People Like Us

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Ok so the joy of torrents has brought back to me the opportunity to watch once again the BBC show "people like us", which was on telly many years ago, and i assuemd had just been sucked into the void.
When i saw it 5 years ago or whenever, I felt it to be one of those terribly underrated shows than the bbc hasw and yet ignores, in favour of dross like 2 pints and a packet of crisps or whatever.

wacthign it again, it struck me that it predates the office in many ways, the premise is of a spoof documentary, a hapless interviewer questioning different people who pursue various trades, quite what he is trying to achieve is unclear, but its the themes of the awkwardness of the workplace, the absurdity of peoples little quirks and tics, the idiocy of "fly on the wall" docs, and basically very very funny.
I feel that it is more rounded than the office, aklthough incorporating these various themes. there is more of a sense of the absurd, and the spoof of crap tv is better targeted.

I felt that it was a shame that it never got more exposure. its got many of the usual Chris Morris/BBC comedy suspects, the woman who plays alan partridges PA, that really pretty bonde one who i cant rmemeber what shes been in, the really fucking creepy guy from jam.

you can buy the first series in dvd, and uk nova has torrents of the second series....i advise you to check it out!

anyone else caught sight of this gem?

― ambrose (ambrose), Saturday, 16 April 2005 21:48 (twenty years ago)

Alan Partridge's PA, Lynn, is not a pretty blonde. She's kind of a dowdy middle aged woman. Was it the senior receptionist from the TravelLodge he stayed at, who was in this? I've not seen it in years, but loved it.

Are you aware that Langham is now doing the same role, near as dammit, in Help, where he plays a psychiatrist and Paul Whitehouse plays an endless stream of patients? It's a brilliant show.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 16 April 2005 21:53 (twenty years ago)

I honestly can't put into words how brilliant "Help" was. I'm hoping the reason that there's been no threads about it is because none of you can either.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Saturday, 16 April 2005 21:57 (twenty years ago)

I wrote a little about it on FT, as did Mark S.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 16 April 2005 21:59 (twenty years ago)

no the pretty blonde is someone different to lynn.

ive heard of help, but not seen it. why does all this good stufff lsip under the radar? why is it that there didnt seem to be any decent comedy on tv when i had one?
is bbc 3 working as a sort of laboratory for comedy? is the ratio of shit to hits enough to justify the £100 million it cost?

*runs to uknova to look for "help"*

― ambrose (ambrose), Saturday, 16 April 2005 22:37 (twenty years ago)

its sarah alexander im thinking of

― ambrose (ambrose), Saturday, 16 April 2005 23:01 (twenty years ago)

It was a brilliant show.

― moley, Saturday, 16 April 2005 23:11 (twenty years ago)

OK, I have a song in my head that goes:

People like you
People like me
People we'd like to meet and who
Once in a while
Will smile
And tell the story of their lives

Somebody put me out of my misery, please.

― Madchen (Madchen), Saturday, 16 April 2005 23:37 (twenty years ago)

*BLAM*

― Plus-Tech Whiz Kid (Disco) (Barima), Saturday, 16 April 2005 23:57 (twenty years ago)

That was an amazing show. Great for stoned giggling with friends I find. Chris Langham is a genius. It's on DVD btw.

― Crackity (Crackity Jones), Sunday, 17 April 2005 11:52 (twenty years ago)

i love how his interviewees are always surprised that he's married

― shine headlights on me (electricsound), Sunday, 17 April 2005 22:49 (twenty years ago)

hehe

"are you sure?"

― ambrose (ambrose), Sunday, 17 April 2005 23:20 (twenty years ago)

Ah, so I now know where V1ck1 B3nn3tt aka People Like Us -- the experimental sound artist -- got the name... perhaps?

― donut debonair (donut), Monday, 18 April 2005 06:02 (twenty years ago)

hmm think she was doing that quite a while before...this programme came out in '99.

― ambrose (ambrose), Monday, 18 April 2005 06:12 (twenty years ago)

V1CK1 SHOULD SUE!

― donut debonair (donut), Monday, 18 April 2005 06:16 (twenty years ago)

ambrose once again you are up and at adult time of the morning, what's come over you?

― Ed (dali), Monday, 18 April 2005 06:19 (twenty years ago)

> this programme came out in '99

was on radio before tv though, i think.

― koogs (koogs), Monday, 18 April 2005 08:21 (twenty years ago)

but I'm pretty sure 'people like us' the soun-artist has been around since at least the early 90s

― Ed (dali), Monday, 18 April 2005 08:35 (twenty years ago)

it was a radio series though.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 18 April 2005 08:42 (twenty years ago)

I'm a radio rockist I'm afraid. PLU was just better there. I think one way in which it's significantly different to The Office for example is in the sheer volume of the *verbal* awkwardness, and how it's SO cleverly based on accidental puns and homophones and misunderstandings and ambiguities. Which obviously works extremely well on radio.

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 18 April 2005 11:24 (twenty years ago)

Admit it, Archel, you're just a big Radio 4 fan like me :-)

― caitlin (caitlin), Monday, 18 April 2005 12:12 (twenty years ago)

It was better on radio because it was much more like a radio documentary. The kind of interview led thing that Mallard did is not really done on television any more, its all docusoap with voice-over.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 18 April 2005 12:15 (twenty years ago)

Ha, i have no trouble admitting THAT caitlin. What IS embarrassing is that I also listen to Talk Sport phone-ins in the small hours of the morning...

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 18 April 2005 13:41 (twenty years ago)

Arguably the best moment in the whole series is when Roy has just been talking to the policeman in front of a shop window. He walks off and we see Roy and the crew in the reflection, whereupon Roy, startled, looks frantically for a way out of shot.

CLASSIC

― Crackity (Crackity Jones), Monday, 18 April 2005 14:18 (twenty years ago)

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People Like Us - UK TV