The Night Bus, Channel 4 - TV review: Another fly-on-the-wall show exploiting the tendency of drunk people to do daft things

The mistake was to shoehorn a note of plaintive poetry in amid all the bus bantz

Ellen E. Jones
Monday 18 May 2015 17:44 BST
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The Night Bus, Channel 4
The Night Bus, Channel 4

The Night Bus is a cheap and cheerful schedule-filler.

Like The Fried Chicken Shop and The Secret Life of Pubs, this is another one of Channel 4's nightlife fly-on-the-walls shows that exploits, for entertainment purposes, the natural tendency of drunk people to do daft things.

Last night's "characters" included the 10-year veteran driver who never starts a shift without a can of "kebab repellent" (aka air freshener) by his side; the courting couple who met at a "queer vegan disco" and two tipsy Irishmen who struck up a touching, cross-generational camaraderie.

The Night Bus's mistake was to attempt shoehorn a note of plaintive poetry in amid all the bus bantz. This was done via Simon, a student who, according to the voiceover, has felt lonely since moving to London and thus, "some nights he rides the bus for hours looking for company". Really? Wouldn't the union bar have been a better bet?

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