Review of Celeste Dring and Freya Parker's new BBC Three sketch show

Celeste Dring and Freya Parker are phenomenal in their ability to create believable comedy characters, rich in subtle detail and traits.

Commercially, that’s not always the best policy as Britain’s most favoured comedy creations are brash and grotesque, from Basil Fawlty to Vicky Pollard, Loadsamoney to Mrs Brown. But their talents mean Lazy Susan’s sketches are convincing and absorbing, making it all the more impactful when they spin out into absurdity.

That’s evident from the very first scene, in which two tedious middle-class women bore on about their mortgages, before the reality dissolves into psychedelically surreal imagery. An even more dramatic pivot occurs later, when mildly jokey dinner party chit-chat takes a dark turn into grisly horror movie territory.

The unofficial third member of this comedy act is director Molly Manners, who has a similar deadpan, detailed eye for the look of the scenes as the stars have for writing and  performing them. The listless California singer-songwriter singing dreamily about being the ‘sleepiest girl’ is an astute parody, but the soft-focus music video elevates the possibility this could be a real chart-topper.

Of the characters evoked by the Edinburgh Comedy Award nominees, Megan and Michaela probably have the best breakout potential. They are a devastatingly precise parody of the worst, most self-absorbed traits of Gen Y, always insisting they ‘don’t want drama’ but get triggered into apoplexy by any perceived passive-aggressive slight, which they build up into a monstrous slur. ‘Bitch’ and ‘fake’ are the only two options for personality in their world, we learn. Genuine internet haters are pilloried in a separate sketch, with the comics on a hotline just desperate to hear what misogynistic bile the keyboard warriors want to share.

Meanwhile Dring and Freya Parker’s perky breakfast DJs might – we can only hope – do for the vapid commercial radio banter-monkeys what Smashy And Nicey did to their old-school Radio One predecessors.

Most sketches stick around long enough to establish a scene, though there’s also a great one-gag quickie in the first 15-minute episode featuring James Acaster, again reacting to some silly absurdity to an apparently serious situation. He’s just one comedy cameo among many, with Lou Sanders, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Jason Forbes, Catherine Bohart, John Kearns, Evelyn Mok, Luke McQueen, Sunil Patel and many others appearing across the series.

Not that Lazy Susan need to wheel in the big guns, as they’ve more than enough comedy firepower of their own. This brief four-part run will surely only be the start of greater things.

• Lazy Susan is on BBC Three at 10.15pm tonight, as it relaunches as a broadcast channel

Review date: 1 Feb 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett