Telly Talk: …Spoiling us
The thing about getting older is that the friends you had when you were younger and doing stupid things accumulate years too and can end up in some rather responsible jobs. I know. Who’d’ve thought it? Anyway, it’s due to this passing of time and not to any latter day networking that I’ve ended up knowing a couple of people in my time in the diplomatic corps. So it was with their stories echoing in the back of my head that I settled down to watch the latest Mitchell and Webb endeavour that is the comedy drama Ambassadors.
The premise is quite straightforward: David Mitchell is the rather green and reasonably freshly arrived British ambassador to the fictional Central Asian Republic of Tazbekistan. Robert Webb is his already deeply entrenched in the landscape number two. Right, I thought. Just like in Yes, Minister. No, not like Yes, Minister. Although Ambassadors is filled with very funny bits it’s also an opportunity for the comedy duo to flex their dramatic acting muscles as it does tackle some actual serious international balancing acts.
Drawing from such influences as diverse as Drop The Dead Donkey, Nancy Mitford and The Muppets – as far as I can see – Ambassadors lampoons militant human rights actioneers with the same breath that it condones deliberately blind international arms dealings. This is an office trying to work together as much as any other, whilst at the same time fast in the knowledge that their every action is being watched by prying eyes and could well be representing Britain on an international stage. No pressure then.
As much as it looks at the larger picture, this is a small country, a distant outposting, and not too many bods to get a lot of work done. Culture clashes abound, some ringing as soundly as a cymbal marking the end of any symphony. But that’s only on the inside of this fictional world. On the outside this has all the production values you’d expect to find from a three-part BBC special, including location shoots, multiple locations and a talented ensemble cast.
There are many layers and opinions to be found within Ambassadors, carefully shaking you into thinking rather than simply thinking the one thing one writer or producer would like to be the ‘message’ of the piece. The only ‘message’ of this piece in the job of the diplomatic service is hard and not as glamorous as we’d like to think. My favourite detail of the piece are the two Tazbeki men, completely disconnected from the rest of the action, listening in on the bugged exchanges of the embassy like a subtitled Statler and Waldorf. Very funny asides as they spill their crisps and scratch themselves.
“…listening in on the bugged exchanges of the embassy like a subtitled Statler and Waldorf”
There are lots of surprising and enjoyable details to be found here, not least of which is that Robert Webb is actually rather good at acting. I always got the impression that Mitchell and Webb were pretty much playing versions of themselves in Peep Show, an idea not dissipated by the persona David Mitchell inhabits on all of the panel shows. Whereas Mitchell’s ambassador is not that big a jump from that, it’s quite a relief to see Robert Webb play someone who’s got more going on upstairs than the musings of the ineffectual Jezza.
It’s a shame there are only going to be three episodes of Ambassadors. It has pulled off that elusive trick of not simply filling the first episode with cumbersome exposition, and with intelligent questions being asked, although this isn’t exactly how I imagine my diplomatic drinking pals fill their days, I can see it tickling them beyond belief. Well done the BBC.
Ambassadors, BBC2, Wednesday 23 October 2013
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