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

(xp) Good timing. One hopes, no doubt in vain, that the current crisis would kill off the pointless careers of unfunny cunts like Geoff Norcott.

liked this pilot about an all female muslim band lot

Lady Parts

*a lot

in a "Old time actors and directors that you were surprised to find out were married to each other once upon a time" style, this pandemic has thrown up a couple of things i didn't know about. the Comedians At Home thing on BBC2 last night had marcus brigstock and rachel parris doing a piece together. show wasn't life-changing in terms of comedy, but their bit was impressive for what it was (lip syncing).

(the other one being non-comedians, lara lewington and martin-money-saving-expert are both doing their shows from the same building)

New Diane Morgan thing, Mandy, was ok last week. I liked the one with the spiders in the banana factory. Odd format though, like 15 minutes long, each.

(On again tonight)

Paul Sinha's radio show is the epitome of fun fact.

I like the 15-minute format! Russian one was lol

Good guest stars as well.

new frankie boyle series started tonight, in before the left-wing comedy ban...

I don't know, if there's anyone I can see pivoting to a post-woke landscape...

the socially-distanced roundtable version of frankie boyle was funnier, i thought - the other comedians chipping in more and making each other laugh (especially useful due to lack of audience)

Yesterday is also showing dinnerladies on a sunday afternoon, something i actively disliked when it was originally on, but it's sharp and dense and full of language.

The first series of Dinnerladies is superb, but it falls off very badly in the second series, I think. I watched it again just last year.

Our household thought Frankie Boyle was very funny, but not as funny as Harry Hill talking about medical dramas, which made me cry laughing at one point. (Although I may have had a drink.)

Oddly HH was the other thing I meant to mention. Just the right blend of silly and good clips.

"thank you for joining us"

New Diane Morgan thing, Mandy, was ok last week. I

She's got a hell of a lot of credit in my household, but 'Mandy' was dogshit. Painfully unfunny.

HH has always been great at spotting TV stuff. It's gone a bit Look Around You, which I approve of. It's genuinely my ~TV highlight of the week~ rn

xp Noo! I thought Mandy got better. A bit '15 Storeys High'. Just daft. The 'Bulger boys' line had me laughing a bit too hard.

Really?! I bowed out after two episodes. I'll give you the Bulger boys line, that was funny :) But the whole 'I need to wee, let's piss in our wine bottle when my date's in the loo, empty it in his aquarium causing his fish to die, put it back on the table to have a sip of... wait for it... wee not wine!1!' was eyeroll for me. But I can see the slapstick element is funny for other people.

Hm yeah, that was a bit tedious. I think I just like the oddness of it, spider hammering, Shaun Ryder, Sonia - maybe it's the A-list cameos that pull me in.

b-but the whole spiders in the bananas thing...

it was interesting that they were 15 minute things, which felt about right. but then they showed them two at a time which undermined that.

Taskmaster starting soon on ch4

Daisy May Cooper
Johnny Vegas
Katherine Parkinson
Mawaan Rizwan
Richard Herring

(could've sworn KR had been on before)

Are people never on more than one series?

i don't think there's been a repeat so far, discounting the champion of champions season

ah, Katherine Parkinson is not the same person as Katherine Ryan (series 2)

Parkinson is the IT Crowd lady I think.

(i even used KR's initials in the same post as c'n'p-ing KP's name)

I am very surprised Richard Herring hasn't been on before now.

New series of Ghosts starts on bbc1 tonight (opposite university challenge). It's 8:30 on bbc1 so it's never going to be challenging but it's the horrible histories people iirc so is quite fun.

Oh yeah Ghosts is very enjoyable. I ended up canvassing a little with the lead actress on election day, funnily enough.

Atlanta is on bbc2 all this week. I think they are showing all 20 episodes of both series, 3 a night. It's not UK and not comedy, really, but I enjoyed it.

Watch it alongside community on 4 music for extra lols.

I think it's a comedy. The barber episode is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

It's funny but it also has something to say.

Last week's Frankie Boyle was good like this too. (Although sometimes on that I don't understand why they have 3 permanent guests and one they switch out halfway through. Mostly it's an expert but sometimes it's just romesh)

I found the BLM episode of Frankie Boyle's show a bit weird. Like, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be getting from it. It wasn't funny, and the people on it weren't any better informed than I was. So... what was the point of it? I haven't even watched this week's yet.

Atlanta is so great. We used to watch it as a double bill with the also sublime Better Things.

watched the BLM episode again and, dunno. was comedians talking politics but they were intelligent and probably had first hand experience of the stuff under discussion (ok, maybe Sara Pascoe not so much) and it was worth hearing. i hope it reached an audience that wouldn't see that stuff normally because they watch comedy and not, say, Newsnight.

it also reminded me of Larry Wilmore's Nightly Show thing that span off the Daily Show briefly and which was also interesting (but slightly weird in a similar way).

can't half-watch* Atlanta so i'm saving it up to binge some other time.

(* most tv watched during the day is listened to rather than watched because i'm 'at work'. a lot of shows don't really suffer when doing this, but some things are more complex or more involving or simply require me to look in order to follow it)

lovely bit on Ghosts on monday when robin's recounting his memory of thomas' death and they are all talking using his cadence.

tory mp on hignfy, why do they bother?

Ghosts is my favourite thing on telly right now.

New Taskmaster starts tonight.

is series 10 too late to start a taskmaster thread?

nothing wrong with last night's apart from the covid-inspired seating arrangements. oh, wait, he was too harsh on the 'no drop spilled' rule. there's a lot of rule bending i wish he'd come down harder on, but that wasn't one of them.

(they are all on All4 as well now, apparently (and still on Dave))

Daisy May Cooper laughing is already my new favourite thing on telly. The big reveal of the egg task was a bit Joe Wilkinson potato-gate, but the rest of the show was great fun, and Mawaan is going to be excellent value.

just want to congratulate Lee Mack for making me laugh for the first time in his career

Ghosts love thirded or fourthed.

Stath definitely getting S3 per Jamie Demetriou's Twitter.

That post from NV had me googling whether Lee Mack had died.

In a way

i'm trying ghosts based on you guys so let's see.

I lasted 2 eps then quit. Maybe it gets better.

If you don't like it from the start, you probably just don't like it.

yeah, it doesn't change much, all the one-joke characters continue with their jokes so it all depends on if you like said jokes.

that said, the rashomon-esque episode from a couple of weeks ago did something different and i've enjoyed the odd glimpse of their origin stories. and robin, generally.

the rashomon-esque episode from a couple of weeks ago did something different

Yes this was hilarious, and quite clever.