Back: is new Mitchell and Webb comedy another Peep Show?

The comic duo team up again in Channel 4
sitcom about sibling rivalry

Preview

Mitchell plays Stephen, who has just inherited his late father’s
pub when his estranged foster brother, Andrew (Webb), makes a
sudden appearance. The charismatic Andrew claims he just wants to
reconnect with the only family he’s ever known – but Stephen
suspects ulterior motives.

The trailer shows Andrew surprising Stephen at his father’s
funeral by announcing that he is his long lost-brother. Later,
Stephen, who is divorced and edging towards a midlife crisis,
accuses Andrew of trying to steal his life.

Although the show sounds “like it has the makings of a mystery
thriller”, says Oliver Wheaton in Metro, the pairing of writer Blackwell with
Mitchell and Webb “guarantees hilarity will be found in the most
uncomfortable social situations”. The comedy duo “specialise
in creating underdog characters who audiences simultaneously
dislike but can’t help rooting for”.

Mitchell and Webb’s portrayal of squabbling roommates in Peep
Show was a “study in dysfunction”, says Vicki Power in the
Daily Express, and their personas in Back
“are not a million miles from Peep Show’s Mark and Jez”. Mitchell
is again “the hapless nerd”, and Webb “a charming, but deluded,
character”.

The actors have said they are expecting the inevitable
comparisons, but insist Stephen and Andrew are “new
characters”.

That hasn’t stopped the critics. 

John Dugdale in The Times says Back “only works as a
sitcom when subjecting Mitchell’s sweary blunderer to a string of
humiliations; and that, tellingly, is when it most closely
resembles Peep Show, rather than creating a viable comic world of
its own”.

The flashback to the 1980s are entertaining, Dugdale adds, but
present-day scenes are “flat”, and the conceit seems to have more
obvious potential for drama than comedy.

Back starts on Wednesday 6 September at 10pm on Channel
4