Outrage as Horne and Corden win comedy poll

The comedy world is up in arms over a poll that has seen James Corden and Matthew Horne of Gavin and Stacey fame named as Britain's best comedy duo of all time - despite the fact that they are relatively new to the scene and that their BBC3 comedy sketch show was roundly panned and put on ice after just one series.
 
The pair saw off competition from the likes of legends Morecambe and Wise, who came second with 14 per cent of the vote, and Little Britain stars David Walliams and Matt Lucas to win the poll conducted by online video service Seesaw. Cult double-act Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer did not even make the top five.
 
Comedy website Chortle.co.uk branded the poll "futile" and wrote: "Horne and Corden made a single series of a BBC3 sketch show which attracted at best 800,000 viewers. Morecambe and Wise had a career that spanned 43 years, peaking with the 28 million viewers who tuned in to their 1977 Christmas special."
 
There were further attacks from the likes of comedy critic Bruce Dessau in the Evening Standard, who wondered if the world had turned upside down.
 
But the sound of baying critics is unlikely to faze Horne and Corden, who have become used to enduring terrible reviews in recent years. Although their collaboration as actors on Gavin and Stacey helped them rise to prominence, pretty much all their ventures as a comedy double act have resulted in a critical mauling.
 
Critics savaged Horne and Corden, which ran for six episodes in 2009. Harry Venning, TV critic for The Stage, said: "They are actors, not comedians. The whole thing was terrible." Benji Wilson of the Daily Telegraph said the show "was about as funny as credit default swaps" while Sam Woolaston in the Guardian wrote: "Horne & Corden isn't just bad, it actually made me feel a bit depressed."
 
Prior to that ill-fated adventure the pair worked together on the film Lesbian Vampire Killers which was also sneered at. James Christopher in the Times said it was "profoundly awful" and Anthony Quin in the Independent gave it one out of five and compared Horne and Corden to the deeply unfashionable 1980s double act Hale and Pace.
 
But after those two mishaps Corden and Horne were reunited for the third and final series of Gavin & Stacey, written by Corden and Ruth Jones, and the popularity of the show appears to have won them the adulation of the masses.
 
Seesaw, which polled 3,000 people, said: "Gavin and Stacey can now take its place as an all-time classic alongside national treasures like Only Fools and Horses."
 
Others will obviously take some convincing that the pair are a better double act than Morecambe and Wise and Walliams and Lucas.
 
The other pairings in the top five were Peter Kay and Paddy McGuiness (from Phoenix Nights and Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere), and David Mitchell and Robert Webb (who star in Peep Show and That Mitchell and Webb Look). ·