Funny business
Supposedly, we’re in a golden age of TV comedy. Like all golden ages, though, it doesn’t seem much like one when you’re living through it.
We’ve had a bunch of new comedy series starting in the last couple of weeks, manly because it’s six weeks till Christmas, so all the channels are sticking series on now to get their runs out of the way before they have to show the Christmas specials.
The most ubiquitous of all the new series has been the third outing of Little Britain, a show plucked from the obscurity of Radio 4 and BBC Three to effectively become the BBC’s flagship comedy show, thanks to Ricky Gervais’s insistence that Extras should go out on BBC Two. Unfortunately, while Gervais seems to be deepening and widening his repertoire to avoid overmining the same comedic seam, Matt Lucas and David Walliams seem to have become victims of their own hype. While Little Britain was never the subtlest of comedies, there was a sense that their characters were – like those that inspired them in The Fast Show – not too far from ordinary life and just exaggerated for comic effect, but now they’ve become little more than grotesque caricatures, devoid of any sense of reality or pathos. Given that their audience seem to have developed Fonz syndrome – hooting and cheering the appearance of a favourite character in a scene as though it was the Second Coming before they’ve even done anything – watching Little Britain is like a Pavlovian experiment in comedy, with bells repaced by stock catchphrases.
What with having to appear on stage, pose in character for photoshoots, do interviews, record novelty ringtones, approve tatty merchandise and all the other paraphernalia of comedy success, it seems that there’s little time left to actually come up with jokes, so instead we get a parade of predictable punchlines, fat suits, old women urinating in public and comedy ethnic characters who could have walked out of a Jim Davidson routinem that are only shocking in their laziness.
Talking of recycling old ideas leads us neatly onto Broken News, a comedy based around a succession of news channels reporting surreal events with a straight face. As with a comedian’s fake plea of ‘stop me if yo’ve heard this one before’ it too hopes the audience haven’t seen The Day Today or The Daily Show and hopes they can get away with this ersatz version. Taken on its own, Broken News isn’t too bad, with some amusing moments and interesting ideas such as the Adrian Chiles-esque business reporter who speaks in a stream of nonsensical metaphors or major European news reduced to a humorous ‘and finally’ moment on American channels, but its general attitude is one of mildly amusing satire rather than the eviscerating contempt of Chris Morris, Armando Ianucci and Jon Stewart.
There seems to be a law that in any mention of Channel 4’s Peep Show the word ‘underrated’ must be used, despite the fact that no one can actually find someone saying anything bad against it. I’m not going to try and make a name for myself by becoming that negative person because it’s not a bad bit of comedy, with enough going on to keep you laughing throughout. I think the use of ‘underrated’ comes about, though, because there’s no one raving about it and saying how wonderful it is. Though perhaps this is a welcome sign of a developing consistency within Channel 4’s comedy output which seemed to veer wildly between near-genius and utter rubbish with no middle ground.
However, the producers of all these shows, and anything in the pipeline at the moment, can rest easy as the title of Least Funny Supposed Comedy Inflicted On The British Public has been won hands down by Blessed. From a writer of Blackadder and featuring a star of Father Ted it’s handy proof that the real talent that made those series so successful obviously weren’t Ben Elton and Ardal O’Hanlon. It’s devoid not just of humour, but anything that might even vaguely resemble a joke, features stereotypical characters that would have been rejected as dated in the 1980s and can only be on our screens as a result of some top-level penetration of the BBC by moles from ITV determined to make their comedy output look good by comparison. In fact, it’s so bad, it’s not even worth watching in a ‘so bad it’s good’ ironic manner, with more laughs likely to come from swtching over to whichever World War Two documentary the History Channel happens to be running at the time.
In short, Britain is suffering from a comedy drought. Luckily, America looks set to help us out with emergency imports of My Name Is Earl beginning on Channel 4 next year. More on that another time, as I’m still trying to find ways to scrub the memory of Blessed from my memory.
There’s a slightly fascist edge to Little Britain that doesn’t sit quite comfortably – and the odd “don’t wanna” or “yairrs” echoing across the office is only funny the first ten times you hear it. Pavlovian is right.
But since when was comedy supposed to be nice? My (recent) ex was a stand-up. Was she nice? It’s not the first word I’d reach for …
Lawrence wossname had a theory about Little Britain – that it was a ripoff of the Fast Show, but done by people who hadn’t actually understood it. According to this argument the Fast Show mined humour (and not only humour) from the endless, remorseless repetition of catchphrases which weren’t actually funny – very much the approach taken by ITMA, and to some extent by THEGS. Little Britain‘s speciality is the endless repetition of the same jokes – which is not so much ITMA, more Dick Emery.
Blessed, as you say, is really unbelievably awful. I’d feel quite safe in recommending it on those grounds – it’s not as if anyone would be curious enough to watch two episodes.
Charlie – Comedy definitely doesn’t have to be nice. In fact, it’s hard to be funny and nice at the same time, I’d have thought. I just think it needs to be funny rather than just pontlessly offensive and relying on people laughing because it’s rude, not because it’s an actual joke.
Phil – I could have gone off on a much longer tangent comparing the Fast Show to Little Britain, most notably on the fact that the Fast Show deepened a lot of their characters as time went on (the prime example is Ted and Ralph, but in the final series, Swiss Toni’s appearances all built up to him having a nervous breakdown and Rowley Birkin’s last appearance, where he describes watching the girl he loved die which got him ”very very drunk’) whereas Little Britain’s have become much less subtle. Compare one of the early Sebastian/PM sketches to the most recent one and the difference in tone is stunning.
And thanks for agreeing with me about Blessed – I was slightly worried about the possibility that it might be some special form of humour that only parents would understand, but you’ve shown that’s not the case. However, perhaps it might appeal to parents of the very young who are suffering from sleep deprivation?
As for Ben Elton, much as I despised him I was surprised when embarking on a recent Blackadder marathon that he only joined the script-writing team when it got good, i.e. after the hit-and-miss series one. Was some other ingredient added at the same time, or was it that his small contribution pushed Blackader over the tipping point from hmmm comendy and into very good comedy, making him look like a genius?
Personally, I found Little Britain much more indebted to League of Gentlemen. But the same point applies – LoG genius; LB quasi-fascistic shit.
Well, yes. Agree with you about all those programmes, except I feel you are too soft on both Little Britain and Blessed – the last eposode of Blessed I saw was just plain embarrasingly bad.
I’m afraid I find nearly all American stuff – both the highly recomended drama and comedy – to be about on a par with Lit Brit and Blessed – at best blandly unfunny and at worst embarassingly bad. The only exception being early Simpsons – this should have ended several series ago when it was still at the top and Futurama – all else is dross.
However, I did like Love Soup a great deal, and find Sensitive Skin to be quite good, verging on very good.
Andrew – I guess one theory would be that they used Elton as a sounding board. If he found a joke funny and thought it should be included, Richard Curtis instantly cut it out. The other change was that Rowan Atkinson co-wrote the first series with Curtis, then merely acted in it for the next three before returning to co-write the rather poor ‘Back & Forth’ Millennium Dome episode where he and Elton combined obviously dragged Curtis down.
the Fast Show deepened a lot of their characters as time went on (the prime example is Ted and Ralph, but in the final series, Swiss Toni’s appearances all built up to him having a nervous breakdown and Rowley Birkin’s last appearance, where he describes watching the girl he loved die which got him ‘’very very drunk’)
The scene that’s stuck in my mind (I don’t think it’s the same one) had Sir Rowley slowing down and becoming more articulate as he recalled this moment that could have changed his life. Then a long pause, then: “I’m afraid I was very drunk.” Devastating. I suppose the catchphrases let them set up characters who were stuck – comically stuck to begin with, but less so as we (and the writers) got more familiar with them. Extraordinary stuff, really.
I sense that the coarseness and nastiness of Little Britain is partly born of exhaustion – compare Blackadder goes forth or the second series of Nighty Night – but that it’s also to do with the limitations of punchlines compared with catchphrases: a repeated punchline can only set up a grotesque, not a character.
And thanks for agreeing with me about Blessed – I was slightly worried about the possibility that it might be some special form of humour that only parents would understand, but you’ve shown that’s not the case. However, perhaps it might appeal to parents of the very young who are suffering from sleep deprivation?
They’d have to record it. In any case, it’s nonsense from start to end – in the episode I saw, both parents had been kept awake for 24+ hours by one baby, which has to make you wonder what was in the much-vaunted family rota (Midnight to 7.00 a.m.: BOTH: Devote undivided attention to baby on minute-by-minute basis). (Admittedly, they also had a three-year-old, but he (or she) seemed to be doing the entire episode under hypnosis, [s]he was so quiet.) Even granting this wildly improbable scenario, the way they handled it was ludicrous. The most realistic reaction would be numbed, zombie-like resignation; if they had enough energy for a more active response, they’d most likely go up the wall with worry (phone parents, phone doctor, phone friends, phone 999…) Instead of which, they accepted what was happening as perfectly natural, and spent the episode sniping at each other (wittily and energetically) for not taking their share. Idiotic – you’d never have guessed that Ben Elton had actually had kids.
Nick: the sounds a plausible theory; I’ll adopt it.
Main difference: Fast Show characters were actually sympathetic. Or at least pathetic. They were all, basically, nice people – hopelessly drunk, un-self-aware, unintentionally annoying, frantically camp, given to fits of rage at the mention of the word ‘black’, but basically nice none the less.
Little Britain is written by two people who essentially hate everyone. Men, women, chavs, Prime Ministers, gays, social workers, whoever – they loathe humanity, and it shows in their characters. They don’t just hate human folly, or human weakness, or human pettiness or bigotry or greed – lots of great comic writers have done that (Swift, for one; Bill Hicks for another). They hate humans.
Comedy is all about empathy; you could empathise with the manic fury of Basil Fawlty, the neurotic failure of Arnold Rimmer or the deep cynicism of Edmund Blackadder, because, at some level, you’d felt the same yourself. So, at some level, the writers have to like their characters.
On another subject, my Ben Elton theory is that, at some point in the late 1990s, he was abducted and killed, and replaced by an evil replica. This is the only way to explain the transition from “motormouth anti-Thatcher polemicist” to “working with Tim Rice on tourist-trap musicals”; from “writing very funny stuff for Blackadder” to “writing Blessed”; from “writing rather sophomoric but heartfelt novels like ‘Stark'” to “writing horrible, sadistic, exploitative crap like ‘Past Mortem'”.
It’s also possible he’s had some sort of major cerebral insult – a stroke, possibly, or severe trauma to the frontal lobes of both hemispheres of the brain would account for it.
By the way, Johann Hari has some stuff to say about Little Britain in his column today – should be on his website soon, if anyone wants to read it.
I think that’s an important point about empathy, ajay, and I think it connects in with the old saying that ‘comedy is tragedy plus time’ – most comic situations are essentially tragic if you look at them, and when one has an empathy with the characters, the laughter is almost a relief, the ‘thankfully it’s not me’ monent, and if that empathy is missing, it’s just like laughing at a freakshow. As you said, there’s empathy with Fast Show characters and also in the League Of Gentlemen (with the exception of the real grotesques like Tubbs, Edward and Papa Lazarou, but then they’re not presented in the same way as the ‘real’ characters).
my Ben Elton theory is that, at some point in the late 1990s, he was abducted and killed, and replaced by an evil replica.
Naah – he’s always been a fawning crowd-pleaser, he’s always gone for the easy laugh and the reassuring backslap. (I can’t honestly say I’ve never liked him, but I did find a lot of his old right-on material irritatingly silly. Even his best stuff – by which I mean the second and third Blackadders – is a litany of received ideas and Horrible Histories grotesquery, spun as radical and groundbreaking in the best student revue style.) And he’s always had a nose for the slightly-larger audience. His later stuff is just the culmination (please God) of those two tendencies, probably exacerbated by the inevitable creative exhaustion.
Ben Elton brought a better sense of structure to Blackadder. The first series is written more like a movie than a sitcom. That didn’t just increase the costs, it also damaged the pacing – and in comedy, pacing is critical. The first series always seems saggy to me: some great scenes, but not enought narrative drive and too many longeurs. The subsequent series are written as TV sitcoms, with greater use of standing sets, fewer one-off performers, and no location work. The result is a tighter, more focussed show that plays to the strengths of its conditions of production and that works magnificently well as a half-hour TV sitcom.
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Re: empathy and comedy. This is why I have a real soft-spot for Phoenix Nights.
Or maybe it’s because I’m a Northerner.
Re: empathy and comedy. This is why I have a real soft-spot for Phoenix Nights.
Or maybe it’s because I’m a Northerner.
Empathy? Tell that to Keith Laird…
(Excerpt from conversation with my wife, along the general lines of “what were they thinking of?”:
Her: Channel Four probably didn’t think there really was a council fire officer in Bolton.
Me: Channel Four probably didn’t think there really was a Bolton.)
(And yes, I love it too. It’s just extraordinary to think that something with such breadth was written by a lad of eighteen.)
Good grief, and I thought I was alone in being untickled by LB. I only watched half the first episode, and guiltily, snatches of the third, but I remained unmoved.
I haven’t read Ben Elton’s books, but I still feel I should stand up for the man. He was good in the early days on BBC2 and later Channel 4. And having seen, for the first time, some of the middle section of “Notting Hill” at the weekend, frankly, I cannot believe that Richard Curtis was the funny one who wrote Blackadder. Mind you, I could have said that after one episode of the female vicar sitcom as well.
What we need is another series of Paul Whitehouse’s “Happiness.” Not least because it used Johnny Vegas properly.
Yes, Elton’s 1980s anti-Thatcher stuff was silly and rambling. I never said it was good – just that shifting from that to writing cash-in musicals with Tim “I’ll leave Britain if Labour wins” Rice is a complete change of angle that it makes me wonder about head trauma.
My impression is that the split on Blackadder was that Elton managed, so to speak, the tactics – the laugh-out-loud quote-in-the-playground-the-next-day one-liners – which were extremely good, while Curtis managed the strategy – the longer jokes, the narrative, the historical references, the characters and so on. This would probably explain why the first series felt so slack, and the situational (rather than verbal) comedy of films like “Four Weddings”.
And oh, lord, “The Vicar of Dibley”. Saw that once. Awful.
And having seen, for the first time, some of the middle section of “Notting Hill†at the weekend, frankly, I cannot believe that Richard Curtis was the funny one who wrote Blackadder
Indeed, but the “Horse and Hound” interviews are comic genius. Perhaps the only bit of real genius in the whole film.
Good grief, and I thought I was alone in being untickled by LB.
Ditto me. I thought it was my guilty secret. One that I shouldn’t give up even on the rack and after the pygmy in the gimp mask had been, erm, unmasked.
there’s no one raving about it [Peep Show] and saying how wonderful it is
Allow me to fill that gap then – I think it’s a fantastic show. I love the way it moves from socially awkward cringe-comedy into genuinely unsettling material, with hilarity every step of the way.
I’ve never seen “Blessed”, but if it’s even less funny than Little Britain, then it must be shite indeed.
Let the backlash begin. And here’s the Johann Hari article.
Teabag is right: Peep show is wonderful.
I wonder if anyone can answer a question for me!
I have been puzzling my head out for weeks now, wanting to know what character Johnny Vegas has played recently on TV that has come to a “fiery” end
Does anyone know the answer??? PLEASE
Blessed is just bad full stop. Some of the best comedys over the last 2 years have been on minor channels like BBC 2 and More 4. Nighty night was one of the best sitcoms the BBC has ever made, yet hardly ever gets a mention. Curb your enthusiasm is watched by hardly anyone on More 4, yet is far better than any british sitcom.