Smack the Pony

Take the banal, the irrelevant and the downright silly, add a female perspective, pour in a hefty dose of comic timing, stir well, and what do you get? Smack the Pony. The team of Sally Phillips, Doon MacKichan and Fiona Allen play on women's neuroses (snogging, pubic hair and size of boobs, not necessarily in that order), their preoccupations (finding a man, finding a man and finding a man), their weaknesses (Marks & Spencer, fashion and men) and their competitiveness (more covert than that of the male of the species, and therefore far more deadly). The spoof dating agency clips take in the full range of stereotypes and unfailingly hit the spot. And the prize for the most surreal sketch goes to the one which sets that most bourgeois of institutions--the wedding list--in a sex shop, with the coup de grace: "Two butt plugs ... with love from Kathy and Edward".