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

the daybreak routine was also terrific.

About 43min of that in the extras!

Yeah I'm really enjoying The Trip - can't put my finger on why, but I guess I just like seeing these guys being these guys with that constant one-upmanship and having so many shared frames of reference with each other.

"Oh Joshua, they say you ain't comin' back to the village"
"Pa..."
"I'm not your bloody dad!"

got a HUGE laugh here.

I've been watching Pete Versus Life on 4OD. It's got some good jokes.

said this on the partridge thread (only seen the first ep of trip yet though, might change my mind after watching more. esp interested in seeing ep 3 after what dorian said above):

MMM was great, not perfect but plenty of good smart laughs. i thought the trip was bloody awful though. brydon and coogan just don't work well together. it always descends into a not particularly amusing set piece of coogan snapping at a faux-naif brydon hamming it up. after coogan's universally panned live show last year and his shitty appearance on CYE (interesting how there are very very few fellow comics who coogan can gel with onscreen) i thought he'd completely lost it but i'm pleased that MMM has disproved that.

really? am loving every minute of the trip tbh. mmm is okay, but feels a little like DVD bonus out-takes or summat.

I like Te Trip despite it's self indulgences, but MMM is miles funnier. Miles.

Gonna just carry on enjoying Miranda in unhip silence.

just watched 2nd ep of the trip, liked it a lot more. the ray winstone impressions and the hair/neck things made me laugh. watchable but not great, seems like something they've half thought about and somehow got roped into making a full series. still, nowhere as much of a slog to endure as that damn tristram shandy film

not sure why he gets such a bad rep in certain corners of ilx, but the madonna skit at the end of the new sean lock dvd is fucking brilliant

Gonna just carry on enjoying Miranda in unhip silence.

Me, too. Supporting cast bug me, but she is funny.

Yeah everybody else is mostly terrible - partly deliberately, mostly not I think - but she carries it all by herself.

not sure why he gets such a bad rep in certain corners of ilx, but the madonna skit at the end of the new sean lock dvd is fucking brilliant

Does he get a bad rep? I've always really liked him. His blokey persona is pleasingly at odds with the lateral weirdness of his jokes.

he's one of the better guests on yer mock the weaks and so on

Yeah, another Sean Lock fan here. He completely makes 8 out of 10 Cats watchable, which is no mean feat, and I watched one of his stand-up shows on the telly the other night and laughed a lot.

15 Storeys High was the best BritCom of the OOs. [/challops]

#team_miranda over here

Another Sean Lock fan here. He completely makes 8 out of 10 Cats and QI watchable, which is no mean feat...

Actually he doesn't quite manage, but he's still quite a good pricker of pomposity.

He manages it for me. If he wasn't on it, I don't think I'd watch it. I'm kind of warming to John Bishop for similar pomposity-pricking on panel shows, even though I don't care for his stand-up at all.

The Trip is the best thing on tv.

I think Sean Lock's pretty funny, and I don't like many stand-ups. His persona of not being an obnoxious dick gives him the win over 90 percent of the competition.

The Trip is a bit repetitive though...By episode 3, I was feeling I'd seen all this in episodes 1 & 2.

Does he get a bad rep?

not hugely, just that he doesn't have a thread devoted to him and the only mentions of him (on this thread, by mr mayne there) are furious disses. but yeah agree that 15 storeys is one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, and his standup is reliably brilliant.

watched the first 5 mins of the new ricky gervais science standup (doesn't seem great so far, mad how much weight he's lost) and both he and lock have made v similar quips about michael jacksons funeral. lazy new comedy meme?

one thing i did notice about lock in this lockipedia show is how similar his observations are to how karl pilkington thinks, but more knowing obv. been listening/reading/watching a lot of pilkington stuff lately. idiot abroad is probably one of the funniest shows of all time, easily the best thing gervais has ever been involved in. all the 'is he/isn't he faking' bumf just gets in the way - if he is faking it he's a genius character actor, if not he's a genuinely stupid man, doesn't detract from how funny it all is.

Ep 3 was best yet of the trip. The aha into the valley was ;_; yet lol

Putting Sean Lock into the ILX search engine has reminded me that it was him that delivered a quality takedown of Ian Wright on They Think It's All Over. The passage of time had convinced me it was actually Rory McGrath.

(I am glad it wasn't Rory McGrath, I can go back to thinking he's a massive twat again now)

ooh sounds good, is there a youtube link?

From ian wright is stuuuuuu-pid!!!=

Ian Wright is on They Think It's All Over just now. They are talking about Germany selling out by having American beer.
Ian Wright: *mutters something about selling out*
Sean Lock: "yeah, England have never sold out to foreign influences. Like having a non-English manager"
Ian Wright: *glowers*
Sean Lock: "You'll be looking forward to seeing Arsenal in the Emirates Stadium then"
Ian Wright: *glowers, looks for something to slit wrists with*

I believe it was the timing and Lock's general affability that was the killer.

all the 'is he/isn't he faking' bumf just gets in the way - if he is faking it he's a genius character actor, if not he's a genuinely stupid man, doesn't detract from how funny it all is.

I used to know a bloke (geordie) who was exactly like Karl, right down to the shaved head. He played up his own naiveté to get a reaction. Thick in an endearing sort of way, but only inasmuch as he would get laughs out of it; if you pinned him down and forced him to be serious, you'd find an intellectually aspirant person in there. I reckon Karl is exactly the same.

A giveaway is that he's comfortable in front of cameras, even when he's in considerable discomfort and despite his loathing of crowds.

I'm not explaining this very well.

I find the concept of this programme extremely distasteful, having never watched it and never really paying much attention to Karl Pilkington. the "lol stupid person lols at weird foreigners" thing hasn't got much mileage in it, surely? I prefer the "genial person gets perplexed but gets stuck in" versions that Fry, Palin etc do, which seem to be done with affection and an attempt at exploration rather than just blatant lolz.

Is it not like this at all?

It's not like that at all. The fact that it's called An Idiot Abroad is misleading — it's actually meant to be read as Gervais's and Merchant's view of Karl. Karl himself does a lot of incredible things, moans a bit, learns an awful lot and says three or four dumb things per episode. There's even quite a big deal made of R and S wanting to call the show An Idiot Abroad and Karl being annoyed about it.

Basically it's a travel show with a witty star and a misleading title.

Also Karl willingly does a load of things that I would never do. As a viewer my respect for the man skyrocketed.

Ah, OK. So shitey false advertising then? The trailers don't give that impression AT ALL, nothing even close, which is why I've given it a very wide berth.

I was the same, tired of this "lol ignorance" shtick and Gervais's trying to play it both ways.

xp to ailsa: Yeah. The whole Karl thing (including books and podcasts) is framed by R's & S's view of him (balding manc, head like a fuckin' orange &c.) so you go in expecting a moron and come away feeling quite different.

yeah karl's thing isn't "lol stupid", his is more of a childlike view that lets you see a different surprising/amusing perception on things.

a big part for me is the working class northernness of it all. when he speaks about his parents and childhood, he uses names, terms and places that i experienced a lot growing up, ie. "elsie from little hulton going on holiday in wales". he has that ultra-practical no-bullshit outlook that i can appreciate and can see in most of my relatives. my parents went to egypt a few years ago and when returning didn't have anything to say about the wonder of these massive monuments, just that it was "too dusty and too busy". the lack of reverence and spirituality is refreshing, amusing, and shows how much these people value comfort and simplicity in life - the new globalised world where you're encouraged to travel everywhere and anywhere just isn't for them, they'd be much happier at butlins watching a knobby knees competition and that's completely fine but sticking them out of their comfort zone can bring some great lols.

funniest parts of karl's schtick for me comes when he gets angry, like when he's talking about his boiler breaking down or finds out the production team have stuck him on a nude beach. it's those moments when any playing up is gone and he's just an angry little man battling against forces he can't control. there's probably an element of bullying to it but like he said himself "i'm nearly 40, i can look after myself so don't worry about me. and anyway if i am being bullied why aren't you coming to help me? where's esther rantzen?"

but yeah, it's not quite as cruel as gervais's usual stuff, and karl isn't as ignorant as the title suggests. hands down the funniest british comedy series i've seen in years.

The Trip is a bit repetitive though...By episode 3, I was feeling I'd seen all this in episodes 1 & 2.

It knows its repetitive, Brydon explicitly acknowledges that in one scene. I don't think that's a fault.

Think #teammiranda are serving up some next-level challops here. Watched the new episode last nite and tho she herself is weirdly likeable (she sounds just like erstwhile Ilxor Lixi), the script was like one of the skits they used to do at the end of Crackerjack.

It knows its repetitive, Brydon explicitly acknowledges that in one scene. I don't think that's a fault.

― Matt DC, Monday, November 22, 2010 10:45 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

i am still watching it and the highs are very high, but this is what annoys me about it -- 'ah, it's meant to be _______'

15 Storeys High was the best BritCom of the OOs.

The one episode I saw was great, need to download the whole thing sometime.

Think #teammiranda are serving up some next-level challops here

Nope, I really did laugh pretty much all the way through. Sometimes there's no explanation for what one finds amusing.

i will give 15 Storeys High, An Idiot Abroad and maybe even Miranda a real go now having read these posts - thx all

Yeah, me too. Except Miranda, I did try with the first series, but it wasn't for me.

Definitely going to try An Idiot Abroad.

What channel is an idiot on? I like karl p I just wish he was with different people

Sky One.

the poster with gervais' horrible gurning of hilarity - literally the most punchable face i have ever seen.

http://www.escalantebloggers.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/AnIdiotAbroad-500.png

Moyles (lol autospell got 'moulds') and Clarkson > Gervais