Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness review – a TV shambles

The series opens with Barack Obama delivering a quietly masterful comic introduction as he walks through what the writer assumes is the new Barack Obama Presidential Center; his timing and presence, and the involvement of Higher Ground Productions, almost make the viewer weep before the shambles that follows.

Across seven half-hour episodes the show offers three or four sketches each, with Larry David essentially playing Larry David in period costume. That shtick — shouting familiar lines in new settings — ranges from an 18th-century Continental Congress sketch that proposes absurd rules about umbrellas and desserts to an awkward first telephone call between Alexander Graham Bell and Watson, an overlong McCarthy hearings piece, trenches in the first world war, a middle-seat complaint from a supposed third Wright brother, and a Lewis and Clark outing with Jerry Seinfeld; Jon Hamm and Sean Hayes also appear.

larry david, unhappiness, barack obama, higher ground, sketch comedy, jerry seinfeld, jon hamm, sean hayes, mccarthy hearings, continental congress