Toast of London: A Safe Kind of Strange

There are two people in this world who, thanks to their voices, could sell me PPI. One of them is David Attenborough; the other is Matt Berry. If companies hired soundalikes, they would eliminate their predatory reputations, improve their fortunes and donate ninety percent of their newly found takings to me for thinking of the idea. Until the day Berry needs a new conservatory we have to make do with him starring in the politely surreal Toast of London. Bolstered by a consistently amusing cast, Berry’s mellifluous boom flourishes amongst crude mishaps and excellent guest appearances in series three of this underrated programme. ‘JAAAAANE!’ has never sounded so soothing.

For those unfamiliar with Toast of London, Berry plays Stephen Toast, a bumbling actor with inflated aspirations condemned to committing voiceovers in Scramble Studios for a living. He occasionally secures roles in strange projects and stumbles upon faked moon landings to shatter monotonous failure, but his big break eludes him, an ignominious appearance at The Globe in the series’ finale encapsulating his sordid luck. Toast’s bumbling troupe excel at attracting monumental fiascos and ably assist his entertaining failures. A sand dance alongside partner in idiocy Ray ‘Bloody’ Purchase at the Royal Variety ends with Bob Monkhouse falling to his death through a trapdoor and Prince Charles receiving a pair of (plastic) tits. You wouldn’t get that in Miranda would you?

Picking up where series two left off, series three replicates established strengths faithfully, and why shouldn’t it? Toast wielded a successful formula from its inception, to which it should stick. Like any programme featuring Berry, quirky components are anchored by familiar sitcom tropes. Toast’s grubby apartment and mannerly perverted flatmate Ed reek of the well-worn, but absurd names (Shane Fulorgy) sum up the marriage of the quotidian with the whimsical. Safer than the wilfully obtuse Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place, it’s ideal for those craving an accessible brand of weirdness. In the same way Marenghi… ridiculed puffed-up script-writers, Toast has a healthy irreverence for egotistically obese stars of stage and screen, although generally playful mockery means not so sacred targets sustain little more than pinches. Nevertheless, that scream of anguish you heard engulfing London was the sound of Kevin Spacey doubling over when Toast claimed he didn’t know who he was. More famous faces appear in this series than before, Alan Ford, Paul Whitehouse and Jon Hamm adding gravel and gravitas but never dominating. Primarily, Toast’s unique success lies in the protagonist’s wayward phrasing, his musically misplaced stresses done with such seriousness at unexpected occasions alter the way humour is conveyed. Extended consonants, ‘Al Jazeraaaaaaa?’, and soaring vowels make Toast memorably ridiculous. Berry is the Iggy Pop of sitcoms, a captivating lighthouse of peculiarity.

There’s no overarching narrative other than Toast striving for his big break. Largely apolitical, with the exception of a neat sequence about inaccurate drone strikes, its lack of social conscience doesn’t render it vacuous, thanks to its unconventional ribbing of the showbiz elite. If Toast’s teleology was a clattering route to the Globe, then Iggy flopped spectacularly and the programme can depart respectfully. The use of oft-frequented sitcom tropes was risky but there’s enough idiosyncratic pronunciations and theatrical slapstick to earn Berry new fans and preserve the faith of those wanting something closer to The Mighty Boosh.