Is there still a place for Dom Joly in 2017? After returning with a first All4 series of Trigger Happy TV he is now back with a second series and I'm not so sure.
Part of the problem is not his fault, it's just bad timing. Having recently seen ballsy prankster Simon Brodkin blag his way into the front row of the Tory Party Conference seeing Joly pretending to be an Uber driver on a motorised lawnmower hardly feels like the height of subversion.
And then at the other end of the current stunt scene you've got Impractical Jokers pulling off their playful occasional gross-out tricks with the public and each other on Comedy Central. Even the title is dated. Trigger now makes me think of Trigger Warning, not people dressed in animal costumes brawling in the street.
Joly doesn't try to reinvent the wheel here. He's even still got the same Elastica theme tune and does pretty much what he used to do – dancing in the park dressed as a penguin, etc – but without the shock-of-the-new value. Oh, and also without his giant phone - at the start of episode one he explains that he has gone off-grid.
So instead you get him playing a real-life troll verbally hashtagging a man who just wants to sit quietly under a tree. Or pretending not to understand an ice cream van man, mock-confusing "ice cream" for "I scream".
The best skit sees him doing his shouty "cycle lane" routine someone in France. It's boorish and oafish but still funny when he brakes to chastise a man for taking a photo as he goes past. At one point though you can't help hoping that the gendarmes who stop him are going to lock him up and put an end to this nonsense. After Brodkin this all feels a bit tame.
Nice to hear Elastica again though.
