Reply to: British TV Comedy

[cailin maith]

i have never read a gricer post

You've missed nothing luvvie.

[Boudica]

i have never read a gricer post

[wobbegong]

British comedy can be some of the finest in the world (and I'm NOT talking about canned-laughter sit-coms), you've just got to sort the wheat from the chaff.

IMHO these are some of the best produced, well written examples. In no particular order . . .

Spaced
Green Wing
League of Gentlemen
Peep Show
Psychoville
Nighty Night

. . . and although it doesn't really fall in the same category as the above; Red Dwarf.

[gricerboy]

If it's not funny (to a reasonable amount of people) it gets no ratings and isn't re-commisioned. Whether a very square charachter on an already wildly conservative website finds it funny is irrelevent. That's a very small niche and one that you would need a time machine to fill.

Yes but that's a spurious argument because a lot of people found Little and Large funny as they were prime time Saturday night staples throughout the 1980s. The fact of the matter, on the oher hand, is that anyone with a modicum of taste in these matters would clearly NOT have found them funny.

[SupremeSpod]

There has recently been one glimmer of hope in the form of "Rev".

I think I am the only person in the country who as actually watched this - at least the straw poll of my office of 18 people seems to suggest it.

Possibly the best writing of any recent comedy series, wonderful acting, particularly from the Rev himself and also the Arch Deacon (though it does seem strange to be laughing at two members of the clergy who both were playing Nazis in the film Valkyrie!

I just hope that it goes to a second series without losing the freshness it had with this series!

For the cause of the decline in British TV humour you need look no further than Ben Elton and his band of "Right-On w4nkers".

"That Margaret Thatcher, eh? What a C**t, eh?", "Yeah, Right-on!"

F**k me, that had me widdling myself with laughter.

[ilovehr]

I tend to agree that TV comedy has gone down the pan recenlty

There has recently been one glimmer of hope in the form of "Rev".

I think I am the only person in the country who as actually watched this - at least the straw poll of my office of 18 people seems to suggest it.

Possibly the best writing of any recent comedy series, wonderful acting, particularly from the Rev himself and also the Arch Deacon (though it does seem strange to be laughing at two members of the clergy who both were playing Nazis in the film Valkyrie!

I just hope that it goes to a second series without losing the freshness it had with this series!

[SizeZero]

I have simple tastes. Anything that doesn't contain Michael ruddy McIntyre is fine by me.

[Bagpuss]

I spent last night in front of the tv for the first time in ages and ended up watching 5 comedy programmes back to back.

First up was The Mitchell and Webb Look which I thought was very,very weak indeed. Not a single laugh there. This was followed by Reeves and Mortimer's Shooting Stars show; same old same old but I never really did get them. At least it is marginally better without the creepy Matt wotsizzchopps - which brings me to little Britain. Funny the first time you see it but when you watch it next you realise they are just regurgitating the same jokes week in week out (by the way, did you know that Little Britain was an area of Dickensian London referenced in Great Expectations among others?) Following this was 2 pints of lager and a packet of crisps please. Errr, why? Finally we had a programme called Miranda and I thought this wasn't all that bad. No vulgarity, no regional accents, just good humour (though maybe targeted at a non male audience). And what I really liked about the show was that they ended with "you have been watching...".

That just got the memories flooding back of all those old Croft and Perry classics;Dad's Army, Hi Di Hi, Oh Dr. Beeching. Incidentally, one of my colleagues on my Masters course was Michael Holland, son of Geoffrey Holland AKA Spike off Hi Di Hi. He was a very good tap dancer ISTR.

To sum up, I think the blame for the dearth of comic talent can be laid squarely at the door of the demise of variety. Just think of all the giants of comedy of the past; they all plied their trade in dirty northern workimg men's clubs and maybe getting a lucky break on Seaside Special or Opportunity Knocks. Unfortunately it no longer works like this. These days you have to get the approval of a small cabal of trendy self obsessed media toadies who wouldn't know a decent joke if it came up and slapped them in the face.

If it's not funny (to a reasonable amount of people) it gets no ratings and isn't re-commisioned. Whether a very square charachter on an already wildly conservative website finds it funny is irrelevent. That's a very small niche and one that you would need a time machine to fill.

[shoes]

You're too old.

Out of those you watched, shooting stars was and is still a work of genius.

Another recent uk created piece of genius is peep show, but you won't get that either.

[xoggoth]

You are right. The missus got Sky about a year ago and now we have to flick through loads of channels to see there is nothing worth watching instead of four. Only comedies we do watch are repeats of Mash and the Likely Lads. That Old Guys thing looked promising, but once was enough.

[gingerjedi]

And the IT Crowd is much too close to reality to be funny.

Other than in a toe curling sort of way.

So true, see you at the 8+ club tonight zeity?

[OwlHoot]

Personally, I think he's upped his game recently.

"Game" being the operative word, probably.

But if so then who the heck is running this sockie? Nobody round here is that good - Even Craig Brown in Private Eye would have trouble sustaining groperboy's pompous rotarian windbag style (although in fairness some groper posts are quite interesting if one can be bothered to skim them).

Another reason some might think comedy has declined these days is that it's harder to shock people to just the right degree - i.e. not a lame yawn at one extreme or plain offensive at the other.

The essence of humour is mental conflicts and ambiguities or absurdities, which the punchline or developing plot suddenly resolves in the listeners' or the viewers' heads, and that latter sudden recognition is the "shock" I refer to.

Hence the reason jokes are usually less funny, or not at all, if you know the punchline.

[administrator]

Been watching the IT Crowd with Mrs Admin recently. I have watched them all before and found them funny still the second time around. Mrs Admin has started calling me Moss though, much to her amusement

[DaveB]

I think I'll be avoiding this one though :

Grandma's House
Sitcom written by, starring, and based on the life of Essex-raised Jewish comic Simon Amstell.

[Moscow Mule]

I prefer panel shows to sketch shows or sitcoms.

Mock the Week springs to mind as a comedy show that has stand up comedians as it's main base and as a vehicle for launching comics into the main-stream.