Rolling UK Comedy Thread - "Ricky Don't Lose Larry David's Number

xpost

To put things into context: Harry Hill aside, all British TV Comedy right now is total shit.

-- Ruairi Wirewool (horseproduction...), January 15th, 2007. (Ruairi Wirewool) (later)

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what were the chances of that happening?
-- mark grout (mark.grou...), January 15th, 2007. (mark grout) (later)

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If you can put CT and Green Wing on a par, you truly show a lack of discernment IMO.
Frankly, now that GW has been and gone, I'm inclined to agree with Ruairi, minus the bit about Harry Hill.

-- You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (papiermachealamphibia...), January 15th, 2007. (Haberdager) (later)

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If you can put CT and Green Wing on a par, you truly show a lack of discernment IMO.
no it's just a 'higher' (or rather 'stricter') level of discernment.

-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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'the thick of it' will be back, later in the year, and so will 'peep show'.
-- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)

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but in a another more accurate sense...
-- mark s (mar...), January 15th, 2007. (mark s) (later)

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but then i do like Harry Hill so it's apples and roundabouts.
-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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rubbish
-- RJG (RJ...), January 15th, 2007. (RJG) (later)

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so you keep saying
-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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RJG's TV Burp
-- Dom Passantino (juror...), January 15th, 2007. (Dom Passantino) (later)

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Hmm. I was only talking about currently-running comedy shows. If Peep Show returns for a fourth bite at the cherry (and TTOI for a second), I will only be too delighted. Of course, the one I'm really looking out for is Nathan Barley II.
-- You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (papiermachealamphibia...), January 15th, 2007. (Haberdager) (later)

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i think it would be a big ask for there to be a 'great' uk comedy series to be running all 52 weeks of the year. i have low standards perhaps; but i don't ask for a 'great' film each month either.
-- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)

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of course i too want 'nathan barley' back.
-- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)

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They could drop scissors on a dog's head this time.
-- Dom Passantino (juror...), January 15th, 2007. (Dom Passantino) (later)

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uh, rose-tinted view there i reckon - but at least it was generating interesting discussion.
one episode of Screen Wipe a month would be good. ditto TV Burp.

-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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ha ha Dom OTM
-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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Unread Messages
as with 'green wing', take away the hype and the expectation it'll live up to 'the day today' and 'nathan barley' was 23 minutes well-spent. i lolled anyway.
-- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)

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i didn't laugh more than i did laugh etc.
-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

And Screen Wipe rocks.

it was good, but not 300 times better than 'nathan barley'.

xpost

steve otm

this happened in the show except he thought she turned out not be under-age (at which point NB thinking it now okay to pretend she WAS under-age was actually quite a clever little point about...something or other).

i did hate NB but yes no less than anyone else around him.

Actually, scratch that, that's not the idea at all. It's funny caricatures falling into situations and scrambling to return to the status quo whilst simultaneously being trapped; a very old-fashioned sitcom thread. I certainly didn't feel that is was trying to make a big insightful statement about something, at least, nothing larger than "it's better to like something than to dislike something."

'THIR-FUCKING-TEEN'.

In fairness, I guess originally Barley wasn't really a character, just a cipher, and in making him human Morriss and Brooker made him more, er, human. I just don't think that made for great comedy. It wasn't sharp enough to be genuine satire and it wasn't silly enough to be knockabout comedy. It was just 'dark'.

I doubt whether Channel 4 enforced any 'nicening'.
You know, maybe Barley always looked like that in Brooker's head, and if you boil the actions in any of the episodes down to the kind of 3-sentence description that you would find in TV Go Home, it wouldn't be that different. But TVGH gave the impression that Barley was a cartoonishly horrible amoral grotesque, and that's not what we got in the TV show. We got 'idiots'. I hoped it would be either venemous or ridiculous and it was neither.

pt. I

pt. II

i lolled?

Oh okay, I didn't read the website so I didn't know what was supposed to happen, I only saw (and liked) what did.

Oh god, yeah.

I wasn't a fan of Lou before but quite liked her in this - 'naughty taughty' was genuinely hilarous.

I imagine we'll be seeing a lot of these, probably with diminishing returns cast-wise. surely cheap and quick as fuck to knock out, with contestant fees the biggest expense.

Bob winning was a boring result, much as I obviously love him

It turns out I don't enjoy people not laughing when other people are trying to make them laugh, so it wasn't for me... I'm out. /Deborah Meaden voice.

But yes, obviously it's going to run and run because it presumably costs nuppence nuppeny to make.

I'm still confused as to why they took so long to bring it to panel show happy UK tbh!

Ending did up conforming to most versions of the show - winners tend to be veterans, and almost always male.

Naughty taughty was great, yes.

The veterans thing is presumably because a lot of the young bucks have looked up to them their whole lives and are predisposed to finding everything about them hilarious. There's probably a ton of people on the casting team courting Jack Dee or Paul Merton round about now.

Well, and conversely, the veterans are jaded and not amused by the young 'uns. UK far from the worst version in that dynamic tho.

Yeah, I read reviews of the Irish one when it came out and assumed that they were all as bad

I loved this so much that I immediately watched the Irish one and thought it was great. It got so chaotic at the end. Started the Candadian one but it wasn't as good.

The UK one was one of the best things I've seen in ages. Mortimer and Ayodae doing the speed dating absolutely killed me.

Most of the ppl in the Irish one were rubbish imo and there was so much low hanging fruit.

The Canadian one has Tom Green's Carson monologue which is worth the price of admission.

I love Aisling and I liked Deirdre, Catherine, and Jason none of whom I knew before. It wasn't as good as the UK one at all but I enjoyed it.

I stopped the Canadian one part way through so I don't think I saw that but will go back to it.

Whatever about the rest of them, some of whom I know in person and they are nice people, you could not pay me to watch a programme with David McSavage in it. He is the worst.

I know nothing about him (had to look up which one he was just now) but he was def the worst one.

Saturday Night Live is to have its own British version called SNL UK.

It will be made in London with an all-British cast, executive produced by Lorne Michaels and it will air in 2026.

— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) April 10, 2025

I quite like US SNL, there are UK comedians I like, but somehow I can't imagine this being anything other than the worst programme ever made

have there been any good UK sketch shows in recent years? The only one I can think of is Ellie & Natasia

US SNL interesting as an exercise in "how much talent can you pour into a show for decades and decades without ever being funny", don't see any need to repeat the experiment elsewhere tho.

Who's gonna sing "Hallelujah" when Reform gets in?

have there been any good UK sketch shows in recent years? The only one I can think of is Ellie & Natasia

Burnistoun is the only one I can think of.

i've watched the first 3 eps of LOL. Bob Mortimer would have me in stitches.
switched over to watch a bit of The Martian I'd recorded for another day and Mr Swallow pops right up as a NASA JPL guy, freaked me out a bit!