all of the necessary details into the hour and gets his biggest laughs when he brutally shifts the show's subtexts front and centre, attributing drug enforcement officer Hank's rage to his wife Marie's obsession with the colour purple, a quirky detail of the TV show blown up into cartoonish significance. The charred, enigmatic teddy bear in the swimming pool even gets his own song too.

Los Angeles-based Allen has obviously tweaked the script to include a significant number of Scottish references, a contrivance that feels more like pandering than respecting the audience. Still, that's a minor bitch for a fond tribute that will tickle fans and further mystify non-acolytes as to what all the fuss is about.

Review date: 20 Aug 2014
Reviewed by: Jay Richardson