The idea is basically an extension of the school debating society. Two teams of two – led by captains Marcus Brigstocke and Rufus Hound – debate a series of topics, and the audience decides at the end who wins each debate. John Sergeant is in charge of reading gags off the autocue, and the show flows really very well. The highlight of this opener though is the debate over whether bodybuilders look fabulous or not. This, at first, allows Ó Briain to take centre stage, and he’s quite brilliant, turning the debate into a homoerotic discussion, that Rufus Hound then has to counter. He rises to the occasion too, and the end result is really very funny indeed. There are ups and downs to the show. John Sargeant is a really good choice for host, but he’s not always at ease with the autocue in this one (although he gets some good laughs, and rightly so), while some of the topics work better than others. The episode sags just a little in the middle, too. The new series of Argumental starts on Dave on Monday 23rd March at 9.40pm
