Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping
That Mitchell and Webb Look probably isn’t the first thing that arises when it comes to 2000s media aching for a reboot. But the series did spawn several sketches that live on in modern memedom, namely “Are we the baddies?” and David Mitchell’s relentless “football, football, football” mantra. Now, 15 years after it ended, Mitchell and long-time collaborator Robert Webb are back with a new sketch comedy, Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping.
This time around, the duo is joined by a supremely talented supporting cast, including Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Lara Ricote and Krystal Evans. The first episode opens with a fantastic historical rumination that appears to have come straight from the mind of Mark Corrigan. Set in a stately home in the 1700s, Mitchell eagerly tells his unenthused peers that they no longer need to use chamber pots as he’s created an entire room dedicated to relieving oneself. It’s the sort of idiosyncratic sketch that made the original series great.
With their news series, Mitchell and Webb prove that they’re in sync with the zeitgeist. In a particularly timely sketch, Smith-Bynoe and Webb play gangsters burying Mitchell alive. The former voices his reservations about murdering another human being, to which Webb replies, “Do you have a phone?” Anyone who owns a phone, Webb says, cannot have a moral compass because parts for our devices are mined by the exploited poor of the global south. It’s a risible critique of thought-terminating clichés in an age in which they are seemingly ubiquitous.
Recurring is “Sweary Aussie Drama,” in which the actors show off their purposely terrible Australian drawls amid increasingly foul language. Newcomer Ricote is a delight here, and despite being American, ends up landing the best accent. However, amusing as the sketch is initially, it begins to wear thin, ultimately feeling like an excuse to drop c-bombs.
Likewise, the sketches are intercut with fourth wall-breaking scenes from the writers’ room, the inclusion of which doesn’t quite land. It’s self-aware to a fault, with the younger actors pointing out that Webb is ageing and bald, pre-emptively addressing any qualms audiences may have about a middle-aged Mitchell and Webb comeback.
But such reservations are largely unfounded, as the pair proves that their shtick does translate to the TikTok age of pithy, rapid-fire comedy. Thoroughly good fun, Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping is comfort TV with big laughs and meme-worthy sketches.
Antonia Georgiou
Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping is released on Channel 4 on 5th September 2025.
Watch the trailer for Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping here:
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