Channel 4 owes my housemates an apology. More than once have they been disturbed by a terrifying and prolonged cackling coming from my room. This is usually followed by a form of coughing fit trailing off into intermittent snorts and bursts of laughter. Then: repeat.
This is really just an extended way of saying: “Anna & Katy on Channel 4 is totally lols”. Because it is. Katy Wix and Anna Crilly have created something very unique and special here: a sketch show which is prevailingly more Hit than Miss. Nine times out of ten, you will watch one episode of a sketch show, find it funny, tune in next week only to realise that you’re effectively watching the same show over and over again. That catch-phrase you found kind of funny last time, well this time watch the character say it again, only this time in a supermarket! Then: repeat. Endlessly. With slightly different locations.
Yet the recurring characters and sketches in Anna & Katy somehow neatly sidestep this trap; each episode they are reinvented and wildly different. The weakest sketches are those which come up repeatedly, but this is similar to saying: “The least burn-y bit of fire is the top of it”. Even the “worst” bits of the show are still laugh-out-loud funny.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not about razor-sharp wit and smugly inventive wordplay. It’s sheer calculated stupidity. And it’s fantastic. One of the best sketches is the Apprentice-style team at Ignition Car Wash Solutions who have failed to wash a single car in 6 months because of their preoccupation with Team-Building measures (“What I’m giving you here is a big cardboard ‘I’, and you’ll see I’ve written the word ‘TEAM’ on the board. Now I want you to try and fit that ‘I’ into ‘TEAM’. Go on have a really good go at it.”), but few are so straightforward. Their ludicrous game shows (worryingly close to some of the ideas ITV have pumped out recently) hosted by Eamonn Holmes , such as ‘The Door’, where contestants need to walk through a door, and ‘Pointer’ where contestants need to point at each other, are funny enough in their concepts, but it’s once you have Wix and Crilly appearing as unhinged and bizarre contestants that the show really becomes something superior.
The marvellous absurdity of it provides some well-needed relief from heavy-going, cerebral satire, yet also goes to show just how clever these two women are. They’re clearly very talented, but exactly what it is that makes the pair so stomach-achingly funny is a mystery. They made those Harvey’s furniture ads last year funny for Christ’s sake. How on earth do they do it?
There is no way to do justice to just how good this show is. It’s not out to be controversial, rebellious and subversive but in comparison to all the comedy that labels itself as such, Anna & Katy is actually all of these things. It’s two very funny women, doing very funny things and being very funny in the process. What more could you ask for?
Anna & Katy is available on 4OD
words: Jennie Pritchard