New series started last night. Astonishing. Take away the postmodern context and you could almost have been witnessing a script from Cannon and Ball circa '78. Gags about Jordan's boobs! Gags about "jungle" music! If this HAD been Cannon and Ball's hilarious "Casino" the nation would have been up in arms!
And my disinterested, objective response? Well actually I was rolling about on the carpet laughing myself sick.
― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
So what do you all think about SS and Reeves/Mortimer in general? Is
there still a place for them in our world or have they run out of
tricks, a la Red Baron?
― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
about half of it i really, really loved and frankly Jordan deserves
all the boobie jokes that people can throw at her and more. the
hernia sketch was waaayy overdone, as was the car with the arse. but
Johnny Vegas was the funniest thing evah and Bob making Goldie eat
the meatball using the magnet - sheer GENIUS (even though me and
RickyT were sitting there going "oh it's some kind of new magnetic
gold now is it?" hehehehehhh
― katie, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
he says more later on RickyT, though not much.
Haven't we talked about this before though?
― chris, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
you should try it, it's nice. the thread was called Vic and Bob have
they lost it or somesuch. Search still doesn't work for me despite
Dastoor's insistence that it should.
― chris, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
Think I'll wait 'til they start giving out the boxes for nowt.
I did do a Vic/Bob/Reeves/Mortimer/Shooting Stars search here but
couldn't find anything.
― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
Repeats in February? Bah. ;-)
(the magnet and the vacuum cleaners were amusing)
― Jeff W, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
That'll explain it then. We didn't get far as most people were
waiting for the terrestrial showings anyway, I think there may only
have been me, Jonnie5 and a.n. Other that had seen it.
― chris, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
I stopped categorising threads after I became snowed under with them,
and it all seemed a bit superfluous wot with Graham's search engine.
If it doesn't work properly moan at him, he set it up.
― DG, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
watching "heroes of comedy: mike yarwood"
on C4 on sat, i was struck by two things
(which incidentally many of the paid
interviewees, mostly fans, concurred in:
these are not INSIGHTS just observations)
i. his material was TERRIBLE
ii. his "craft skillz" were genuinely
extraordinary — of british men he was a
STARTLINGLY good mimic
alt.com sort of gave him an excuse to go
home, sober up (he had become a clinical
alcoholic) and GIVE UP. He and his family
both agreed he was happier OFF-screen, and
that this wasn't a tragedy, the way so many
showbiz lives are.
He was funny, when at all, by repetition of
catchphrases: often (not always) merely
copying the catchphrases of the likes of Eric
Morecambe, and getting a vicarious laugh as
a result. "He had his own kind of politics,"
said Rory Bremner gently, tho RB was
plainly (and justifiably) an admirer of
Yarwood's technique AS A MIMIC: this meant
— as even an overpaid halfwite like Simon
Hoggart realised — that he made politicians
cuddly, and that they grasped that this paid
dividends and played along.
A lot of alt.com — Alexei Sayle is a salient
example — was VERY technically slapdash
(tho I think AS was/is potentially a very
gifted, major comedian, especially in regard
to RANGE of material, which is of course why
he was so much the catalyst for the rise of
"alternative").
Isn't part of the problem in re our judgment
of for example Cannon and Ball that we
tended to see them clearly only from a time
and an angle when they — trapped in early
"old-skool" development when the Grate
Shift occurred — they were ALWAYS
somewhat on the defensive, as to the core of
what they did. Music Hall Brit-com always
ALWAYS *ALWAYS* had a weird mad-
learned edge to it (Ken Dodd studying Freud;
Max Wall; even the grimly determined Bob
Monkhouse, the only man to REVISE before
appearing on Not the Nine O'Clock News). It
was tired and drab in the late 70s because
60s TV success had utterly drained it of
flavour, not because it was intrinsically
reactionary.
Oops: I smell bugbear. Anyway, this is one
of 35 (million) reasons I hated The Filth and
the Fury. Temple claimed a pistols-
relationship to the Great British Comedian
which he — as usual — waltzed away from
exploring. What ticked me off is that the
relationship is REALLY REALLY
INTERESTING, a fresh way into an ancient
tale (but also very tangled and
contradictory, a likeness posing as a
distance — or vice versa).
― mark s, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)