Jun 20, 2014 3 min read

One of the differences between the United States and Great Britain is that the British seem absolutely shameless about being absolutely silly. Americans can be silly, too, but it’s often a kind of tentative silliness, whereas the Brits dive headfirst into silly at every given opportunity and splash around in it with complete abandon.

“Almost Royal,” premiering with back-to-back episodes at 10 tonight, is a show only BBC America could create. The channel’s first original scripted comedy is about a pair of lesser British nobles who are on a tour of the United States because their late father, who died of an “accidental” self-inflicted shotgun blast to the face, was terribly fond of the States.

Poppy and Georgie Carlton (Amy Hoggart and Ed Gamble) are classic British upper-class twits, dumb as a box of kippers, and have never worked a day in their lives. They have little to no awareness of the outside world in their own country, much less in the United States. In addition to bringing Daddy’s ashes along for the journey, Georgie is hoping the visits to Los Angeles, Boston, Texas, New York and other points of interest will teach him more about the world and help him to become more manly. Similarly, Poppy has hopes that she will find a career as an actress, or perhaps an author, lifestyle guru or cookery presenter – something that befits her station in life without necessitating actual work.

First stop: Los Angeles, of course, where the adorable idiots abroad visit a plastic surgeon and try to get him to tell them the names of famous faces he’s worked on, and they make a set visit to “The Bold and the Beautiful” where Poppy does a line reading for the casting director and displays her utter lack of talent. They also wander into a market where Fabio is doing a demonstration of some holistic product and they try to set him up with their widowed mum, who is rather in need of action since Daddy died.

From there, it’s on to Boston, where they learn about the Revolutionary War from a college professor. When he gets to the part about Paul Revere, Georgie questions why a “snitch” would be considered a national hero. Later, they participate in a baseball game during which Georgie learns to spit and trash-talk and Poppy gets a base hit.

Down the Massachusetts Turnpike a ways, they wind up in Worcester at a local chapter meeting of the Tea Party, where Georgie delivers a hilariously inane speech leaving the attendant archconservatives dumbfounded. The siblings are rather confused when it’s all over, since no tea was actually served.

Georgie and Poppy are, of course, having a laugh, as the British would say, and their parts are semi-scripted. But no one else is in on the joke. The Tea Partyers are left uncharacteristically speechless by their presence, the guys on the baseball team are both bemused and confused about how they are supposed to react to “almost royals” (Poppy and Georgie are said to be eighty-something in line for the throne, which, barring some kind of pandemic wiping out the rest of the family, means the Sceptered Isle will be sparred being ruled by idiots).

In addition to being absurdly funny and addictive, “Almost Royal” smartly satirizes both Americans, for their seemingly endless fascination with British royalty, and the titled British upper class as well, for their pixilated detachment from the real world.

“Almost Royal” has enough silliness for both American and British tastes.