'Toast of London': Binge on the Silliest Thing on the Small-Screen

I have lots of 'go-to' programmes if I need my spirits lifted. But none lifts them as much as the ridiculous 'Toast of London' does.

For those of you who haven't yet experienced its surreal delights, on the surface of it, the show's premise is simple: Each thirty-minute episode charts a new attempt of Matt Berry's fictional actor, Steven Toast, to make it 'big.'

There are only two problems.

One, Toast is a terrible actor.

Truly, he's awful.

The audience knows this; he doesn't.

Like all great sit-com characters, Toast has limited self-awareness. It rarely occurs to him that his talent doesn't match his (huge) ego, and that he spends his life playing terrible roles in catastrophically-bad projects that someone with a modicum of talent wouldn't find themselves anywhere near.

Such as the occasion he played a detective in a low-budget film which had been written, produced and directed by a megalomaniac foreign businessman who, indignant at having been refused a British visa (a state of affairs for which he misguidedly blames the Royal Family), uses his money to make a film in which the British Royal Family is hounded by Toast's cop who is trying to get them convicted of treason.

The film is gloriously terrible, and Toast's performance is probably the worst thing in it.

However, it's the only kind of gig he can get. Not just because he's an abysmal actor, but also because, as an abysmal actor, he's got an abysmal agent, the wonderfully acerbic Jane Plough, played by the imperious Doon Mackichan.

Plough is not dissimilar to Toast. Although she may hold the whip-hand in their relationship, she's not as smart or capable as she thinks she is. For a start, she's still got Toast on her books; any reputable agent would have let him loose years ago.

However, like him, she's blissfully unaware of her ineptitude, so the two remain together: She finds him the worst acting jobs in London; Toast either fails to land the role, or - when he does - it turns out to be even worse than anyone of us could have ever imagined.

The best of which is a reoccurring gig she forces him into, doing voice-overs at Scramble Studios in trendy Soho. Every episode, Toast is tormented by Danny and Clem Fandango ("Steven, it's Clem Fandango; can you hear me?" "Yes, I can hear you, Clem Fandango"), as he tries - in vain - to dub whatever ridiculous project they've got on the boil.

Highlights include attempting to provide the risque noises for a gay, foreign, pornographic movie, and the recording of the commands to be played over the communications system of a naval submarine.

Matt Berry has a deep, sonorous voice - you could easily imagine him doing Shakespeare. However, as Toast, he deliberately stresses entirely the wrong words, at completely the wrong times: When he says 'Fire the nuclear weapons' it's as terrifying as it is camp and joyously inappropriate.

We, as the audience, pray that neither Jane or Toast never realizes that the other is irredeemably talent-less, so the merry-go-round of dysfunction, and God-awful acting jobs, never ceases.

However, among the chaos, Toast does have the odd moment of insight. Which he - bizarrely - expresses through song.

In addition to being a supremely talented comedian, and writer, Matt Berry is also a fine songwriter, singer, and musician. And, courtesy of Berry's musicianship, once a week, Toast will treat us to a short - often surreal - musical interlude, where he, briefly, shows us that he is capable of introspection. Well, for a time, anyway.

Before we know it, the naval-gazing is over, and Toast is back on the acting treadmill. Or, trying to get it on, anyway.

However, Toast's lack of talent isn't the only thing stopping him from achieving fame and fortune.

The second issue he faces is that, in addition to be being a terrible actor, he's a pretty terrible person.

Regular viewers of British comedy know that Berry's cornered the market in loathsome losers. From 'The IT Crowd' to 'Garth Marenghi's Darkplace' to 'The Mighty Boosh' to 'Year of the Rabbit' - no-one does odious, pompousness like Berry.

However, Toast is worse than them all. Combined.

Infantile, and arrogant, he treats people terribly, and - as a result - he's not short of enemies.

However, one stands taller than the others, his nemesis: Ray Purchase (or, as Toast calls him, "Ray 'Bloody' Purchase").

Purchase is comedy gold, a genius creation. I smile at the mere thought of him.

Whereas Toast is permanently clad in the actors' favorite shade (black), Purchase dresses in all white. There's also touch of the 1970's about him; with his mustache, and bouffant hair, you half expect to see Roger Moore's Simon Templar join him on-screen any moment.

Harry Peacock is hilarious as the uptight, permanently seething, Purchase, who, like Toast, is a terrible actor. Professional rivalry is an element in their hatred for each other, but not as large as the fact that Toast is openly sleeping with Purchase's wife. An affair no-one involved in tries to hide.

Whilst Toast is trying to have as much sex as possible, whilst unsuccessfully attempting to carve out an acting career, Purchase spends his time trying to make Toast's life as difficult as possible, in punishment for being so publicly cuckolded. Except Ray is as efficient as Will E Coyote; not only do his schemes fail, they end up causing him more strife than they do to Toast.

In addition to Ray's never-ending attempts at revenge, and Jane's inept career guidance, Toast also has to contend with his brother, the one-handed, politically-incorrect, Colonel Blair Toast.

Not only does Blair take issue with his brother's chosen career, he also takes issue with... well, everything, really. Especially if it's contemporary...

As I write this, I am realizing just how absurd it all sounds. Part of me is wondering if I haven't dreamt all this after a particularly fevered sleep having consumed a large block of cheese before heading to bed. However, I've just checked online; it's real.

This TV show actually exists.

And the world is infinitely richer for it.

It's uniquely British, and lives in that wonderful hinterland between supreme intelligence, and sheer, unadulterated daftness. You know the place - it's where Monty Python also live.

And I'm off to spend a bit more time there now...

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