10 Best British TV Characters Of The Decade
8. Steven Toast (Toast Of London)
Matt Berry has long been one of the funniest actors working in the UK. With his sonorous voice and inimitable mannerisms, he is frequently hired to provide a quirky voiceover, or fill the role of, more often than not, an overbearing oaf. But it wasn’t until Toast Of London that he was able to show his full range as an actor, which is to say: being loud and bizarre for 30 minutes at a time.
That’s anything but an insult, as the eponymous Steven Toast is a superb comic creation. Berry’s stock in trade is the idiot who believes he’s the smartest man in the room, and he imbues Toast with a certain dignity, even as he befalls a conveyor belt of misfortunes. Matt Berry fills his comedy universe with unscrupulous weirdos, but puts in such a colossal performance that Toast is forever the weirdest of the lot.
In a sense, Steven Toast is the perfect sitcom lead for the modern age. His every antic is memeable, and he has all the ill earned confidence of many of today’s political leaders. He is the perfect vehicle for Matt Berry’s brand of brash, obnoxious, but consistently laugh out loud comedy. No one else could pull off such a role - few others would even try.