If, unlike me, you didn’t tune into BBC3 at 10pm tonight, you won’t have witnessed the Corporation add another item to its already very long list of troubles, as it blatantly flouted its promise to ‘inform, educate and entertain’, as it screened Boom Town. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting it to inform or educate – but a bit of entertainment wouldn’t have gone amiss.
RETURN TO KOOKYVILLE
I don’t know if you’re lucky enough to have forgotten Channel 4’s abysmal Kookyville last year. If you have, please forgive this reminder, which may just bring back bad memories: it was yet another ‘constructed reality’ series, except this was created with the specific aim of raising a few laughs. Unfortunately for all involved, the sight of a mother and daughter drooling over the sexual potential of a dwarf and the sound of a pensioner repeatedly dropping the F- and C-bombs into general chit-chat didn’t prove to be particularly amusing, and it never made it past the pilot.
Okay, now that I’ve reminded you, please eradicate Kookyville from your memory – it’s too late for me (it’s etched in there) but you might still be able to save yourself.
Now where was I? Oh yes, well, good old Auntie clearly decided to ignore the horror of Kookyville and create its own TOWIE rip-off (sorry, I of course mean TOWIE-inspired programme) but have the sole aim of making it funny by chucking in some true oddballs, so that we could all laugh at them and their utterances: ‘Look at the nerdy little trainspotter there – isn’t he a total saddo, eh?’ is probably what we would have heard if someone had been dragged in to narrate this car-crash.
‘TRAGEDY’
Boom Town was one of those shows which I only watch until the end so that I can gauge how truly awful it is, and then write about it on this blog. The people included were neither entertaining to watch nor funny – which is surely a major flaw for a show which purports to be a comedy?
The team’s attempts to be humorous were so blatant it bordered on tragedy, like the producers were poking the actors (oops, sorry, ‘real people’) with sticks, urging them to say something bemusing, hoping that it would elicit laughter from the audience. And if Twitter is anything to go by – which I admit it seldom is – that plan didn’t work, as the performers’ bemusing words only led to…well, bemusement, as many people demanded to know what exactly ‘this Boom Town’ was. Then again, there were a few people who thought it was the funniest thing they had seen in ages. These people clearly never watch anything apart from BBC3 then…
Perhaps I’m just not Boom Town’s target audience. But perhaps that’s because I understand that it is a blatant violation of what comedy should be: almost anything but the drivel that BBC3 had the gall to not only squander money on but serve up to us and call entertainment.
If you dare watch it, Boom Town is on Wednesdays at 10:00pm on BBC3
What did you think of Boom Town? Do you agree or disagree with my review? Please comment below or tweet me – @UKTVReviewer.
You can also see my recommendations for the coming week’s TV on this blog, published every Saturday at midnight.
uktvreviewer 
Agree totally. And, Ali G the second was fifteen years too late and neither likeable nor funny.
I just watched this show and I think it is quite possibly the worst thing I have ever seen in my life. I didn’t laugh once or even come close.
Completely agree. I, too, watched it to the end to give a rounded view and I’m kind of sorry I did!
It’s a massive embarrassment to the BBC who do actually show some good stuff sometimes. It’s cheap, uncheerful and stinks of desperation. I don’t find stereotypes or bad acting (to a point where they’re trying so hard or not at all) to be funny in the slightest. I find it an insult to license payers and would like to meet anyone over the age of 18 who find it amusing and explain why!
I could go on and my apologies if I have but I would feel I’d be giving the programme justification somehow!
Thank you for flagging up. I stumbled upon your blog while Googling ‘Boom Town awful.’ Glad to see!
Thanks for your comment – I couldn’t agree more.
I’m not even over 18, and I despise it – so it looks like it doesn’t appeal to many at all. It just made me so angry that the BBC felt they could spend money on this sort of rubbish and get away with it.
I even had tweets last week from Kevin Carlyon, who played the wizard in the show, in which he said how much he agrees with my review and hates the show himself! He claimed that the producers were feeding them lines which they were made to say, even if they didn’t think they were funny.
Just another huge embarrassment for the Beeb.
The only thing that is hilarious is the fact that I too googled ‘boom town awful’ most definitely the worst show I have ever seen. Me and my girlfriend got through 15 minutes of it completely speechless. Words cannot describe how awful a show this is, I never write ‘reviews’ but felt the need to let anybody know how truly pointless and pathetic I find this show.
Same. My wife is asleep and I feel like I just Need to tell someone just how awful that was. It’s actually blown my mind and I’m a big brother fan so my standards aren’t exactly high!
There almost seems to be two divisions when it comes to BBC3 comedy. Sometimes it’s reasonably good (but not great) and sometimes it’s completely awful. This is the latter.
[…] it really wasn’t much different to Strictly. Although Davina was funnier than Brucie. But then Boom Town is funnier than […]
OMG it’s so bad! I’ve actually set about trying to get some context on the tripe I’ve just been subjected to but I’m just creating more questions for myself. Worst show I’ve ever seen. Everyone involved on the production side should give up, go home and never attempt to make a TV show again. It’s actually slightly depressing rather than funny.
Surely there are checks in place to make sure tripe doesn’t make it on to our screens? This show was terrible even by BBC3’s shockingly low standards. It was truly deplorable. It was that bad that to call it bottom of the barrel would be doing a disservice to every barrel ever made. This was the sort of show that makes Two Pints look like The Office. The BBC must surely review there procedures that allows this pertinacious stream of odious trash to make it on to our TV screens. With every new programme I breathe a sigh of relief as I think that it can’t get any worse, and every time they manage to prove me wrong. For me there was literally not one laugh in this entire show, I didn’t even come close to smiling.
this is the worst rubbish I have ever watched.
Well the BBC have failed on a scale so big words cant express the utter sh**e they have came up with.
This show is absolutly terrible, there supposed to be real people…. that itself is probably a joke as its obvious these are the sort of idiots in this new generation of ‘il do anything to get on tv’.
The only lesson / message that anyone can and should take away from this show is for the idiots that walk around small UK towns and London talking like there from the Bronx in the USA, to those people learn a lesson from CREAM you to look just as pathetic as he does with the only difference being that he gets paid to act like a tw*t, whereas you just act like a tw*t. Your not gangsta or cool and your certainly not threataning because you talk like a t*t.