W1A (2014–2024) User Reviews (28)

Very funny. Is it just me?

[droopsnout · 8/10 · 21 April 2014]

I suspect that some of the reviews here have been made by people who are perhaps too close to the BBC, or are amongst a significant section of the British population who regard the licence fee as the wrong way to fund the Corporation.

I didn't see "Twenty Twelve" (but have just ordered the DVDs of Series 1 & 2), and in fact have only managed to see the first two episodes of "W1A". That clearly leaves me open to criticism for reviewing a series I haven't fully seen. On the other hand, it meant that I had no particular expectations before I viewed.

What I did see I found to be hugely funny - certainly one of the most wryly observed and succinctly written comedies of recent years.

Yes, I am sure that what it portrays is desperately close to reality! And indeed, that is what makes it all the funnier. The characters are, of course, caricatures with little depth, but in a light-hearted series of just four episodes, I doubt we would be expecting serious character development, especially when some of them speak the same (or similar) lines in every episode.

As a Brit who loves the BBC, despite its weaknesses and failings, and who thinks the licence fee is truly excellent value for money, I admire the organisation all the more for its willingness to have the mickey taken in this way.

Reading the other reviews, you might think that there was little to laugh at in this short series. Far from it. I very rarely laugh out loud, but this had me chortling more than most.

Brilliant. Yes, Cool, No. I don't want that.

[paulcreeden · 9/10 · 19 September 2015]

Outrageously funny satire. Hugh Bonneville, the patronizing lord of Downton, redeems himself while bathing in the complete absurdity of corporate culture. He has great comic talent, but he has quite a bit of talented company here as well. Jessica Hynes as Siobhan is the perfect farcical PR person of the computer age. She and her foil, Tracey, played by Monica Dolan, turn group scenes into absurdity rivaling "Monty Python" genius.

Will, played brilliantly stupid by Hugh Skinner, summons pathos and frustration all at once. Cool. Jason Watkins as Simon embodies every corporate worm ever invented. A most wonderful surprise is Nina Sosanya as Lucy. I am very familiar with her from her serious dramatic roles in "Silk" and "Meadowlands". She plays her role as the saner person in the mad house with great subtlety, especially when squirming under the oppressive inanity of Rufus Jones as David.

I watched these episodes in rapid succession on Netflix and was still hungry for more. Brilliant. Strong. Cool.

Oh....cool. Yeah cool. Uh...dunno. Crap!

[msghall · 9/10 · 10 July 2019]

Such a great series I watched it twice. Wonderfully acted and written, the single word interplay between the characters is a marvel. The discipline and skill to pull off the rapid-fire exchanges is something to behold. While much of the humour is broad, much of it is wonderfully narrow British irreverence and wit. But the glue that holds it together is Hugh Skinner's Will. His beautifully-timed nonsensical statements sum up the entire series, making fun of corporate culture that has lost its ability to communicate, saved at the last moment by the erudite adult in the room, Ian Fletcher.

Funniest Show Around

[hi_and · 10/10 · 8 March 2017]

A hilarious skewering of both the BBC and the mindset of corporate lackeys everywhere. Absolutely crammed with great characters, many of whom, in the British manner, have their distinctive and increasingly wonderful catch-phrases. It seems impossible that this got made by the same organization that is portrayed in the show, but it is very pleasing that it was. It's just a shame that the number of episodes per season is small even by UK standards.

Too close to the truth to be funny if you're a tax-payer

[peter-1708 · 9/10 · 25 June 2015]

I found this very funny and very true. I worked at BBC Future Media (and other parts of the BBC) and recognise a number of these senior managers. The caricatures are not far removed from reality. On the creative side, you might think the show was cruel. Not really, they used to have weekly "creative sessions" in my kitchen area. There's nothing like the sight of desperate 40-somethings trying to come up with something young and hip to make you wish you were far, far away from the commissioning process and the necessary obliges noblesses! The meeting rooms, "Strictly Come Dancing" and "Top Gear" and so on, and Syncopatispace is beyond parody. This show is almost exactly like working there.

This could have gone on for-ev-er!

[joeycola · 8/10 · 18 October 2019]

Only 3 seasons? Really?? Ah, I guess it's hard to keep a cast like this together for long. What seemed like pure silliness at first really grew on me. I really ended up caring about these characters. When I went to start the next season and discovered there was none, I was heartbroken.

Excellent show, witty, dry and very British

[packhamc-242-170245 · 10/10 · 26 April 2019]

Not sure an American audience would get this show as it very definitely reflects British cultural and social situations.

W1A (BBC2) – Review

[brian-west-289-887982 · 6/10 · 28 March 2014]

"You're aware that you're at the centre of something genuinely important, and the exciting thing is to think that part of the job is establishing where that centre is, and what it's in the middle of." It's hard to parody something that's already a parody of itself, so W1A (BBC2) – the BBC's bizarre and surreal mickey take of its own corridors of power – must be viewed in context.

Because the sad truth is that the real-world BBC is far more bizarre and surreal than this fairly tame spoof, and the only real mickey take in the equation is the way the real Beeb behaves while claiming to serve its hard-working license payers.

BBC2′s continuity announcer accidentally introduced W1A by calling it a "new drama." A Freudian slip, no doubt, by a BBC staffer on the brink of insanity.

Noel Edmonds went on Newsnight this week and announced that he wants to buy the BBC. Remind me, was that in the spoof version of the corporation or in the real-world BBC? It's almost impossible to tell.

I've worked for the BBC many times, in many different roles, so I suppose I should have found W1A hilarious. However, it was so close to the truth that all the programme actually succeeded in doing was to remind me of the anger, frustration and helplessness I felt while working there.

Most of the meetings really are a ridiculous waste of time. Many of the managers genuinely are pointless, poorly informed, time-servers who are only interested in protecting their own interests. Verbal communications skills are virtually non-existent in many Social Media-obsessed staff, and the curse of hopping from hot desk to hot desk means it's impossible to hold a meaningful conversation or concentrate on anything at all in your own space.

W1A is written by the same team who brought us the brilliant Twenty Twelve. David Tennant's back as the deadpan and slightly puzzled narrator, and Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) moves from Head of Deliverance at the Olympics to becoming Head of Values at the BBC. Jessica Hynes also returns as Siobhan Sharp, the air-headed PR guru.

There are many new faces as well, notably Jason Watkins as the slimy and grinning Head of Strategic Governance, and Hugh Skinner as Will – the intellectually challenged intern who seems to struggle with even the most basic of tasks. Will's epic mental battle in delivering two cups of coffee to their recipients was one of the highlights of the first episode. I suspect his character will rise swiftly through the ranks and will probably end up as Director General if the show runs long enough.

Just as David Brent was far too painful to watch if you worked in an office, W1A may be a little too much for many BBC staff to endure. Alan Yentob and Salman Rushdie arm-wrestling in a meeting room? Remind me, was that in W1A, or did I see it on this week's Newsnight?

Exquisitely funny and too true !

[Milesrgdenman · 10/10 · 9 July 2019]

At last... Now on BBC iplayer. Bonneville & Watkins and brilliant in this wonderful parody of BBC's internal workings and all its shenanigans. Sarah Parish is particularly good, bringing her sardonic, deadpan character to life. What a treat to have this in a iPlayer Box-Set '

Bright Business Comedy

[Lejink · 6/10 · 20 January 2015]

I suppose the natural career change for "2012"'s Olympics supremo Ian Fletcher was to an executive position at another of the great talking-shops, the BBC itself. Thus "W1A" continues very much in the footprints of its predecessor, with Fletcher at the centre of the middle of things at the Beeb, quickly becoming the spokesperson and whipping boy for a number of topical-at-the-time scandals at the corporation, involving regional discrimination and pay levels. Now with the Quango-esque title "Head Of Values" he's soon involved with a similar group of headless deadbeats talking lots but saying little in another amusing spoof comedy.

The problem for me was the too-similar format to "2012" right down to each episode starting with him turning up to work and attending morning meetings although this time there was much less emphasis on his private life. The supporting cast includes the excruciatingly on-point media guru Siobhan "Sure, great" from the show before and a bunch of colleagues not markedly different again to those before. Therein lies the problem, with the show somewhat lacking in freshness with not only the characters but some of the plot devices seeming a bit second hand. I also think more could have been done to make use of the real-life BBC talent available apart from the amusing spat between Clare Balding and Carol Vorderman to see who gets to partner Alan Titchmarsh in a new reality show "The Tastiest Village in Britain".

There are amusing moments for sure particularly when Siobhan attempts to rebrand the BBC for the Apps market and Bonneville leads a good cast who play their quirky characters to the hilt. Nice to see Olivia Colman in a cameo role too. All told though, the law of diminishing returns appears to be in action here although somehow it wouldn't surprise me to see Ian Fletcher in future park his fold-down bike at the biggest talking-shop of all the House of Commons in an as yet unwritten sequel to his latest misadventures.

Hidden gem

[meetvince · 10/10 · 10 September 2020]

Don't know why Netflix didn't recommend this to me, instead of all the junk. It's a bit repetitive but very light. I do enjoy these types of shows. This is very similar to "the IT crowd". It's great that BBC makes limited episodes of these shows. Very funny and light. Great characters and very well narrated.

biting an accurate comedy

[tlloydesq · 7/10 · 17 April 2014]

This is a very well observed comedy. The setting for the programme is the BBC but it could be any big company. Ian Fletcher of 2012 fame joins the BBC as its head of values. Being the new boy in town he struggles with the entrenched working practices. Senior management float from meeting to meeting without making any decisions which they leave to their subordinates who were are too busy to attend.

The PR company who got it completely wrong in 2012 are invited back to keep us amused in W1A. It struck me after watching it that people under 30 have spent most of their lives with the internet and cable TV. Hence Perfect Curve's take on the BBC logo is probably closer to truth than fiction.

A few stories run through the programme and mostly serve to make Ian's life a nightmare. It would be interesting to watch this without the commentary and to see how events pan out without an introduction to every scene.

As to whether the publicly owned BBC should be making a programme satirising themselves: that is open to question. You have to imagine that Broadcasting House is not as badly appointed as portrayed. But, as noted above, anyone who has worked for a big company will raise a wry smile at some of the goings on.

It's OK but very, very repetitive!

[qui_j · 5/10 · 29 October 2017]

The show does capture the uselessness of corporate culture, its incessant meetings, and predictable committee members. The problem is that after a while, it becomes repetitive and tedious to watch. Even though each episode may bring a new business challenge, the repetitiveness of action and thought by the characters becomes boring, causing the viewer to just disengage. After a while, I just watched the episodes on an "ad hoc" basis to provide padding for my binge watching of other series that I did not wish to finish too quickly because they were so good. By padding it with this mindless material, the better series lasted me for a longer period of time!

Expat got here 2021

[katekap · 9/10 · 19 November 2021]

I really enjoyed this series. Especially the small details. Haystack seating, Inclusivity dept, weather report. Reminds me very much of my time in the Civil service. Completely pointless.

The scary thing is how close to the truth this is

[johnbirch-2 · 10/10 · 30 October 2023]

I loved this when it went out - it was so funny and seemed to far fetched, so extreme.

But now in the real world the council will I work is moving out of its old 1930s council building into an office EXACTLY like this. So much so that it is as if this as not a fake documentary but a real one, and our relocation team have been watching it. Avidly.

"Inspiring" bollocks on the walls? Check Glass walled meeting rooms? Check Touchdown desks where you could be sitting next to anyone, but no-one from your team? Check Load of middle managers talking bollocks like some crazy cult? Check

Seriously. W1A is less a comedy and more an awful warning about the future of office life for everyone.

You laughed. But this is the future. You have been warned.

Yes.. Right... Yes

[jmat40 · 8/10 · 9 February 2021]

I get a kick out of this show and it's writing. Everything is Yes Yes Yes. Yes No Yes. Yes Exactly Yes. Yes Brilliant Yes. Yes What Yes. Yes It's Funny Yes.

Repetitive dialogue wears thin

[tuggerwaugh · 7/10 · 4 February 2019]

This show is really funny and well-written the first few times you watch it. Then it's just repetitive. You know what the characters are going to say before they say it. Yes, no, yes, a ha, yeah, cool, no worries. As a satire of a tv network it's clever. The characters are good. I just find it wears thin after a while.

Funny in places but we've been here before

[nebilcs-168-165298 · 7/10 · 27 May 2018]

I watched the first few episodes of the first season and giggled appropriately. Goodness knows the BBC makes a good target for this kind of satire and is a good proxy for many similar corporate settings. But after a while fatigue set in. Compared with Twenty Twelve which was consistently laugh-out-loud funny, too many characters in W1A share similar lines and "yes/no/cool" affectations. But what really fails is the mockumentary angle. It was tenuous in Twenty Twelve but just about kept within the lines as an unlikely but feasible documentary. W1A would have been better pitched as a straightforward satirical comedy rather than having a narration constantly remind the viewer that we are supposed to regard this as a reality programme.

It only takes one...

[tom_long2 · 6/10 · 31 May 2017]

episode to understand, appreciate, and get over this show. WIA is spot on satire, but it's annoying a f.

This is a show about nothing in much as Seinfeld was a comedy.

Dialogue goes as such: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Right. Okay. Exactly.

Uh. Well, yes. Yes, exactly.

No, no, that's fine.

It's probably better, yes.

It's not even jargon. It's circular corporate speak of a vapid culture that unfortunately is today and most likely worse tomorrow and so on.

Good but infuriating, watch one episode only unless you actually want to throw your remote at the screen (or your hand-held device at someone else).

The sketch that never ends...

[simon-894 · 2/10 · 30 October 2017]

This works as a short sketch only. It is a single gag that is repeated ad nauseam and after only three episodes I could take no more. It is painful to watch and frankly not worthy of fine actors, Hugh Bonneville and Jessica Hynes. For example, the conference suite scenes have the same structure and outcome every time - only the dialogue (such that it is) varies. The Head of Security character is unbelievable and just isn't funny, the Intern is just annoyingly hopeless. Several scenes are just a waste of time and banal in the extreme. It's altogether unbearable and unfunny.

Sympatico

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 8 July 2015]

From the makers of Twenty Twelve which starred Hugh Bonneville as Ian Fletcher the rather out of his depth Head of Deliverance for the 2012 London Olympics. He now returns as the bumbling Head of Values at the BBC since he managed to deliver the Olympics successfully. He also teams up again with Jessica Hynes, now the shallow PR chief at the BBC with daft ideas.

David Tennant returns as the narrator, deadpan and times certainly literal.

After a rough few years where an incoming BBC director general lasted a few weeks, the Charter renewal the BBC decides to turn the gaze on itself for comedic effect. Of course you have endless meetings where we meet the sycophants as well as the schemers and you quickly feel that Ian is out of his depth again as mad corporate ideas are floated around. You had episodes where he had no desk to sit on or even a room to hold a meeting, trying to evade various media backlashes such as when his pay grade was made public and even managed to get lost at the BBC building when an important royal visitor is arrived.

The stand out character was Will, the gormless intern only fit for bringing the coffee and carrying a fold-able bike.

However by the second series I felt the series ran out of steam. Tennant's narration became predictable and so did some of the characters and their mostly annoying ways, quirks and catchphrases. It did not even run to the full six episode series which indicates that the writers had run out of material. Still Ian Fletcher did manage to get his act together and amaze everyone at end with his delivery.

Beware.....

[brian-milligan · 7/10 · 6 September 2020]

I'm positive that the writers of this show were out to prove how ridiculous the entertainment business is but more important they wanted to make people who watch anxious and annoyed and they do it perfectly. I could not get through it. It is the most aggravating thing I've ever seen. The only characters who are somewhat normal are Hugh Bonneville and David Tennant as the narrator. Im guessing their lines are there just to bring you back fom the brink. It is very difficult to watch. It creates anxiety and annoyance and hatred for the people who run this fictional version of the BBC. One could use this program as a mental torture device but it would be cruel and unusual punishment and probably illegal. Most of the script is designed to provoke this sense of unease , uncomfortableness and agitation but delivered in the guise of comedy. It is genius in that way but if you suffer from anxiety or depression or anger management i warn you this will ruin your day and you'll run screaming to your therapist for more meds.

Annoying show with not much content

[RandomTard · 4/10 · 24 March 2021]

I am not from UK, so I have no special interest in BBC what so ever. I do think there was a couple of funny moments in the series over the years but mostly it was just repetition of the very little it had to offer. I guess this could be better if watched while high but then there really would be a lot better shows for that too.

I just don't think it was all that good. I didn't even want to punch these idiots because the characters were so thin and had no person - just cheap caricatures.

Too true to be good................

[ianlouisiana · 4/10 · 26 March 2014]

No doubt about it,the BBC wants to be loved,wants to be "Auntie" and "The Beeb",wants to be known as the home of "Children in Need" and "Sports Relief" where its favoured entertainers and presenters are given endless opportunities to show their caring side whilst simultaneously promoting themselves and their BBC programmes whilst engaging in emotional blackmail. In reality,the national broadcaster is smug,self - regarding,self - regulating,incestuous,and exerts far too powerful an influence on its audience whom it regards as a malleable amorphous mass who blindly pay out their licence fee in order to be patronised,ignored and have their intelligence insulted at regular intervals. Thus with "W1A"they may appear to be mocking their own excesses but in fact they are showing them off - demonstrating to us viewers that the organisation will always be an Oxbridge talking shop producing whatever it decides will be good for us and spending our money however it sees fit with no possibility of redress. Too many clever - clever people at the BBC may chortle at the in - jokes and applaud the "sporting" way celebrities appear as themselves(don't think Miss C.Vorderman should give up her day job - whatever it may be) but have failed to consider that this programme's predecessor,"2012", was centred on a specific once - in - a - lifetime event that for the previous two years had occupied the news media almost non - stop.It was very much of its time. The BBC's Olympic Legacy seems to consist of re - cycled scripts and hackneyed ideas,I'm afraid.

Moronic

[vintagegeek · 4/10 · 8 April 2022]

Nothing but idiotic conversations with no depth or real content and very repetitive. Also, it's done with hand held single camera which constantly jumps around and most times it's jittery. Obviously the cameraman didn't have the strength to carry it. I think they tried to emulate a documentary approach and it's awful.