Radio 4 comedy review by Steve Bennett

When you learn that a new Radio 4 comedy was commissioned from a new writer while he was still on a work experience placement, the suggestion is that a new wunderkind might have been discovered.

In fact, Expenses Only is fairly traditional and unexceptional – it even starts with a David Attenborough impersonation narrating a workplace as if a wildlife documentary – and could have been created by any number of mid-level Edinburgh sketch groups.

The fact it wasn’t, though, suggests that what creators Alex Lynch (the one on work experience) and Charlotte Michael have successfully done is identified a very topical gap in the market. The narrative linking everything together concerns the world of unpaid internships, which is an inescapable reality for a generation trying to get a foothold in a decent career. And such an on-point show which speaks to a younger demographic would surely have appealed to Radio 4 execs.

But the script doesn’t exactly sparkle with youthful vigour. When Miranda (played by Lucy Beaumont) teases Tim (Rasmus Hardiker) that his placement basically involved making tea for Coca-Cola executives. The joke is no, actually, they were from Pepsi. That’s the level.

A few presentational flourishes aside, it all feels very familiar. There are gags about restraining orders, while characterisations  go no further than having someone say ‘totes’ and ‘babes’. The entire premise of the main story is that Mirada gives Tim a deliberately bum steer on a vacancy they are both going for and he doesn’t realise. 

Just 15 minutes long, the show features a lot of ironic detachment from its own jokes. ‘Who wrote this?’ the exasperated presenter sighs at one point after reading a shoddy line. Another odd comment is dismissed with a sarcastic: ‘I’m so quirky’ and the gag about a candidate leaving an interview and accidentally walking into the broom cupboard is wheeled out, we are told, because ‘that joke never gets old’. Doing crap jokes then acknowledging they’re crap seems like a cop-out from people who know a lot about comedy but little about making people laugh.

Lynch and Michael are new comic writers, and everyone’s got to start somewhere (Stewart Lee and Richard Herring wrote on Week Ending, for instance), but Expenses Only feels like it’s their own work experience project, with the good stuff still a long way down the line.

Review date: 13 Jul 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett