Matt Berry really could keep you hooked by reading the telephone directory. The owner of that distinctive syrupy, lubricious, posh James Mason bellow returns for the second series of Toast of London, in which he plays Steven Toast, a dodgy actor with a dodgy past still looking for that lucky break but making do, somewhat inevitably, with voiceovers. One day that big role may come. Yeah right, and a porker just flew past my window.
The first episode of the second series does not quite make the same splash as the first-ever episode in which a woman had cosmetic surgery and ended up resembling Bruce Forsyth. But there is a Celebrity Actors and Prostitutes Blow Football Match in aid of Homeless Ponies. Toast is determined to beat his deadly rival Ray Purchase (Harry Peacock) and sets out to find the prostitute who is best as blow football, one Wendy Nook (they do love their odd names in ToL, I wonder if they had to resist calling her Wendy Boatcomesin).
The surreal undertow of the first series is slightly played down here in favour of a mix of jolly whimsy, smut and classic sitcom misunderstanding. Toast’s agent Jane Plough (Doon Mackichan) gets the wrong end of the stick when she asks him to audition for the role of Charles Dickens. A subsequent scene set on a double decker could almost be something out of On The Buses.
The co-writer with Berry is Arthur Mathews and there is the faintest echo of Father Ted’s The Annual All-Priests 5-a-side Over 75 Indoor Football Challenge Match in the blow football game. The juxtaposition of pop culture references – Ben Elton, Gary Barlow, bloody Russell Brand – also has a whiff of Big Train about it. But Berry's quietly unhinged performance is excellent, the plot is daft and there are some top quality in-jokes. If they are in-jokes. Was that a David Hockney lookalike in a crowd scene? And I could be entirely wide of the mark but I’m sure the ending is a homage to Clockwork Orange.
And best of all you get to see Steven Toast’s wobbly-chinned, boss-eyed sex face at full throttle. Not once, not twice, but, count 'em, three times. On reflection that is far more disturbingly brilliant than a woman who looks like Bruce Forsyth. Nice woozy theme tune too. Also courtesy of Matt Berry.
Toast of London is on Mondays, C4.
