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

For some reason season one was fine, but season two, I don't know, I just couldn't. It might even have been the telly I had at the time that made it so prominent.

I lockdown rewatched Upstart Crow and although it suffers a bit from 'not as clever or funny as it thinks when it goes AH DO YOU SEE', and Ben Elton rehashes a lot of very, very old public transport routines from the 80s (he even shoehorns in a double seat reference), I still enjoyed it. The cast are good and having fun with it - Mark Heap in particular - although I'm still baffled by Spencer Jones' impression of Rocky Gervais as Richard Kemp (I understand *why*, it's just an odd choice).

I thought what they often do is to record with a live audience and then mix a laugh track in later. Series 2 definitely sounds heavier on the laugh track.

(xp)

For some reason season one was fine, but season two, I don't know, I just couldn't. It might even have been the telly I had at the time that made it so prominent.

― trishyb

Or that studio audiences were heavily being phased out in British sitcoms between the two series.

I didn't think much of iap2 at the time, but I'm quite fond of it now due to endless UK Gold repeats.

I'm a big iap fan but I'm still surprised when I watch it and it has audience laughter

I think chap has it - in the 5 or 6 years between IAP1 and IAP2, viewers were trained to read "smart" sitcoms as not having audience tracks, then were startled that this 20th century artifact popped up.

Also maybe because so much of S1 is on standing sets in the travel tavern, it subconsciously 'feels' like there's room for an audience to be floating behind the fourth wall? And S2 has much more of the audience watching already-edited OB location shoots, with the actors not able to pause around the laughter, so it feels more intrusive? (and there's not physical room inside the stationary home to subconsciously 'fit' the studio audience...)

I think "The IT Crowd" is worse for having an irritating artifical-sounding laugh track.

The IT Crowd is surreal, larger than life and stagey though, I think it gets away with a laugh track more than iap's cringey observational character comedy.

Incidentally, I vividly remember contemporary newspaper critics picking up on the incongruity of iap2's laugh track (or possibly just one).

I thought what they often do is to record with a live audience and then mix a laugh track in later. Series 2 definitely sounds heavier on the laugh track.

Ianucci, 20/11/2002:

'It's not canned laughter. We recorded it in front of a studio audience. If anything, I tried to tone it down (in the mix). If Steve blows his nose there is a round of applause. I can't say, "Can you not laugh at this?" or "Can you laugh a little bit less at that?" The first series also had the laughter as well.'

Iannucci identified comparisons with The Office, which was shown prior to I'm Alan Partridge, and pointed out their differences.

'If we wanted to make The Office we would have made another series of The Office but it's a different world. The Office is very real whereas Alan is very grotesque - Steve calls him uber-real. He is not someone we all know and can identify with in the same way you can with David Brent.'

'Maybe following on from The Office people were expecting more of the same. But there is a laughter track on Blackadder, and Morecambe and Wise wasn't spoiled by the intrusive inclusion of a laughter track.'

"it's a studio audience, not a laugh track" is kind of a lame answer imo, the effect to story/experience immersion is the same.
the current equivalent is the very netflixy thing that gets done in live comedy shows where there's these constant cutaways to audience members reacting. I wanna watch the performer! Cut it out!

(also i've never been able to watch blackadder because of the fucking laughtrack!)

All of gimme gimme gimme has turned up iPlayer and I'm not saying it's dated but... no actually I am. Horrendous stuff.

Always crap.

yes I remember it being execrable at the time.

Well it hasn't aged either.

"it's a studio audience, not a laugh track" is kind of a lame answer imo,

not if the question was "all the newspapers are complaining that you used canned laughter on this series and the previous series did not have any laughter on it" tbf

the effect to story/experience immersion is the same.

Disagree. There's a big difference between something bad and unfunny having a tape of some long-dead people roaring switch on and off after ostensible punchlines - in which the artificiality is alienating - and watching Cheers, in which an ensemble are recorded playing to an audience whose enjoyment enhances their own performance, and shifting their rhythms around the genuine laughter and vibe in the room.

the current equivalent is the very netflixy thing that gets done in live comedy shows where there's these constant cutaways to audience members reacting. I wanna watch the performer! Cut it out!

You'll definitely want to avoid Natalie Palamides' "Nate" on Netflix then.

(But also, why are you watching stand-up shows recorded with a live audience? The only ones you should be able to bear are the Maria Bamford one performed to her parents in her living room, and the specials taped at the Sydney Opera House during lockdown to an audience of about 20 people in a 2,000 seat room.)

(also i've never been able to watch blackadder because of the fucking laughtrack!)

You can watch the Millennium special! Unfortunately it was terrible.

🇺🇸merican Stath remake by the lovely Joe Mande in development.

Howly Parker https://t.co/dXEXvQhpMr

— Jamie Demetriou (@JamieTonight) December 15, 2020

anyways, xp to sic: I can't deal with canned laughter or with "studio laughter on tape," both are annoying to me. ymmv.

I LOVED NATE but there's a difference between involving the audience as story and using them as indicators of how we at home are supposed to react but I'm sure you know that.

I watched a fair amount of good stand up this year, Bamford among them. Also Gadsby, Buress, Oswalt and Chapelle; only the last is post covid.

thing is a live studio audience still isn't the same vibe as it would be on an actual gig - audience obv under bigger pressure to laugh, and the results are pretty artificial still

yeah there's good and bad examples, hence my using Cheers as an exemplar & not citing Big Bang Theory at all

but half-watching a stand-up special at home while you play on yr phone and have to get up to stop the dog from scratching the sofa also isn't the same vibe as it would be in a 200-cap room with a low ceiling. good 3-cam audience sitcoms are at least written for that form.

I know this isn't exactly the right thread for this, but I don't want to bust into the dedicated thread with any negativity -

Does Schitt's Creek drastically improve? We're halfway through season 1 and it seems fairly poor - predictable jokes and unoriginal characters, raising no more than the odd chuckle.

Can understand feeling that way. The finale of S1 was where I went - ohhhhh shit, this show is great

i'm enjoying it, even if some episodes are "someone loses a bag" or "she gets a new bike"

specifically, in series two, i'm liking the barely disguised snark from stevie.

All of gimme gimme gimme has turned up iPlayer and I'm not saying it's dated but... no actually I am. Horrendous stuff.

Was actually wondering recently, if this would ever get the vitriol that Bo Selecta! and Little Britain get now.

The representation is different, you might say inclusive due to the actors chosen, where the above are crossing gender/sexuality and class lines to present a caricature,

but I always thought it was similar in terms of presenting a grotesque otherness for the audience to enjoy at a conveniently ironic distance..

I might be way off the mark on this, but all were massively successful mainstream comedy that now look very much of its time

I finally watched the last series, which I had never seen before, this afternoon.

I was struck as it went on that it was, for the most part, a half-arsed attempt at doing Rik 'n' Ade without the violence but with added inclusivity. The neighbours up and down are very traditional sitcom characters but EDGY. And it beats the Inbetweeners by a decade to getting laughs by repeating FLANGE in a funny voice.

Yes. Of its time.

last night i watched rik mayall on wogan and basically every time i see something he was in i fall head over heels in love with him. strangely (to me) he did standup IN character but the interview OUT of character and was very nervous and shy in the latter

Watching it now - yes he was almost startlingly different as himself wasn't he!

but half-watching a stand-up special at home while you play on yr phone and have to get up to stop the dog from scratching the sofa also isn't the same vibe as it would be in a 200-cap room with a low ceiling. good 3-cam audience sitcoms are at least written for that form.

I think this is part of why I find the audience laughter in IAP so distracting. It's not that kind of sitcom at all.

I mean, it's not built with the verbal density of 30 Rock, or the intricate structure of Arrested Development, or the visual concentration of Community - it's written to be played in front of (or near to) an audience. The front desk of the travel tavern scenes come to mind as prominent examples of the cast having to pause their lines around the laughter. (Probably only two cameras, though.)

Entertainment Weekly interview with Davies about the first Who Christmas special just dropped, to give forks even more context:

https://ew.com/tv/inside-the-making-first-doctor-who-holiday-special/

For us, it was the BBC who asked for it. We brought back Doctor Who in 2005. I was so unaware of the possibility of a Christmas episode that I did a Christmas episode in our first series, where the Doctor meets Charles Dickens, and it's Christmas Day, and it's snowing, and there are ghosts. So that's actually secretly the first Christmas special, it just didn't go out at Christmas. So we launched the first series of Doctor Who in 2005, it was such a success that the BBC turned around to me and said, "Let's have a Christmas special." They ordered two more series and two more Christmas specials all in one breath. Which was wonderful, but I just saw my life disappear. [Laughs] I was like, oh God, someone's just slammed the prison door shut! But I couldn't have been happier. I mean, it's very different in America. They don't show lots of big programs on Christmas Day itself, do they? Here, on Christmas Day, those are the highest ratings of all, because those are when the big shows play. So it wasn't just a Christmas special, it was a guaranteed slot on Christmas Day itself, at 7 p.m., and that is literally the heart of the schedule for the entire year. It was like being given the greatest gift in British television you could possible ask for. So we had to raise the stakes! We had to deliver a great big blockbuster and entertain everyone!

London Live showing comic strip presents at various times over Christmas which I don't think I've seen since they were on originally. Unfortunately the epg doesn't say which episodes are which. Five Go Mad In Dorset tonight (which is s01e01)

Just started Ghosts and enjoying it.

Not comedy but I am quite liking Snackmasters.

might be worth recording those Comic Strips, Richardson re-edited a bunch of them for the DVD box set

(and was completely bemused that anyone would care that scenes and gags were missing)

The also have Stella Street on immediately afterwards (and bbc4 is showing the single Christmas episode)

The first CS sees people (him from crossroads) arrested for homosexuality.

Snack Masters is always interesting. Will never look at a quaver quite the same way again.

Catsdown christmas special doesn't seem socially distanced. did they film it in february? last year? (it's says new in the listings, there's a chance it's a repeat)

Upstart Crow funny for the first 5 minutes and then elton keeps flogging the same horse for another 20 minutes, the way he always does. bit claustrophobic as well.

second of the London Live Comic Strip Presents was Bad News Tour, which it'll be nice to see again.

30 years of hignify ended with people saying 'if you tuned in and didn't see paul and ian you'd be surprised' having completely forgotten to mention that merton wasn't there for at least one series.

after two failed attempts I've finally got into taskmaster by following the advice upthread and starting with series 7. but is it all downhill after that? also my wife still doesn't get it.

This recent one is the first series I've properly watched and I found it so funny. Been watching a bit of the one with the Inbetweeners bloke (who always looks so stressed!) and no one else I've heard of on Dave and it seems quite a bit worse - still watchable though.

Worzel slightly down in quality on last year, which I'll blame on covid hitting the production. Best bit was W just delighted to be on a bus.

I like the disconnect of them living in a world with mobiles but the buses being from the 50s.

Series 8 of TM, chap, is probably the nadir, saved by Paul Sinha (stand up and The Chase chaser, look out his radio4 shows). It did make me wonder whether they'd run out of good guests but then series 9 was great and 10, perhaps helped by the move to bigger channel, attracted some top names.

The Chase chaser

Aha! I knew he looked familiar...

The woman, the one that wasn't Lou, is the women from Peter Kay's carshare thing, so probably more famous than the rest of them put together. Doesn't mean I can remember her name though.

Scottish guy is big in Scotland / CBBC / Twitch.

I have seen Lou on other things to be fair, but she's never stuck in my mind.

I saw one of the Comic Strip Presents, which wasn't very funny but was at least entertainingly weird.

'War'? that one came with 'this is old comedy which may offend' warnings, probably because of Cracker doing japanese accents.

That's the one.

Scottish guy is big in Scotland / CBBC / Twitch.

Pretty sure his income these days is from being the voice of Love Island and may even be most social media famous for being Mr Laura Whitmore.

Another two things to add to the list of things I don't know him from!

Hahaha

He betrays his CBBC origins badly on Taskmaster by just how into (and comfortable interacting with) puppets he is.