And so the BBC saves the best until last. This second series for Brian Pern is shaping up to be one of the undisputed TV comedy highlights of 2014.
The second episode in this all-too-brief trilogy follow ing last week's jukebox musical hilarity finds Brian (Simon Day) tackling the rock opera. Back in 1977 he came up with a musical based on the Day of the Triffids and now, to mark the project’s birthday he wants to perform it on Mount Kilamanjaro (sic) to highlight the plight of moths, who, he believes, are being threatened with extinction by, ahem, wi-fi.
As ever, Pern’s uber-shifty manager John Farrow (brilliantly inhabited by Michael Kitchen) has a number of alternative offers up his sleeve. Who Do You Think You Are? is interested in featuring the ageing prog rocker because it has emerged that he is related to “the bloke who invented the top hat”.
But it is the Triffids project – one that caused his band Thotch to split all those years ago – that Pern wants to focus on. So much so that he ditches a proposed Greatest Hits tour to do a warm-up at Wembley Arena. And no expense is spared. Roger Moore of Wild Geese fame is even wheeled in to do the narration: ““those wretched carnivorous Triffids…”
Of course this is the kind of plot whose bullet points write themselves, though any similarity to Jeff Wayne’s bombastic War of the Worlds project is surely purely accidental. There is also what feels like a nod in Morrissey's direction as Pern discusses sponsorship deals and rejects any meat products and certain sweets: “I don’t want to get into bed with Haribo”.
Yet despite the script feeling a tad join-the-dots in places it is so brilliantly delivered it is hilarious. I can’t believe everyone was able to perform with straight faces. Things inevitably start to take on pear-shaped proportions – following a comic misunderstanding Pern goes on The Wright Stuff (cue spot-on Dapper Laughs send-up) and The One Show to plug his gig, only to make matters worse. At the actual Wembley gig there is a moment that is so Spinal Tap one almost expects Pern to bump into Nigel Tufnel in the corridor, but any comparisons vanish when Day/Pern takes the familiar lost-backstage scenario to new levels.
There is no Martin Freeman or Jack Whitehall this week but there are still plenty of cameos from the world of both comedy and music. Needless to say Kevin Eldon steals the scene he appears in and it was lovely to see Al Murray pitching up unannounced on the drums.
Watch Episode 2 on iPlayer here.
