The Secret Policeman's Ball

The Monopoly sketch with Richard E Grant was like something from Crackerjack, I expected Peter Glaze to walk on at any minute.

Funny, but my memory always told me that these were all 100% comedy genius, which unfortunately they are not (but I defy anyone not to include Peter Cook's "Entirely a Matter For You" in a line up of classic satire).

except for sarah silverman, who i'd never seen before and thought was ... well, absolutely fucking brilliant. best thing there by miles. perhaps it's a novelty-value thing - the incongruity of this sweet-looking jewish american girl coming out with stuff like that - but either way, she rocked. best line: the thing about not minding if we think she's racist, as long as we think she's thin. "a thin racist. yeh."

dada: yes, i thought to begin with that she was gonna die completely, but she seemed to bring them round ... that said, two or three of her funniest asides (and no, i can't remember which) seemed to pass everyone by completely, yet mrs F and i were roffling round the room. so the audience can go fuck :)

the cluedo sketch was intermittently funny, and it's always good to see jo brand. andrew maxwell was reasonable but not the genius i'd been led to expect. the boosh did what the boosh always do: one-quarter absolute inspired fucking genius that makes you boggle at its audacity; one-quarter laffs; one-half underwritten sub-student faffing about that reminds you why you've never really liked them that much.

(I didn't see the show)

Terribly disappointed by Izzard, although I thought he seemed to get better by the end of his segment, but it was too short for his stream-of-consciousness style to branch out anywhere.

Totally agree with grimly about the Mighty Boosh, although I'm not sure if we'd agree on which bits were which.

Andrew Maxwell = eh, okay.

Bits of the Natalie Imbruglia mimeoke sketch worked, most of it didn't. And I usually love mimeoke (to the point of making up a word to describe what it is).

Everything else = dire, turgid, painfully unfunny.

ANYWAY, i saw this as a live "cinecast" and thought it was atrocious! fuck! what a horrible few hours. almost nothing was funny (including sarah silverman, who i really like - she was just 'off', i thought) except for the mime/Imbruglia thing (! how could this have been the highlight!), the Mighty Boosh (whom i had never seen before) and I suppose Eddie Izzard, although it seemed like he was just working through some material he was developing. Russel Brand's performance was lazy, lazy, lazy, just someone arsing about with big hair. In fact, so many of the comedians just seemed ot be arsing about - like it was an open mic night, fucking around with various new material instead of performing a tight set.

Like Al Murray, by the sounds of it.

b-b-but i'd never even heard of her before, and obviously she wasn't serious about the grandmother bit because SHE'S A FUCKING STAND-UP COMEDIAN WHO'S JUST SPENT FIVE MINUTES DOING LOTS OF OTHER OFF-COLOUR AND NEAR-THE-KNUCKLE MATERIAL!

god damn. audiences today :)

Totally agree with grimly about the Mighty Boosh, although I'm not sure if we'd agree on which bits were which.

the idea of the "rabbit rape" thing, as opposed to the reality, and - yes! - the entirety of "pie" were, i thought, genius. "pie" was a great example of inspired stupidity: the over-the-top acting, the music, the realisation that it was only one instance of bad timing away from falling on its arse ... i dunno, i just thought it was kinda inspired.

I quite liked the Boosh although it didn't totally work. I suspect I would have thought they were a couple of unfunny fools had I not recently watched both their series and given myself over to their silliness. It did take a good few episodes before that happened.

Neither of them were in the Kumars. The man was Nitin Ganatra, the lead actor in Meet The Magoons, the woman was (I think) Mina Anwar, who was in Coronation Street and The Thin Blue Line.

niggaz be misrecognizing asians*

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/secretpolice/index.asp?page=5

DL you are not doing you "ILX's Daily Mail reader" rep much good with stuff like the Kumars comment :)

They performed both of these on their tour and imo were the two parts where, though kinda funny, seemed like they were just dicking about for the sake of it rather than doing funny stuff. Admittedly, watching an act perform a sketch for the second or third time it does stop being so good. That said I'd have thought a lot of the acts could have come up with some original material considering this was such a big gig and that "Pies" and "Rabbit Rape" will no doubt be on their live DVD.

Ooops, apologies. Although to be fair I've seen the Kumars maybe twice and Meet The Maggons once and that was a while ago. Every day is foot in mouth day for me I guess.

Anyway, it wasn't a very funny sketch.

i missed it. will it be on again?

DL, that should be "It's an easy mistaka to maka!" as in stereotypical Italian officer from 'Hallo, Hallo"

Al Murray was recycling exactly the same jokes as he'd been warming up with about three years ago. The Euro sketch was new but not particularly funny.

(just kidding! *hugs*! etc)

his Perrier award year was 1999!

A more simple (and plausible) explanation is that they didn't find her funny. Long time since I've seen any performer bomb so thoroughly.

He was very funny in them times.

I remember some years later seeing one of his videos as broadcast at christmas, and thinking "this isn't that funny actually" as in funny enough.

I guess it was a kind of surrealism that only worked for a little while.

The wolves: "We laughed! We Cried! We made love"

perhaps it was the juxtaposition of hottness and shocking material that made it funny. maybe it hinges on that too much

the grandmother rape skit was set up with a good tears welling up showbiz confessional thing.

i checked out her stuff on youtube because i totally fancy her obv. unfortunately for me, i realise that the future of comedy probably lies with her procreating with sacha baron cohen. och well.

it's funny. she needs a vehicle - SHE NEEDS BORAT!!!!

Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett shakespeare sketch is maybe my favourite comedy ever, tho. and Ustinov's hosting makes up for the cuntish hippy band that year.