The Olympic Opening Ceremony in all its farmyard-y glory will be beamed across the world tomorrow night. It’s a very exciting time, tempered only by the fact that the long-awaited arrival of the Games also spells the end for exceptional BBC mockumentary Twenty Twelve.
Tuesday’s finale saw Ian Fletcher and his Deliverance Committee handing over the Games to the Live Team, their job done. In fact, this last episode fell a little flat, failing to top the hilarious mishaps of the previous two weeks, which included Ian getting shot by a tampered-with starting pistol, Perfect Curve’s rubbish new campaign to get people excited about women’s football and the disastrous oak tree planting stunt.
Ian Fletcher and the Deliverance Committee
Despite this there were still some very funny moments, especially surrounding The Big Bong plans and Perfect Curve’s lame attempts to acquire Sting to front it, but ending up with Aled Jones. The ending of the ‘will they, won’t they?’ storyline between Ian and PA Sally was immensely frustrating (loud yells of ‘what did he SAY?!’ echoed round our house) but memorable…and does this mean they are leaving the door open to show what happens next with the pair? I hope so!
In fact, personally I don’t think the Olympics need herald the end for this intelligent comedy. If I was the BBC (I’m not but I ought to be) I would already be planning a third series showing the outcome of the Games and the Deliverance Committee’s work, featuring all kinds of hilarious cock-ups with Ian, Siobhan Sharpe and co being hauled back to sort things out. Things like the wrong Korean flag being shown during the women’s football match causing the team to walk off in disgust. Oh wait, that was real…
There’s definitely a lot of mileage left in these brilliant characters. As well as the Games and the aftermath, we could see a lot more of Ian and Sally- a one-off special to show their trip to Umbria would be great, mostly just to see if she can last the length of time it takes to eat a tiramisu without saying ‘not a problem’.
Alternatively they could easily do a spin-off about life in the Perfect Curve offices headed by (the scarily accurate PR) Siobhan Sharpe. A firm like Perfect Curve would be involved in all sorts of interesting (and potentially funny) events and campaigns, providing storylines galore.
Of course any follow up series, or spin-off would have to be voiced by the fantastic David Tennant, who has provided the voiceover for all of Twenty Twelve so far. His perfect dead-pan delivery of a fabulously tongue in cheek script makes for a lot of laughs, if you listen carefully. You could be forgiven for at first thinking it’s a genuine documentary until you hear Tennant’s dulcet tones saying things like ‘rock legend, Aled Jones’ and ‘Mr X- a prolific composer in his own head,’ and you realise it’s not serious.
I’m responding to the sad end of Twenty Twelve by buying the boxset and reliving the magic right from episode one as a comedic accompaniment to the Games themselves. If you want to catch up, take a look at BBC iPlayer.
