Quick Cuts

Series one, episode one
A hairdresser-comedy from the writer of ‘Life of Riley’? ‘Quick Cuts’ is by no means as bad as that suggests, but nor is it as good as it ought to be. As ‘Desmond’s’ and ‘Cutting It’ have shown, there’s no shortage of potential for laughter or melodrama in a salon, but a combination of peculiar editing and floppy, semi-improvised dialogue mean ‘Quick Cuts’ takes too long to find its comedic or dramatic rhythm, cutting a decent cast (including Doon Mackichan as the loose cannon proprietor) adrift.

But, once the painstakingly set-up scenarios (blind dates, theft, prescription drug abuse) start to pay off, the performances warm up and the lines get funnier – one customer likens a sexual encounter to ‘a seal trying to stay on a rock’. There’s still some promise here, but it’s a very uneven opener.