channel 4's death of the sitcom

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

thought this was very interesting
not sure if the family comedy is a sign the sitcome is in rude health but i suppose its one step
but with it being so bland, i can only imagine future comedies commisioned from its success will be similarly inoffensive
the sad thing about this docu is that you could substitute the british sit com with several other mediums in popular culture right now - the story/predicament seems to be the same across the board

― okok, Monday, 2 January 2006 22:17 (nineteen years ago)

They then are helpfully following this up with a list of the 20 best sitcoms ever. "Sitcoms now are rubbish, but pine for the days of the Young Ones". Very good.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 2 January 2006 22:22 (nineteen years ago)

awful show. the interviews were okay, but the central argument seemed very flawed - why not see partridge and the office as necessary evolution of trad sitcom rather than antithesis thereof? seeming ignorance of shows like ab fab and hyacinth bouquet etc? most of the old guard just seemed very bitter, carla lane esp, and she did seem as if she believed she *deserved a constant contract at BBC. where was father ted? and to consider my family as anything other than mawkish, cliched, deadly unfunny crap (and since when was the middle class family a trad sitcom mainstay, if genre peaks are rising damp, steptoe, only fools, porridge, etc etc etc etc?)

gah. so so so very flawed.

― i am not a nugget (stevie), Monday, 2 January 2006 22:38 (nineteen years ago)

Sorry, I wa watching that etymology show on the other side, which nertained me greatly. I was gonna torrent this, but I don't think I'll bother now.

― Johnny B Was Quizzical (Johnney B), Monday, 2 January 2006 22:44 (nineteen years ago)

this 'best sitcoms evah' thing is better, tho dumb talkin heads abound.

― i am not a nugget (stevie), Monday, 2 January 2006 22:45 (nineteen years ago)

I didn't see this but I'd say the past year has been absolutely outstanding for sitcoms (Peep Show, Thick of it, Green Wing, Nathan Barley etc) and spookily enough some of them have been on channel 4.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Monday, 2 January 2006 22:46 (nineteen years ago)

it defined C4 sitcoms as inherently outside the mainstream, and therefore non-traditional.

― i am not a nugget (stevie), Monday, 2 January 2006 22:49 (nineteen years ago)

At least this isn't the Fools and Horses/Vicar of Dibley love-in that these things usually are - Larry Sanders at No 5.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 2 January 2006 23:27 (nineteen years ago)

I'm guessing top 4 of:

Seinfeld, Frasier, Porridge, Fawlty Towers.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 2 January 2006 23:28 (nineteen years ago)

Is Spaced really that well regarded?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 2 January 2006 23:28 (nineteen years ago)

I'd guess the top 4 to be:

4. Frasier
3. Seinfeld
2. Porridge
1. Fawlty Towers

Porridge should win, obv.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 2 January 2006 23:29 (nineteen years ago)

I'm actually quite surprised about the lack of Only Fools and Horses. It was the definitive sitcom for some considerable length of time, and was very good in its heyday. And how can Channel 4 go through this entire list without mentioning Friends, yet show it about four times a day across its various channels? Start with the Frasier repeats already, please?

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 2 January 2006 23:35 (nineteen years ago)

Good to see Sanders and Silvers in there. But they'd better have Seinfeld in the top 5...

Thank goodness Friends isn't in there!

― stew!, Monday, 2 January 2006 23:37 (nineteen years ago)

Seinfeld, then Fawlty Towers, then Frasier at Number One. It's Channel Four, and they had a clip on at the start from someone saying that something that only had 12 episodes can't be truly a classic. Unless they wheel it back out again to laugh at them when FT does win.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 2 January 2006 23:39 (nineteen years ago)

But they'd better have Seinfeld in the top 5...

I spoke too soon.

I dunno if Frasier will be in there. It's not quite as good as Cheers, which shoulda been higher.

My top 5...

Father Ted
Seinfeld
Larry Sanders
Spaced
Blackadder

― stew!, Monday, 2 January 2006 23:41 (nineteen years ago)

It's going to be Frasier...David Hyde Pierce and John Mahoney are all over the talking heads bit.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 2 January 2006 23:42 (nineteen years ago)

I love Frasier, but they are showing some duff clips thus far...

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 2 January 2006 23:46 (nineteen years ago)

b-b-b-b-but... Cheers is SO MUCH BETTER than Frasier. Cheers is like highbrow comedy in lowbrow environs - all about class relationships, so many varied and subtle characters and so many great viewpoints, so everyone is up for satire, and possessed of a bleakness underneath its warmth - where frasier is just (immaculately produced) farce - mistaken identity, etc - with highbrow trappings - those quotes in white on black between ad breaks, which are really just knowingly bad puns on high culture...

tho frasier has some fab characters...

― i am not a nugget (stevie), Monday, 2 January 2006 23:47 (nineteen years ago)

They relied on farce too much, but the relationship between Martin and his sons was wonderful sometimes, and some of the writing was just fantastic. But yes, fab characters - Niles, Roz and Bulldog in particular.

Dud only for Daphne's family - Antony LaPaglia in a Manchester United shirt talking like Dick van Dyke, aaaarrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhh!!

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 2 January 2006 23:52 (nineteen years ago)

ok, it was "death of the british sitcom".

it was an interesting show - seemed to big up the BBC of all things, considering it was actually on C4. Carla Lane was absolutely hilarious - they ought to make a realcom about her.

But yes, there seemed to be a lot of sketchiness when it came to their, rather conservative agenda. They didn't show any of Nathan Barley - I wonder what Carla Lane would have made of that.

― Wogan Lenin (dog latin), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 00:27 (nineteen years ago)

Also, I was thinking, if a show like My Family can be regarded as "the greatest sitcom of our time", or whatnot, and that it's written by a pool of writers (like most mainstream US comedies), then would it be worth starting a thread where Ilxors write a collective sitcom?

― Wogan Lenin (dog latin), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 00:30 (nineteen years ago)

"Cheers is SO MUCH BETTER than Frasier"

WE ARE BROTHERS!

― carson dial (carson dial), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 00:40 (nineteen years ago)

I haven't seen Cheers for ages, I really should watch it again. I didn't like Sam and Woody though, which kind of spoilt it for me, but I think Norm may have been blessed with the best one-liners of any sitcom character ever.

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 00:45 (nineteen years ago)

I used to love Cheers, but then I was pre-pubescent when it was on regularly. I've never really enjoyed a whole episode of Frasier, I can take it or leave it.

Wouldn't mind seeing Larry David versus Ricky Gervais that'll be on C4 soon.

― Wogan Lenin (dog latin), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 00:49 (nineteen years ago)

One of the best things about being unemployed is getting to watch the repeats of Cheers on Channel 4 on weekday mornings. One of the worst things about being employed is missing the repeats of Cheers. :(

― stew!, Tuesday, 3 January 2006 01:02 (nineteen years ago)

Yes, the "US sitcom at very low ebb (or perceived to be by Brits) in late-70s/early-80s", hence BBC/ITV failing to pick up Cheers = slightly balls, surely? Taxi?

Best moment of the double bill - John Mahoney saying Rising Damp was his favourite sitcom! But...I sorta didn't know whether to believe him. I would liked to have heard more from Victoria Wood about why she couldn't film dinnerladies like an episode of ER as she'd originally conceived it. Presumably it was just the overriding BBC1ness of the enterprise.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 01:02 (nineteen years ago)

Isn't John Mahoney British? Maybe it's a nostalgia for the country he left as a boy?

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 01:06 (nineteen years ago)

Blimey, you're right! Born in Blackpool, moved to the US in the '50s. Rising Damp would represent a very recognisable world for him, I guess.

I suppose it's forgivable in a show like tonight's docu to ignore the glaring exceptions to whichever rule they're trying to demonstrate, but Black Books comes to mind. So very conventional, but so very '00s and so very good.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 01:12 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, I wondered if they'd rep for Black Books or Peep Show.

How quickly everyone has forgotten the Royle Family. A few years ago, that would have been a shoe-in for the top 10, wouldn't it? Then along comes Gervais with his "oh, I'm the master of real-life-ordinary-people-doing-real-life-ordinary-things" and everyone forgets that Caroline Aherne was doing it first. I like to think that if it had been a top 30, Black Books, Peep Show, Phoenix Nights, Rab C Nesbitt and Still Game would also have featured. And Ever Decreasing Circles, though I think maybe only Mike would agree with me on that.

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 01:18 (nineteen years ago)

at least they showed a brief glimpse of the Mighty Boosh, but no Nathan Barley whatsoever.

― Wogan Lenin (dog latin), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 01:20 (nineteen years ago)

Oh yeah, I'd have liked to have seen Early Doors get a mention as well. Fuck this "the British sitcom is dead". No it isn't! There are just a number of crap ones, as there always have been. Doesn't mean that there aren't some good ones also...

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 01:24 (nineteen years ago)

I've been spending lots of time on the sofa watching M*A*S*H reruns and laughing my arse off.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 01:24 (nineteen years ago)

Oh God, yeah, another glaring omission. Also Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads.

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 01:31 (nineteen years ago)

The Likely Lads was shown quite a lot at the beginning. Is Early Doors good?

― Wogan Lenin (dog latin), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 01:33 (nineteen years ago)

I like it. There's a thread about it. Early Doors. It doesn't seem to be that popular with other people though, but reading the thread again, it seems to be a "grower". Oh well.

I missed the start of the first programme tonight. I never really liked The Likely Lads as much as Whatever Happened To... anyway, but I think I'm realising my opinion on sitcoms counts for cock all anyway.

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 01:51 (nineteen years ago)

Yes, EDC was the other exception-to-the-rule - "OFAH is the only mid-80s peak-time mainstream sitcom still highly regarded". Perhaps EDC has only crept back into the critical canon in the last couple of years thanks to Gervais going on about it, Penelope Wilton being in a few hip things and, of course, the unstinting support of a few ILXors...

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 09:43 (nineteen years ago)

"In the US, sitcom writing wsa at an all time low" !

OK, was MASH anywhere in the rundown? Hmm?

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 09:56 (nineteen years ago)

mike's use of abbreviations is making by brain ache.

i thought using clips from the same interviews for both programs was a bit dodgy, somehow. i then fell asleep before seeing the end (although the tivo tells me there's another showing on more4(?) later in the week)

in cheltenham over christmas i saw a shop selling complete sets of Love Thy Neighbour. that's cheltenham for you.

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 10:04 (nineteen years ago)

I don't get the 'My Family' hate. Smart show, mildly subvervise for its timeslot and well written and acted. Funnier than 99% of contemporary comedies anyway (Extras, Little Britain, last series of Alan Partridge, Green Wing). It's the 'Ever Decreasing Circles' of the millennia.

― Pete W (peterw), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 10:29 (nineteen years ago)

it is pretty rubbish but I would have pretty much agreed w/ you if you hadn't mentioned IAP

― RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 10:31 (nineteen years ago)

Loved the first series; hated the second (tho not seen it since transmission).

― Pete W (peterw), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 10:33 (nineteen years ago)

try it again

― RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 10:35 (nineteen years ago)

i haven't laughed at it once, the jokes are telegraphed months in advance, it is unapologetically cliched and unoriginal, the kids in the show are irritating, smarmy and hateful, and the whole thing just seems an exercise in "ooh, we can do an american comedy just as wellas the americans do" but compare it to a top-notch US sitcom and its like racing a hillman imp against a ferrari or something, just pitiful. and the situation itself is so bland.
believe me, i wanted to like it. but god damn. robert lindsay man, you used to be cool.

― i am not a nugget (stevie), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 10:36 (nineteen years ago)

yeah 'my family' is better than a lot of things (but not alan partridge).

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 10:39 (nineteen years ago)

Where the heck is the love for Home To Roost?

― Ste (Fuzzy), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 10:46 (nineteen years ago)

Nah Stevie, I disagree. Lindsay and Wannamaker understand comedy - they're proper actors and it shows - but also create middle-aged relationship that is believable and kinda sexy (only Karl and Susan Kennedy in 'Neighbours' can compete). Kris Marshall (eldest son) has comedy chops and gets the right balance between zany and real, but yeah, the other kids suck. It's not original, big whoop, but it's certainly not cliched. Compare it to an actually shit 'middle-class sitcom' (the World According to Bex, My Hero, anything on ITV) and it's comedy gold. There are things you can't do in the 8.30 BBC1 timeslot which obv hinder it, but i'd rather watch 'My Family' (in its peak Marshall years) than 'Friends' or 'Will and Grace', ie the US equiv.

― Pete W (peterw), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 10:46 (nineteen years ago)

I withdraw my 'alan partridge' claim.

― Pete W (peterw), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 10:48 (nineteen years ago)

again, I was almost not disagreeing w/ you until you mentioned friends and will & grace

my family is rubbish

crosspost

― RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 10:49 (nineteen years ago)

'will and grace' is shit. 'dad's army' is shit. 'cheers' is shit. 'only fools and horses' is shit.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 10:57 (nineteen years ago)

let's chalk it up to differing tastes; the oldest kid in the show is the worst offender, IMHO, like a spoilt child overperforming when his parents friends come round, and Lindsay and Wannamaker look like they're acting. there's also this weird thing where they sound like they're almost trying to sound like americans, but in full-on british accents, and the words just sound false in their mouths.

that it was created by a guy who wrote for larry sanders absolutely stuns me.

i mean, friends is trash, but its like insanely well-produced trash, a junk food that's guiltily delicious if devoid of any nutritional qualities. my family is a cold and unlovely Wimpy hamburger, on a plate, with a brown bun, and cheddar cheese. it thinks its doing right, but gets all the details wrong.

― i am not a nugget (stevie), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 10:58 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 178 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Up the Elephant and Round the Taj Mahal.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 5 January 2006 16:49 (nineteen years ago)

Kulfi, Rice and Dhansak

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Thursday, 5 January 2006 16:53 (nineteen years ago)

Till Dosas Do Part.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 5 January 2006 16:56 (nineteen years ago)

2.4 Chapati

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 5 January 2006 17:01 (nineteen years ago)

Are you people looking up menus?

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Thursday, 5 January 2006 17:01 (nineteen years ago)

You don't have to be Madhur Jaffrey to work here, but it helps!

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 5 January 2006 17:07 (nineteen years ago)

And then we wonder why the sitcom died...

― Zoe Espera (Espera), Thursday, 5 January 2006 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

Someone should email this to Carla Lane.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Thursday, 5 January 2006 17:14 (nineteen years ago)

Naan.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 5 January 2006 17:18 (nineteen years ago)

The Lassi Birds.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 5 January 2006 17:18 (nineteen years ago)

Gheeflies.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 5 January 2006 17:18 (nineteen years ago)

Jalfresier.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Thursday, 5 January 2006 17:31 (nineteen years ago)

(there is a book called Paperback Raita, I saw it in the library once)

Paneerama
Aloo Aloo

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 5 January 2006 18:24 (nineteen years ago)

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000CR6WZS.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― Ben Mott (Ben Mott), Saturday, 14 January 2006 21:01 (nineteen years ago)

Now he's Professor of Jokes at Oxford University Iannucci will be giving a series of four lectures on this sort of thing over the next month (schedule below). It's my understanding that these lectures are open to the public, but if anyone would like to come and will be travelling a long way, I can confirm this if necessary. If they're not open to the public, you can be my guest. I'll be at them all except the second one (which clashes with Daniel Kitson's Edinburgh preview preview at the Richmond Spring in Bristol).

Tue 24 Jan (5.30 pm, St Anne's College, Oxford)
`British TV Comedy: Dead or Alive?' by the News International
Visiting Professor of Broadcast Media, Armando Iannucci (comedy
writer and producer). Inaugural lecture - `Ever Decreasing Viewing
Figures: the decline of mainstream comedy'. Followed by drinks.

Tue 31 Jan (5.30 pm, St Anne's College)
Armando Iannucci: `British TV Comedy: Dead or Alive?'. Lecture 2 -
`Little Office: the rise of cult comedy'.

Tue 7 Feb (5.30 pm, Green College)
Armando Iannucci: `British TV Comedy: Dead or Alive?'. Lecture 3 -
`Help!: TV comedy under threat.'

Tue 14 Feb (5.30 pm, Green College)
Armando Iannucci: `British TV Comedy: Dead or Alive?'. Lecture 4 -
`Two Feet In The Grave?: how can mainstream comedy survive?'

― Mike W (caek), Saturday, 14 January 2006 21:12 (nineteen years ago)

nightingales! on DVD! jesus fucking christ. i know i said this when the news was first announced, but that cover makes it all the more real.

i'd forgotten david threlfall was in it.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Saturday, 14 January 2006 21:16 (nineteen years ago)

I would be really interested in those Iannucci lectures, but it's just a tad too far away :( Will you be reporting back (please) Mike?

― ailsa (ailsa), Saturday, 14 January 2006 21:18 (nineteen years ago)

They do look rather good, don't they? A few people have asked me to take notes, so yes, I will report back.

― Mike W (caek), Saturday, 14 January 2006 21:26 (nineteen years ago)

The second one looks the least interesting, so I'm selfishly glad that's the one you are missing.

― ailsa (ailsa), Saturday, 14 January 2006 21:28 (nineteen years ago)

I'd miss an Al Green concert for a Daniel Kitson gig. Actually, I wouldn't, but you get the point.

I am particularly looking forward to drinks after the first one. Its not every day you get the opportunity to drunkleny bother a hero in earshot of my employers AND senior Channel 4 editorial staff. Good times.

"My fly's got no nose." "How does he smell?" "He's got a thousand eyes and that compensates."

― Mike W (caek), Saturday, 14 January 2006 21:55 (nineteen years ago)

"And there's the highly successful ensignia of the German Nazi party"

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Saturday, 14 January 2006 23:51 (nineteen years ago)

Am currently watching "Hyperdrive", which, despite a promising cast, is a total old load of arse. Who commissions this stuff? How bad is the stuff that *doesn't* make it?

― ailsa (ailsa), Sunday, 15 January 2006 22:17 (nineteen years ago)

I'm only half-watching it bit it seems like total rubbish, yes. And I love Nick Frost.

― Cracks (Crackity), Sunday, 15 January 2006 22:22 (nineteen years ago)

i saw that the other day. they'd forgotten to put any jokes in.

― Wogan Lenin (dog latin), Monday, 16 January 2006 10:08 (nineteen years ago)

The mystery is how it ever got onto BBC2. It's not even good enough to deserve a series on Radio 4, let alone BBC3. Post-Dr Who, it seems any old sci-fi sack of arse will get a green light.

Even 'Hyperdrive', however, is not as bad as 'TittyBangBang'.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 16 January 2006 10:17 (nineteen years ago)

Hyperdrive's script isn't worth the money they spent on the set.

Tittybangbang's script definitely isn't worth the money they spent on prosthetics.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 16 January 2006 11:24 (nineteen years ago)

Tittybangbang = "OMG THAT'S HER REAL ARSE" and zero laffs

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Monday, 16 January 2006 11:27 (nineteen years ago)

If you read the show's website, one of the actors says she used a stunt arse.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 16 January 2006 11:32 (nineteen years ago)

I saw about half an episode...

Specifically the bit that's a takeoff of that sexliesvideo bit.. "I like to have a wazz on the ladies.."

OK, I laughed. So did Dawn. and not 'knowingly' before you go off on one!

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 16 January 2006 11:36 (nineteen years ago)

Think the guys at Off The Telly were thinking what I was thinking about the Channel 4 sitcom show. ( http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/reviews/2006/sitcom.htm) especially that last three paragraphs or so.

― MitchellStirling (MitchellStirling), Thursday, 19 January 2006 23:26 (nineteen years ago)

Just in case anyone was desperately hitting refresh hoping to see my report from the first Iannucci lecture, I didn't go. The theatre he was speaking in was full, and I refused to watch it over a video feed in the overspill theatre. I went to the pub instead.

Rest assured I will be sending a strongly worded email to those responsible[*] and go to the remaining three.

[*] Is not joke. The ratio of TV-people-up-from-London to members-of-the-university-he's-actually-supposed-to-be-teaching looked like about 3:1. I actually heard the woman on the door say to a group of undergraduates waiting outside, "Oh, we have enough students in here, you'll have to go next door" as though they only needed a few to pose with him for press shots.

― Mike W (caek), Tuesday, 24 January 2006 23:25 (nineteen years ago)

Tonight on BBC1:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/listings/programme.shtml?day=today&service_id=4223&filename=20060131/20060131_2245_4223_21938_60

Imagine...
Tue 31 Jan, 10:45 pm - 11:45 pm 60mins

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Studio

People keep saying the British sitcom is dead - too middle aged, too middle class and too middle English. But if that's true, says Alan Yentob, then why are our finest comic writers and performers making sitcoms? Why are they winning prizes? Why are they making so much money? Alan speaks to Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Armando Iannucci, Graham Linehan, Chris Langham and the casts of Green Wing and Peep Show, and makes a surprise entrance on My Family. What he discovers is a comic form in rude good health.

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:36 (nineteen years ago)

why are our finest comic writers and performers making sitcoms?

I don't think they are, but we have no way of knowing.

Why are they winning prizes?

Because the prizes are for sitcoms.

Why are they making so much money?

The runaway success of DVD and live tours.

I am not stopping up to watch this if this is the standard of question it raises.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:48 (nineteen years ago)

Someone once told me that the reason Seinfeld never got a decent or regular timeslot on BBC was that Alan Yentob hated it. So there.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:49 (nineteen years ago)

People keep saying the British sitcom is dead - too middle aged, too middle class and too middle English.

What constitutes "middle aged" - from late 20s to late 30s? Because that's the only people i see making sitcoms these days.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:52 (nineteen years ago)

will Yentob even point out the fundamental change in style and adaptation most successful sitcoms have had to make to stay fresh? (ditching audience track, increase on 'awkwardness' as #1 device as opposed to direct slapstick, knob-gags etc.)?

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:52 (nineteen years ago)

wow an 'answer show', it's like the tv blogosphere.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 13:41 (nineteen years ago)

> too middle aged, too middle class and too middle English

they forgot 'too white' and 'too male' (with apologies to dean lerner and fran katzenjammer).

was ok otherwise, fascinating to see behind the scenes on peep show (since cancelled, although aren't they about to jump to bbc2 with a differnt show anyway?) especially Jez sat in a corner reciting his lines whilst the other one talked to the camera.

― koogs (koogs), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 11:24 (nineteen years ago)

Graham Linehan seems to have the same ideas as me about contemporary comedy - I love the fact that he said his new show would have no swearing!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 11:34 (nineteen years ago)

haha, that's great & fits w/ what the first ep seemed like

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 11:50 (nineteen years ago)

i read him in the torygraph saying comedy shouldn't involve jokes about periods.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 11:51 (nineteen years ago)

He was misquoted. What he actually said was that comedy shouldn't involve periods without jokes.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 12:16 (nineteen years ago)

haha!

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 12:19 (nineteen years ago)

Give that man a Channel 4 programme commission!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 12:21 (nineteen years ago)

In the end I didn't go the second Iannucci lecture, which was last night, but went to Bristol to see Daniel Kitson. Je ne regrette rien.

Kitson has this rather complicated theory that, for a given absolute quality, how 'good' something is inversely proportional to how many people like it. Like Coldplay would be great if you were their only fan, but the fact that millions buy their album affects your ability to enjoy it because people ruin everything. This may have something to do with his rumoured continuous refusal to do TV (apparently Channel 4 have asked him more than once).

― Mike W (caek), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 13:03 (nineteen years ago)

Iannucci lecture was printed in the Observer this sunday:

"In a series of acclaimed lectures at Oxford, Armando Iannucci, Britain's leading comic writer and producer - and Observer columnist - is addressing the question, 'British TV Comedy: dead or alive?' In this, his second lecture, he calls for an end to the false war between the fringes and the mainstream"

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1702520,00.html

― koogs (koogs), Monday, 6 February 2006 15:40 (nineteen years ago)

three weeks pass...

oh dear, has anyone seen the new sitcom on bbc2 recently? it's based in an ice skating rink in the North. By the same people who did the Phoenix Nights series, but far far, *far* worse.

Without Peter Kay this type of humour just doesn't convince.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 2 March 2006 12:03 (nineteen years ago)

Yes, I had the misfortune to watch that the other evening. I presume there's an IT Crowd thread around here somewhere but I certainly didn't think much of that either.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 2 March 2006 12:07 (nineteen years ago)

Is it even worse than Hyperdrive?

― dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 2 March 2006 13:52 (nineteen years ago)

two weeks pass...

I have just watched an episode of Thin Ice, referred to above. I thought it was quite good. It is set in Derby in the East Midlands, not the north. You can watch it online here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/programmes/?id=thin_ice

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Thursday, 16 March 2006 14:13 (nineteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.

channel 4's death of the sitcom - C or D