As an aside to watching and reviewing the movie credits of Edgar Wright, I've decided to see what I can find from his TV career starting with "Mash and Peas" a very early pre-cursor to "Little Britain" that appeared on the now rebranded Paramount Comedy channel. The first episode, as credited on IMDB anyway is called "Sex TV" and is a parody of the late-night sex documentaries that were popular on channel 4 in the early 1990's.
A nudging/winking host (Simon Greenall) introduces us to a series of interviews with couples all played by David Walliams and Matt Lucas. They include a male gay couple, who eschew the stereotypes by being very "laddish". A Scottish Lesbian couple, one of whom won't go a minute without telling everyone she's a lesbian and an aging couple, the woman of whom is obsessed with veteran actor Paul Nichols. In the second half, Mash and Peas appear to perform comedy alongside the host before a call-in section that goes awry.
Like a lot of Walliams and Lucas' comedy, time hasn't been particularly kind to some aspects of show. Admittedly it's not 'punching down' as much as it was with "Little Britain" but the Lesbian couple in particular feels like a tired gag. There were other moments across the episode that sporadically made me laugh though and the argument that Walliams and Lucas are good comedy performers has never been in doubt. Greenall repeatedly finds his was to take the euphemisms to the point of absurdity and during the second half had some good moments.
I have to admit that I was watching a Youtube version of the episode, rather crudely taken from what looks like a videotape recording, so there's little to really judge Edgar Wrights work on, there isn't much capacity for any of the stylistic choices that we'd come to see as his signature style in the future.