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

and not forgetting
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0PjLY6WwAAgNHo.jpg

sending this to everyone at the bbc

Because I love the BBC and I always have. While others might say it’s a smug anachronism full of braying, know-nothing chancers doling out fat commissions to their braying, know-nothing Oxbridge mates, I don’t.

chef's kiss

why is he always on TV, sometimes with people who are actually good?

Who's actually good on TV?

Not falling for that one! If you like you can read it as "significantly less bad"

I saw a bit of Jack Whitehall on the Brits. Fucking hell. Does poshness act as a bulwark against the traditional comedian self-loathing? I hope not - it's more than well-earned.

he played a posh twat character on Fresh Meat, which was funny, but now seems to be trying to just be that character without the jokes or plots.

He isn't trying, it's who he is.

That Fleabag episode was quite traumatic, imo.

I'd never seen it before but hung around after AP and the news. I enjoyed it! Sharp, witty, fast-paced. And a bit traumatic, that too, yes.

LBI, you should definitely watch series one on iplayer.

Tonight's episode convinced me to do just that!

I'll stand alone in having been not completely bowled over by Fleabag S1. I thought it was fine, and well acted more than anything else, but (like many of its peers e.g. Flowers) we're supposed to as viewers draw a correlation between unlikeable and edgy/cool that I just don't get. Plus Crashing had been on not long before it on C4 where PWB played an unlikeable Manic Pixie Girl (look! She plays a ukelele! Edgy!) and I wasn't taken with that either. Pure also did a similar thing recently on C4, and only got away with it by virtue of it being a true story lending a veneer of belief that people would actually put up with their shit.

Talking of people inexplicably acting like cunts 100% of the time, Warren (the new Martin Clunes vehicle on before AP) is absolutely woeful. It's like someone watched One Foot In The Grave and thought what made it popular was unpleasantness and not comedy.

I'll summarise last night:

Warren's business is going badly, because he is a terrible driving instructor who rarely even lets people drive the car. A rival business has started and is getting successful results at the test centre so Warren tries to destroy the owner's life by making nuisance calls round the clock and leaving abusive messages. In a mix-up, Warren finds a dead cat in the road and is accused of running it over, leading to a hate campaign against him on social media, so his girlfriend (wife?) buys the bereft family a cat - which they don't want because of the source, so ends up in Warren's house. Warren is exposed as the nuisance caller and a car chase ensues which culminates in the rival being accidentally run over by a neighbour he had helped to pass leaving him with multiple complex fractures and unable to work for over 6 months which means Warren's business will survive. Hooray! But the jokes aren't over - as the picture fades to the titles the same neighbour runs over the cat. What fun!

A show where the punchline is that a man with a young family (it's explicitly stated there's a baby in his house) is potentially crippled and loses his livelihood and home, and a cat is killed. At prime time. On BBC1.

Have not seen Fleabag S2E01 yet, will watch tonight probably.

I caught the last 30 seconds of Warren. Had they nicked the joke from Friends about Phoebe teaching Joey guitar chords without letting him hold a guitar?

I couldn't believe how dire those 30 seconds were.

That was the 30s that had the jokes in it.

as the picture fades to the titles the same neighbour runs over the cat..

is that before or after they gave the cat a cat scan and found cat cancer

It's the central 'comedy' about his business, that he doesn't let students drive very much or do menial duties for him during their lessons (like take him to the supermarket to do the shopping).

There was a joke last week about fly-tipping asbestos.

Aldo, your summary of Warren was a thousand times funnier than the actual show. Couch potato as I was last night I caught that, too (in between AP and Fleabag), and what a load of shite that was. Dire.

However:

A show where the punchline is that a man with a young family (it's explicitly stated there's a baby in his house) is potentially crippled and loses his livelihood and home, and a cat is killed. At prime time. On BBC1.

― Elitist cheese photos (aldo), Tuesday, March 5, 2019 9:02 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This doesn't strike me as problematic? It's a comedy (or supposed to be comedic), a lot of it is fair game imo. I'm fine with brutal, dark punchlines. I'm not fine with the real problem at hand here, which is that Warren is painfully unfunny.

Remember that Aldo's British - the cat is probably the dealbreaker.

No it is just that it isn't funny.

Although for the reasons you point out though the cat is probably why it seems so incongruous.

ps I do not care for cats.

Usually though the brutal punchlines are relating to the main characters - this has caused me to go look up Sitcom Hell based on Tom's theory that a lot of sitcoms serve as visions of hell for their cast.

I had in my defense forgotten the title of that thread.

The Hell in Warren is, as trumpeted in the promo pieces, having to live in the North of England (specifically Preston).

Warren is a classic fish-out-of-water character – a southerner who is forced to move up north to Preston when his partner Anne’s father falls ill.

he takes on the title role of curmudgeonly, tight-fisted southerner (and driving instructor) Warren who is transplanted up north to Preston.

Driving instructor Warren Thompson is forced to move from the south up to Preston

I’d like the writers to make more of Warren being a southerner adrift in Preston

the story centres around Warren Thompson, who has to move from the south to Preston when his partner Anne’s father becomes ill. Once there, he finds that he’s in an area he dislikes

(Thanks, two Radio Times articles)

Thought last night's Fleabag was brilliant. Painfully funny but oof, emotionally devastating too. Was wondering where she could go after the first series but needn't have worried.

Derry Girls back tonight too.

ah yes, the classic fish-out-of-water story of an englishman forced against his will to move to a slightly different part of england

It also goes without saying that the plot mechanism for this fish-out-of-waterism has not been mentioned in the first two episodes, to the extent the ill father was walking about like there was nothing wrong in last night's episode.

I wouldn't have known about it at all if it wasn't for the Radio Times.

the 'moving north' aspect was covered in ep1 of Warren which I unfortunately watched.
will not be bothering with ep2.
truly dreadful.
cannot wait for Derry Girls S2.

he takes on the title role of curmudgeonly, tight-fisted southerner

Why?

I'm thinking they got Martin Clunes for the role, realized he couldn't do a Northern accent, extensive re-write.

thought the new fleabag was excellent

i think you'll find martin "doc martin" clunes is the pre-eminent "english guy who moves from the southeast to somewhere else in england and is thus a fish out of water" actor of his generation.

I could never stand him but then I started watching Doc Martin with my mum, who loves the show, while I was looking after her and now I love him. That Warren thing is execrable though. Everything that happens in it is implausible, shrill and anxiety-inducing.

to be honest, there's a lot of stuff in Fleabag that makes you think "but no-one would ever do that..." too.

Fleabag really really good. There's a new level of slickness to the writing. The priest guy should be a great love interest/foil.

I found the first new AP hilarious, but was a bit disappointed by the second, despite some very funny bits (the bloke who travels down from Sunderland). Perhaps a slightly unsustainable format. I'm rooting for IAP series 3 next.

I've always had a weird soft spot for Martin Clunes. I hope someone on this thread takes it upon themselves to do a Wright Way-style detailed weekly takedown of Warren. Bags not it.

I am tempted.

^ do this. Would read (and not watch)

Praying hands emoji.

it's a big ask!

i finally finished Catastrophe. i thought it was uneven but episodes 3 & 6 were outstanding

am enjoying Dead Pixels. i like the little details, like the fact that he was driving a Prius when he crashed into that tree. it feels like Fresh Meat but with the added advantage of not featuring jack whitehall.

Frankie Boyle's show also very good.

I (half) watched an episode of Warren. It was far too bland to warrant recapping to be honest. Essentially Warren's family were being (mildly) annoying on a car journey and he ended up yelling at them.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/british-comedy-social-media-complaints-bbc-shane-allen-political-correctness-a8867146.html

We want racist jokes from a more diverse background

Paul Chowdhry has some news for you then!

I burned through all of Back To Life after seeing ep1 and think it's better than Fleabag. There, I said it.

Ghosts is tremendous fun, but would struggle to go wrong with the cast.

new taskmaster starts on wednesday

Iain Stirling, Joe Thomas, Lou Sanders, Paul Sinha and Sian Gibson

(could put a face to two of those names, two others i recognise when i look, the other is a mystery)

((but it's not always the big names that provide the lols))

Ian Stirling used to appear with that puppet dog on CBBC. Joe Thomas is Inbetweeners bloke. Paul Sinha is the quizzy standup and would be my first guess at the Phil Wang/Nish Kumar (gets it wrong because he concentrates more on comedy) type. Sian Gibson is a mate of Peter Kaye's. I recognise Lou Sanders' name, because Herring goes on about her quite a bit, but I'm blind.

Lou has been on a couple of things just recently. er, Hypothetical and 8/10 cats (Millennial reboot). but she was already familiar to me, somehow.

lou sanders is amazing on the late great "why is your bottom so dirty" podcast