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

To put things into context: Harry Hill aside, all British TV Comedy right now is total shit.

-- Ruairi Wirewool (horseproduction...), January 15th, 2007. (Ruairi Wirewool) (later)

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what were the chances of that happening?
-- mark grout (mark.grou...), January 15th, 2007. (mark grout) (later)

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If you can put CT and Green Wing on a par, you truly show a lack of discernment IMO.
Frankly, now that GW has been and gone, I'm inclined to agree with Ruairi, minus the bit about Harry Hill.

-- You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (papiermachealamphibia...), January 15th, 2007. (Haberdager) (later)

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If you can put CT and Green Wing on a par, you truly show a lack of discernment IMO.
no it's just a 'higher' (or rather 'stricter') level of discernment.

-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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'the thick of it' will be back, later in the year, and so will 'peep show'.
-- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)

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but in a another more accurate sense...
-- mark s (mar...), January 15th, 2007. (mark s) (later)

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but then i do like Harry Hill so it's apples and roundabouts.
-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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rubbish
-- RJG (RJ...), January 15th, 2007. (RJG) (later)

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so you keep saying
-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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RJG's TV Burp
-- Dom Passantino (juror...), January 15th, 2007. (Dom Passantino) (later)

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Hmm. I was only talking about currently-running comedy shows. If Peep Show returns for a fourth bite at the cherry (and TTOI for a second), I will only be too delighted. Of course, the one I'm really looking out for is Nathan Barley II.
-- You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (papiermachealamphibia...), January 15th, 2007. (Haberdager) (later)

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i think it would be a big ask for there to be a 'great' uk comedy series to be running all 52 weeks of the year. i have low standards perhaps; but i don't ask for a 'great' film each month either.
-- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)

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of course i too want 'nathan barley' back.
-- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)

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They could drop scissors on a dog's head this time.
-- Dom Passantino (juror...), January 15th, 2007. (Dom Passantino) (later)

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uh, rose-tinted view there i reckon - but at least it was generating interesting discussion.
one episode of Screen Wipe a month would be good. ditto TV Burp.

-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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ha ha Dom OTM
-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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Unread Messages
as with 'green wing', take away the hype and the expectation it'll live up to 'the day today' and 'nathan barley' was 23 minutes well-spent. i lolled anyway.
-- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)

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i didn't laugh more than i did laugh etc.
-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

And Screen Wipe rocks.

it was good, but not 300 times better than 'nathan barley'.

xpost

steve otm

this happened in the show except he thought she turned out not be under-age (at which point NB thinking it now okay to pretend she WAS under-age was actually quite a clever little point about...something or other).

i did hate NB but yes no less than anyone else around him.

Actually, scratch that, that's not the idea at all. It's funny caricatures falling into situations and scrambling to return to the status quo whilst simultaneously being trapped; a very old-fashioned sitcom thread. I certainly didn't feel that is was trying to make a big insightful statement about something, at least, nothing larger than "it's better to like something than to dislike something."

'THIR-FUCKING-TEEN'.

In fairness, I guess originally Barley wasn't really a character, just a cipher, and in making him human Morriss and Brooker made him more, er, human. I just don't think that made for great comedy. It wasn't sharp enough to be genuine satire and it wasn't silly enough to be knockabout comedy. It was just 'dark'.

I doubt whether Channel 4 enforced any 'nicening'.
You know, maybe Barley always looked like that in Brooker's head, and if you boil the actions in any of the episodes down to the kind of 3-sentence description that you would find in TV Go Home, it wouldn't be that different. But TVGH gave the impression that Barley was a cartoonishly horrible amoral grotesque, and that's not what we got in the TV show. We got 'idiots'. I hoped it would be either venemous or ridiculous and it was neither.

pt. I

pt. II

i lolled?

Oh okay, I didn't read the website so I didn't know what was supposed to happen, I only saw (and liked) what did.

'TDT' radio show was 1992. he was doing big things on london radio about then too.

'blue jam' dropped at the arse-end of '97 and was hot into the double-nine.

for me it went bad with 'jam' but then i was a student contrarian at the time, maybe i missed out.

it's just that there was a looong hiatus between the underwhelming 'brass eye '01' and 'nathan barley'.

Good for her. I was disappointed by the ending. Detectorists was all time exceptional.

I was disappointed by the ending.

I kind of was too but I guess they had to open it up for s02.

his worzel gummidge reboot was great too

Worzel has terrified me since I was tiny, not sure I can stomach that!

You'll never get me to like music hall, but the most recent edition of the Harry Hill Show on Youtube has a really good piece about it. Kiri Pritchard Maclean is the guest, and she's great too.

First ep of Unacceptable was decent, as far as second tier panel shows go.

It's spawned a terrible Guardian thinkpiece already which fails to understand how comedy works, so well done everyone involved.

i don't like the host or one of the team captains so it started at a disadvantage. i'm not sure it won me over.

I will never willingly watch Joanne McNally. Never! Plus in the ads everyone was wearing waaay too much makeup.

I'm absolutely fine with Ed Gamble, but the team captains are not for me. Joanne McNally in particular is awful, yes.