"We're not here to break taboos, or any of that rubbish. We're here to win a chicken." One of the biggest stars in comedy has ducked under the big-name, big-money radar this year. Now the Pub Landlord is hosting a pub quiz, at lunchtime, for just a fiver. And it's as simple as he says it is. The audience is divided into teams, named after typical British pubs: The Ship, the Plough, the Pig and Whistle. And, after much nonsense preamble, Murray asks us questions. Real ones. "You weren't expecting that, were you?"
It's a good format for what was becoming a tired character. Too much of Murray's satire on boozy Britishness, and he starts to seem boorish himself. Here, coarseness is lower in the mix than Murray's brilliance as a ringleader of uncomplicated hilarity. The pub quiz tradition is gilded with tomfoolery. Tie-breaks take place in the form of a "crisps countdown", in which punters compete to guzzle packets of Ready Salted. We all join in with a football-terrace chant branding the losing team "thick and slow". And occasionally, Murray reminds us what we're playing for. "Listen to the quality of this meat," he says, as a frozen chicken lands on the floor with a menacing thud.
The quiz itself might have been funnier. Yes, Murray has given each round a light-hearted theme: Famous Daves, say, or TV Detectives. But there's nothing comedic about the questions and answers – which feels like a missed opportunity. Surely Murray could have retained the competitive element, while sending up the format more creatively. But that's not his intention here. This is a straightforward, unchallenging pub quiz, hosted by a caricature of alpha-male chauvinism so familiar, and yet so ridiculous, that he raises gales of laughter almost at will.
