An American not familiar with this show, as I was, will probably compare it to SNL (Saturday Night Live).
However, there are four big differences. One, it's not live. Two, no music. Three, no guest stars. Four, it's consistently funny.
Anyone who has watched SNL will know that for every absolutely-roll-in-the-isle-genius-sketch, there are about ten poor ones.
These sketches range from the monotonous to the downright painful. Then there are the painful one-joke movie franchises (Wayne's World excluded).
Then I saw the Fast Show, while living abroad a few years. Each sketch was hilarious or memorable, and each character was inspired and sometimes even vaguely rounded.
The editors are intelligent enough to cut off one joke characters before five minutes of an painful, drawn-out sketch. In the Fast Show it is: character's on, cut to a new character, cut back, cut to a new character, cut back etc. Humor is mostly timing, anyway.
Imagine SNL with much better editing and consistently funny and that's what you've got here. It is disappointing that the talent in the show has gone largely unrecognized to this point.
