Channel 4’s Peep Show comes perhaps second only to Curb Your Enthusiasm when it comes to televisual sitcoms. Forget The Office, Peep Show is the smartest, freshest and funniest sitcom to come out of Britain ever.

(That Mitchell & Webb Look is horrendous, though)

So when it was announced that the writers and stars of Peep Show were bringing their shtick to the big screen as a tale of former-friends-turned-bitter-enemies set in the tacky, phoney world of magic, I was thrilled.

And in the end, it’s a little disappointing. Perhaps I’ve myself to blame - it is as advertised really, Peep Show set in the magic world. What’s in the film is straight from the TV series - Mitchell & Webb play very similar characters to the ones they’re famous for, there’s the out-of-nowhere offensive putdowns and one-liners, the akward exchanges with women, and so on - but The Magicians still falls short.

For whilst The Magicians is very much derivative of Peep Show, not everything has made it across. Foremost, there is a lack of connection with the characters or the situations - a key ingredient of the TV show’s success. The supporting characters are largely one-dimensional, and it struggles to maintain laughs over the running time.

So, we’re left with a decent comedy, if not one that fully capitalises on its heritage.