Wedding Band

Deciding that the downtrodden loserdom that made overlooked/much-missed US catering-firm sitcom ‘Party Down’ such a treat was in fact its achilles heel, the producers of ‘Wedding Band’ have gussied up the format by replacing the canapés and world-weary cynicism with a gigging showband of hard-rocking bromantic jocks chugging out ‘Glee’-lite rock riffs and spouting creaky writers’ room one-liners. There’s the singer with commitment issues, a family man, a moonlighting session musician, and, naturally, a shouty, big-bellied Jack Black-type character ‘shredding it’ on drums. It’s amiable enough, and the references to pop culture and music mostly hit their marks, but a bland cast of archetypes soon drags the whole thing down.

Worth sticking with for 15 minutes at least, if only to witness the introduction of a rival band, whose schtick is based on Sheffield’s finest stadium-filling hair-metal godheads Def Leppard, and who go by the name of… wait for it… Armageddon It. Nice.