Comedy is the hardest thing to get right and yet the thing the public hunger for the most. The end result: Lots of comedies that aren't very good, but are often watched and discussed a lot despite their mediocrity (Catherine Tate anybody?) The success of Little Britain was bound to bring forth a whole host of rip-offs of which TBB is just the first and -- when you think about it -- a welcome first step towards being the last.
The problem with this show is that the first episode got reasonable reviews from the critics and why not? Some of the acting is first class and lead Lucy Montgomery (the thin one) is a great mimic -- you can hardly recognise her from one sketch to the next, but I don't want to spend time with these characters. Middle class people from Primrose Hill can laugh at council house clowns and slimy perverts in smelly bed-sits, but I don't want to. I have actually had to live with some of these people and they are not so funny in real life!
Catchphrases equal desperation. Something from 1950's radio where you couldn't see the people and needed vocal references. This is more than catchphrases, this is the just another case of the same gag being done over and over again against slightly different backdrops. They come on -- show their dysfunction -- shout their catchphrase (often more than once) and then the screen fades to black. And then we start over. No wonder people still want to watch the Two Ronnies twenty years after they were made -- at least they only did the gag once!
All TV is an education. Even bad TV. I have learnt something from watching this. This is an extenuation of what I see in real life. Women getting away with acting badly. A man having sex with a corpse wouldn't have got past the BBC blue pencil, but a woman? Hell that is OK, just as long as it is clearly fake. They even put it on-line so children can watch it any time of the day or night.
We shouldn't knock this show too much, we need to get over our Little Britain period and try and find something that is really funny (and clever-funny would be a change), because comedy is about tons of failure for ounces of success. Like mining gold for real.
The problem with this show is that the first episode got reasonable reviews from the critics and why not? Some of the acting is first class and lead Lucy Montgomery (the thin one) is a great mimic -- you can hardly recognise her from one sketch to the next, but I don't want to spend time with these characters. Middle class people from Primrose Hill can laugh at council house clowns and slimy perverts in smelly bed-sits, but I don't want to. I have actually had to live with some of these people and they are not so funny in real life!
Catchphrases equal desperation. Something from 1950's radio where you couldn't see the people and needed vocal references. This is more than catchphrases, this is the just another case of the same gag being done over and over again against slightly different backdrops. They come on -- show their dysfunction -- shout their catchphrase (often more than once) and then the screen fades to black. And then we start over. No wonder people still want to watch the Two Ronnies twenty years after they were made -- at least they only did the gag once!
All TV is an education. Even bad TV. I have learnt something from watching this. This is an extenuation of what I see in real life. Women getting away with acting badly. A man having sex with a corpse wouldn't have got past the BBC blue pencil, but a woman? Hell that is OK, just as long as it is clearly fake. They even put it on-line so children can watch it any time of the day or night.
We shouldn't knock this show too much, we need to get over our Little Britain period and try and find something that is really funny (and clever-funny would be a change), because comedy is about tons of failure for ounces of success. Like mining gold for real.