Rolling UK Comedy Thread - "Ricky Don't Lose Larry David's Number

Enjoyed in incongruity of Joy Division against england's green hills

Liked the bit in the first episode where Atmosphere started up and I thought "lol soundtrack", then suddenly Brydon's voice cut in, "what the hell are you playing this for?"

the fourth ep had a few good jokes, but a lot of it was hateful. really not moved by the plight of shallow, uninteresting media folk like the photog, and i thought it was dickish to make brydon hit on the talentless, how-is-she-ever-employed woman from 'nathan barley'

You're not doing that "hates women in the media" image any favours here dude.

Did anyone else watching really think they were supposed to be moved by the plight of the photographer? She was there to make Coogan look like a guilty coke letch.

I thought having the women at the table worked because it changed the dynamic of the weird competitive friction between the two of them - Brydon trying-too-hard even more, Coogan looking alternately embarassed and jealous. But yeah, Brydon hitting on the PA at the end just didn't ring true with me at all.

The "tomorrow we leave at dawn!" bit in the car at the start was the best though.

About to watch ep 1 of this show but I'm worried now.

Really loved the fourth episode. I would say best episode by far, but this show's pleasures are so subtle that I may have just missed out in previous weeks (not that I disliked them, except for maybe sections of the second one, when I felt it was all a bit repetitive). But this was the week it really took off for me.

The pacing and editing on the restaurant scene was just brilliant. Loved loved loved the dynamics between the four of them.

Must say, the Brydon pounce was so weird I almost dismissed it as a joke.

I suppose you could read it as Brydon being a bit jealous of Coogan and trying to emulate him, but actually as a viewer I don't want him to be jealous of Coogan, I want him to be the comfortable assured foil to Coogan's weird insecure midlife crisis. Might be why they did it.

The "tomorrow we leave at dawn!" bit in the car at the start was the best though.

yeah this was immense

an internal siren goes off when i hear a comedy is so subtle large stretches of it are unfunny, tho

the reason i didn't like this one is mainly coz while the women being there changed the dynamic, i didn't like the way they changed it -- didn't believe brydon would be that much of a tit (even without hitting on the PA). it would have been better if the women had been more than an audience for the stars, but i guess 'irl' they have to fawn over the talent, so winterbottom gets his get out of jail free card there.

This was the first episode that really had me lolling, too.

What are the quote marks around "irl" doing? Is it that you're questioning whether that happens in real life, or being resentful about real life, or what?

I don't think fawning over the stars is a PA's job but whatever.

What are the quote marks around "irl" doing? Is it that you're questioning whether that happens in real life, or being resentful about real life, or what?

― Alba, Tuesday, November 23, 2010 10:15 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

it's because im uninterested in what's real, im interested in what's funny or true. the PA was a completely insipid non-character, the photog was boring -- and sad in a way the show didn't want to explore. couldn't they have been funny? i don't think the agent is either funny or accurate, but they at least try to make him a comedic character.

Given it's a comedy about comedians, I can see why they reduced them to substitute-audience, because throughout the series we've only seen them "performing" in front of an audience of one another.

oh gosh, fourth episode of The Trip - whole new spaces opening up, in between the folds

I have no idea what this means.

The "tomorrow we leave at dawn!" bit in the car at the start was the best though.

This was good, but went on too long, like much in this programme. I think I might prefer to watch the feature-length cut actually.

^^ yeah i've wondered about that

I gave up on that ep 1 after the very lengthy Michael Caine-off. Too self-indulgent.

brydon and coogan were such boors at lunch. the way brydon, in particular, forced things - it gave a different, more unpleasant note to his character. (which felt like an emotional twist, in a way - he had previously seemed like the face for the audience, more sympathetic than coogan.) and yet despite their awfulness, they were still half-charming, half-hilarious. feels very interesting/real/true, knowing irl actors/comedians - insufferable and sufferable.

thought there was a new tragedy to Coogan's interactions w the photog. (Does he really remember her? So sad.) And I liked the come-on -- undercut Brydon's perfect marriage, but in this note-perfect way that wasn't a moral black/white.

but i think me and history maybe just not on the same page: enjoyed the PA character, heard wits under her giggles. and felt like the program was completely unsympathetic to the photog - she looked pretty, but seemed by far the least, i dunno, alive? spirited? like, i felt somehow that she was beneath them all, in spite of her self-command.

she looked pretty, but seemed by far the least, i dunno, alive? spirited?

Also, she was using a 7D! Call yourself a pro and you're shooting with a crop sensor? Pah!

Sorry. Do carry on.

new gervais stand-up is pretty bad. his usual "arent i awful" schtick. the only half-funny things come when he mentions a few pilkington quotes

Geting very bored of the Trip this week.

bag o'shite

Brilliant new episode of The Trip. Every episode has surprised me in some way, done something new to make me look forward to the next.

oh snap

I liked the limestone guy but this was the first episode that really felt like treading water to me.

^ditto

As much as I liked it at first, I can't help but feel they'd exhausted the concept three episodes in.

I dunno if it was treading water. I think the Coogan character is treading water. He faultered so often, it looked like his heart wasn't in the usual impression banter, the comments seemed more barbed, less humorous, more meant. Brydon noticed COggan was on the rocks (do you see aaaaah) and was being nice in the way that competitive blokes are nice ie not being very nice at all but thinking they are. I thought this episode was beautiful.

agreed. i don't know if its gripping television or anything, but there's a definite subtle evolution to the characters as the show wears on, and so the repeated format of the shows - their banter, the dinners, the impressions - is different every time: more tense, darker in today's episode. there's a melancholy to the coogan character as well which offers a nice side of pathos, tempered by the fact that he's not entirely a sympathetic character.

i'm really enjoying it. not desperate to watch last night's episode again, unlike the first couple, which had me helpless with laughter again on the second watch.

So, did anyone watch Tramadol Nights? We watched it last night, and just kind of sat looking at it going "uh, wtf?" a lot. Sketches were uniformly terrible, about two lols in the stand-up bit, mostly seemed to be based upon the desire for an (unsuccessful) attempt to out-Sadowitz The Pallbearer's Revue just for the hell of it.

i did. enjoyed the bit about burning bush etc. then spent the rest of the time just looking at his lack of beard whilst unfunny things happened. audience seemed to like it.

is repeated tonight.

Burning bush bit was one of the lolz, the "in the Village People?!" comeback to the camp fireman the other. Was losing the will to live by the end of the Knight Rider sketch.

There's a Knight Rider sketch?! Cutting edge, man.

mostly seemed to be based upon the desire for an (unsuccessful) attempt to out-Sadowitz The Pallbearer's Revue just for the hell of it

'Doing' Jerry Sadowitz is Frankie Boyle's entire career surely? I don't pay much attention to him, so maybe I'm wrong

I suppose. He didn't used to be quite so nihilistic, I'm sure.

guy's got approx 1hr of good material and he hammers it a lot. wouldn't've called him exackly Sadowitz-esque but I find Jerry more endearing tbh

I used to actually find Boyle a wee bit endearing and likeable, whereas now it's all just "fuck you world" with no let-up. Sadowitz is the nearest lazy comparison I could find, and I'd be surprised if he wasn't a clear influence on Boyle.

Well, The Pallbearer's Revue was what came to my mind when I watched TN as well (I didn't think that quite worked either). But the sketches in this were so drawn out and aimless, and, my god, the Green Mile skit... bizarre.

Sadowitz is the nearest lazy comparison I could find, and I'd be surprised if he wasn't a clear influence on Boyle

Well I know one person who certainly thinks so. Glaswegian. Big nose. Top hat.

The Green Mile thing was just eye-widenly toe-curlingly WTF-inducingly fucking batshit. Oh, and not funny.

Couldn't sit through Tramadol Nights...I find unfunny comedy excruciatingly painful -almost akin to social embarrassment, for some reason.

Last episode of The Trip was the best one I reckon.

The closing intercutting between Lonely Coogan and Fulfilled Brydon was so overegged my television set developed salmonella.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R2dsmggw6E

I presume it was an homage.

Jordan taking her lawyers to Frankie Boyle over a joke he made about her son. Am slightly surprised this is the story and not a really unfunny sketch solely building up to a punchline which involved wanking Jesus on the cross, tbh. Where's all the Jerry Springer The Opera nutters when you need them (to laugh at)? If, as is suspected, this is Frankie Boyle's career suicide by TV, he's completely failed at even outraging people.

Tramadol Nights is really really painfully unfunny. Two episodes in and I'm not sure I can even watch it out of morbid curiosity now.

The closing intercutting between Lonely Coogan and Fulfilled Brydon was so overegged my television set developed salmonella.

sadly yes - ruined it a bit for me, but this felt like the least eventful episode also

biggest lol probably coogan's tom jones

http://m.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a292045/frankie-boyle-comedy-slips-below-1m.html

980,000 for a Channel 4 show at 10pm is a triumph tbh

unless there's a Hollyoaks Tits Oot special, obv.

i saw 2nd tramadol. that was NOT JESUS on the cross, it said on the sign above him. but yes, stuck for something funny? throw in some wanking. (george michael sketch in week one, time travel sketch week two)

also
"Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights averaged 980k (4.7%) for Channel 4 from 10pm, down 380k week-on-week. A further 159k (1.4%) watched the show an hour later."

can the people writing the "below 1m" headline not add up?