Ben Elton - where did it all go wrong?

Re plot of Queen musical: there's a layer of irony you just haven't noticed yet >ahem<

Seriously, yeah that sounded tragically like a parody. The article Elton wrote in the Daily Mail about how all modern pop was rubbish and Queen were the greatest band of all time sealed his fate for me.

I'll get me studded vest.

they don't seem to have repeated this experiment.

this thread title = genuine lols

http://mumbrella.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/ben_elton_audience_decline.png

http://boxcutters.net/files/2011/02/LiveFromPlanetEarthgraph.png

Context

hoo boy

Those original promos with just Mr. Elton looked slightly promising but then the promos in the last few weeks with "characters" looked utterly terrible.

I switched off about five seconds after BE's lukewarm stand up when they rotated the stage to reveal a pissweak schoolgirls sketch.

Elton will put his name to any old crap these days, won't he?

The second I saw Paul McCarthy's face I knew it would be a disaster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNW0Q2y4Qxg&feature=player_embedded

Gaga looks more like Kate Miller-Heidke amirite

"watch more great clips"...

Paul McCarthy? The artist?

Snakes alive, that clip is absolutely desolate. Just when I thought that BBC3's Coming of Age represented the nadir for tv comedy this arrives...

what's this an Aussie tv show? does he live there now?

i'll forgive him anything for the MotorVation live album which is still the best non Connolly live album by a uk stand up i've ever heard.
and obvs for Blackadder 2, 3 and 4. IMO he can do what he likes because his early stuff is untouchable, like Prince or someone.

what's this an Aussie tv show? does he live there now?

yeah and yeah, since about 1992

(used to do six months here, six months in UK, but has been mostly here for the last decade I think)

I'm about 20 minutes into this thing. It's all quite smooth and professional and Elton is a warm host but it's just. not. funny.

Right now there's a horrible sketch featuring Paul McCarthy (SEAL OF QUALITY) and some woman being all overdone chardonnay socialist and it's fucking painful.

Elton just walked back on, did a bit about fat chefs being ratings gold and said 'do we have a ratings death wish??' Surprisingly prescient considering he'd already shed 30% of his audience by that point.

oh and now a Matt Preston-alike farting. Mick Molloy's pissing sequence had nothing on whatever the hell this is.

Tim Minchin's supposed to be on next week! Good luck Australia.

http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2011/02/ben-elton-says-sorry-yes-we-got-the-mix-wrong.html

“The objections people had with it are not reflective of how the show will develop and I’m sorry about that. Clearly that was something we got slightly wrong but it’s not endemic of our process, it’s just that two sketches, three sketches in a row with ‘fannys,’ what can I say –it was a mistake.”

So this week's instalment is exactly the same except Elton's stand-up segments are a load of complaints about the show's criticism.

Looks like I've been roped into going to see We Will Rock You next week. Bloody hell.

Axed for repeats of Two And A Half Men, it says here.

bout time

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/16/3140508.htm

"Having run out of jokes to attract an audience, Ben Elton resorts to threatening people with Two And A Half Men," Erin Tanner tweeted.

Six eps commissioned, hoping for 800,000 viewers; plug pulled after ep 3 drew 186,000 (so ponders the SMH)

That's pretty piss-poor.

This is not like Let Loose Live or The Comedy Sale or The Bounce or etc etc, it was horribly flawed on so many levels that it was never ever going to be a success. As a kid who grew up in awe of everything with which Elton was involved (including Catflap, would you believe), all this is just unfathomable.

where did it all go wrong, I ask you

http://www.thedeafblog.co.uk/Queen.jpg

dammit
http://www.thedeafblog.co.uk/Queen.jpg

Looks like I've been roped into going to see We Will Rock You next week

This Saturday. P S Y C H E D !

Which reminds me,

https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1177546958l/712481.jpg

https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347944783l/1022612.jpg

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51yOptYelHL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

"finally horrifying" and "extremely funny" oops sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself here and still waiting to be "moved".

That Ardal O'Hanlon book is surprisingly dark & brutal and also not very good iirc

hey, it appeared in the library's new books display when I lived in a small town with a small library which didn't get new stock very often, so...

surprisingly dark & brutal and unsurprisingly not very good?

Is Woody Allen to blame for some of this? My recollection is that his actual writing (three collections 71/75/80) was actually really good (but not necessarily that different from his longer stand-up bits).

Nah, books are to blame..

Nah, the UK publishing industry is to blame.

I'm to blame

Sorry folks time to come clean

hang your head son

Dominic Holland is the Keyser Soze of this game. Nobody has even heard of him outside that strange sphere of small crowds of posh people, that politely titter at unfunny smug wankers. Yet he has had 7 or 8 books published. Even a one in a smug humblebragging style about how completely amusing it is that his son is now a major hollywood star, and he is a "nobody".

daft wee stories doesn't belong in this discussion

my slight acquaintance w/ppl who are professionally funny is that they are all hardcore readers, but readers skewed towards a quite narrow lineage -- a scholarship of their own trade and sometimes nort much beyond it. there's the ken dodd stories -- and i don't actually think bob monkhouse's serried ranks of books of collected gags are entirely different (a little different, but not entirely)

so they've all of them read pooter and 3 men on a a boat, and thurber and perelman, and (some of them) have read woody allen -- and it's a nice tradition to imagine feeling part of, and their trade is the crafting of words anyway, so it surely feels well within reach

what i suspect they're NOT doing is busily reading one another's allegedly comic novels -- just scanning covers as we're doing is offputting in itself (i feel an observational quip coming on), which suggests this sense of a problematic glut is more evident from slightly outside their world than in it, which further suggests few of them are mapping their current trade as rigorously as they're delving into its historical classics… bcz "i'm the new weedon grossmith" is more likely to chime than "i'm yet another dominic holland"

and yes, publishers see these ppl as names everyone knows we like to spend time with -- so that for them ([publishers) the books themselves are throwaway toilet-read nonsense that hit the present-for-uncle-phil xmas market (where it's new so you know he hasn't read it read) and better-sales-than-man-booker bingo >:(

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51KL%2BgcGy9L._SX318_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

bad bad bingo

actually intrigued despite myself at the sub-genre of angry self-loathing former comedians who were twitchers all along

hey, if those guys like it you know it's gonna be oh fuck it what's the point

tt has intimated that Hitler's Canary might be actually quite good

It has also got a bird in the title.

compared to other books in this genre or compared to actually good books by proper* writers?

*ooh

Irvine Welsh recommendng Katy Brand's debut novel is all time though.

Dominic Holland is the Keyser Soze of this game. Nobody has even heard of him outside that strange sphere of small crowds of posh people, that politely titter at unfunny smug wankers. Yet he has had 7 or 8 books published. Even a one in a smug humblebragging style about how completely amusing it is that his son is now a major hollywood star, and he is a "nobody".

I'm Carlin' him out as a raging Tory into the bargain. .

(Marcello not George)

got a face only a Tory could love

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birdwatchers

lol that this is even a wikipedia entry but some unexpected names did jump out (also more self-loathing UK comedians)

Is that anyway to talk about LJ?

Aye, that Holland has a strong Toby Young with hair vibe about him. But probably too much of a milquetoast desperado to publicly "come out".

Compared to other contemporary kids' books, Mark

Also I'd be charmed to make that list some day. Maybe when my next novel takes off thanks to a concerted online booster campaign by all my darling internet friends

birdwatching is good not bad

(which is why i am intrigued by its scowling ex-comedian wing)

Scowling misanthropic ex-comedians, or is that just Oddie?

rory mcgrath the bearded tit!

also vic reeves. eric morecambe and bill bailey (to roll down the gentle sloe of the scowling misanthropy index)

and van morrison (to clamber right back up it)

yes he's a kind of comedian

those beady little eyes that are like looking into oblivion, sometimes trouble my thoughts. From that tabloid photo of the bearded tit in grimacing mode, earlier this year.

http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/portrait-of-simon-and-garfunkel-joan-violet-stretch.jpg

LOL. I'm not sure how many of those are genuinely misanthropic, in an Oddiesque deep and abiding detestation for humankind way.

still repping for rory here

Finally, a big thank you to all the punters who came along, in particular to those big laughers - and especially those who have left reviews of Eclipsed at Edfringe.com

It is all about those big laughers!

this thread demands a return to comedy aimed at people who never laugh ever

there is more hatred and misanthropy in one "big laugher" at a Dominic Holland show, than in approx 2.7 Bill Oddie's, a scientist said yesterday.

ardal o'hanlon is onto something

It must be very hard for people who are so generous with their laughter, and generally so easily titillated though: Damn, I already ruptured my spleen again, watching Russell Howard doing standup, better not put that R4 comedy show on, to be safe.

god almighty stand-up comedy is a terrible thing

Nostalgically re-reading this and it seems amazing to think how much Upstart Crow took off.

The thing I get from skimming Wikipedia's article for Upstart Crow is that David Mitchell is sufficiently "hip" and "with-it" to have donated a professionally-shot portrait of himself to Wikimedia Commons, but it just means that everything featuring Mitchell comes across as weird because (a) Wikipedia articles don't generally have professional portraits and (b) because it's one of the few professional portraits of a media celebrity it appears on everything tangentially related to David Mitchell, even when it would have been better to have no image at all.

So, David Mitchell, you're too hip for your own good.

David Mitchell's wikipedia page is very detailed, the infobox even contains a 38 second audio file called 'David Mitchell's voice'

obviously got plenty of time on his hands

The Radio Times named him "The Best Comedy Panel Show Guest" in the world, stating that "he's incredibly, disgustingly witty" and "even starting to make Paul Merton look slow on the uptake"

jfc, he deserves to die

PRIVATISE CHANNEL 4 NOW

(guilty chuckle at my unintended LJ drive-by upthread, sorry LJ)