Wing doctors show no mercy

The staff at Green Wing are showing early symptoms of madness, meanness and mirth.

Here's the difference between American and British comedy - the Yanks can never quite shuck off convention. No matter how mad the premise, how absurdist the situation, American comedies always seem inexorably drawn back to sitcom type, with even the best gags becoming a mere disguise for some hug-and-learn message.

There have been a few exceptions to the rule. Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm are two, both coming from the beautifully cynical mind of Larry David, a sardonic genius.

Some may say the medical comedy Scrubs is also an exception. And it is true that it has a genuine and highly developed sense of withering insult and gross stupidity.

But after the first episodes of Green Wing (9.35pm, TV One), a new British comedy of a remarkably similar shape, you have to say that Scrubs is positively cuddly and fluffy in comparison.

Green Wing is the medical comedy gone feral. It is to Scrubs what smallpox is to a slight cold.

On paper, the opening episode was conventional enough. It was the first day at a new hospital for surgical registrar Dr Caroline Todd (Tamsin Greig, the disturbed and disturbing Fran in Black Books). Having spent the night in her car, because a neighbour failed to show up with the key to her brother's flat, she arrives at the hospital with pillow hair and BO and discovers her colleagues are all crazy.

In a large ensemble cast there is Dr Alan Stratham, a horror show of a man featuring an ego as enormous as it is fragile. He fancies himself a wit. He is not. He is Basil Fawlty-like, although so far without the vital element of pathos that John Cleese gave his greatest comedy creation.

Then there are anesthetist Guy and junior surgeon Mac, the hospitals smart-arses. Both fancy themselves as ladies' men, both do a good line in insults.

Dr Martin Dear is the goofy one, a bumbler who is definitely no lady's man.

The major cast is rounded out by the equally shambling Caroline, the ageing and oversexed administrator Joanna (who is doing it with Stratham, although they think nobody knows) and the literally barking staff counsellor Sue.

So far, so Scrubs, you're thinking. Well, yes. But unlike that comedy, Green Wing offers no soft edges to its characters. These are merciless caricatures in a way that Scrubs can only dream off.

The comedy, as befitting a show written by those involved in the sketch comedy Smack The Pony, is somewhat episodic, flitting between scenes that are really no more than comedy sketches.

Some are terrific. The scene where Caroline spent an age trying to get her hair and facial expression right for the snapshot for her staff ID nicely captured the desperation that you don't want to look like an alien on your identification card.

Other scenes were simply stupid, such as Mac challenging Guy to eat coffee grounds. And the use of speeding or slowing the action - to move the action along, or to draw out embarrassing moments - is an irritating affectation after the first half hour.

But if Green Wing, like its staff, is something of mixed bag of madness, it looks to be an acerbic and awfully funny enough reason to stay home on Friday nights.