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

Upstart Crow has had "better than Ben Elton's last 2-3 decades of television but not great" reviews. I'll check out the plague special though.

I thought it was just doc who.

Until 2005, the only time Dr Who ever had a Christmas special was when in 1965, that week's episode (of 46 eps that year) happened to fall on Christmas Day. So they completely paused an ongoing 12-or-13-episode Dalek epic to do a crossover with a BBC cop show in the first act, a comedy runaround in an American silent film in the second, and then have a big Christmas feast in which the Doctor tipsily toasted the viewers at home:

https://www.assignmentx.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/01DrWhoXmasList1.jpg

Russell T. Davies getting the show a Christmas special the first year of nu-Who was a huge coup in placing it as a broad, popular, general audience show.



(Steven Moffat had to return twice after completing his run with a grand finale in 2015 just so the production could hold onto the prized slot: Despite signing on as showrunner that year, Chris Chibnall was not going to get around to writing any for a couple of years, so Moffat returned to write a 2017 series, his third for Peter Capaldi. Partway through shooting that, he realised there was no plan for a 2016 special, so threw together the superhero-movie one with Matt Lucas as Nardole in it, then added him into the rest of the 2017 series, shooting a couple of cutaways to drop into the early episodes.

(Having then wrapped up the Capaldi era with a big two-parter about growth, overcoming fear of death, and full of multiple themes of death being an opportunity for change & rebirth & new forms of existence to flourish, it turned out that Chibnall still wasn't going to be ready to have Capaldi turn into Jodie Whitaker that year, so Moffat had to add on another Christmas special in which Capaldi and another old dude painfully held off on, and complained about, dying for another hour before letting go, to make sure again that the series would not lose the big family ratings bonanza slot after 13 years.

(Chibnall then decided not to bother with it after all, instead going for a New Year's special so that the title would be an injoke for fans of 1983-87 Who, when he had been in a fanclub. The next year he didn't get around to writing a special at all, but this coming New Year's will feature a sequel to that 2018 one, which has itself been on the shelf since 2018.)

(Prized vs "universal" bcz with four main FTA channels, there's not room for many titles to get a special during the week, let alone on Christmas day prime-time. It's declined as a sure-fire all-demographics hit slot in the last couple of years as multiple screens have become more common in households, etc, but eg James Corden's sitcom did a ten-years-later reunion special last Christmas, and became the highest-rating festive programme in eleven years.)

that's a lot of background, thanks! i didn't even know james corden had a sitcom!
Upstart Crow, i've discovered, has a laugh track. Hard pass.

Why u maek Cheers cry

just bcz it's further context for forks, not bcz it's especially interesting otherwise:

Corden did lots of TV/film/stage/showbiz things before moving to America for his first talk show; the sitcom Gavin & Stacey was his biggest non-stage-acting hit, created & written entirely by him and co-star Ruth Jones, who played the title characters' best pals.

The first two series ran on BBC Three, but grew enough that it got a Christmas special on BBC One in 2008, then the third & final series moved to BBC1 and was scheduled so the last two eps both ran as festive programming, on Christmas 2009 and NYD 2010, plus a retrospective/outtakes special after the latter.

before getting reggie watts paid, i knew him as a theater guy and somebody who a lot of people on ILX hated.

(on the NY theatre tip, Corden won the Tony, Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle award for Best Actor in 2012, reprising the lead he'd originated in One Man, Two Guv'nors. He'd previously been to Broadway in the original cast of The History Boys, but didn't get any of its 20-odd awards. I hope ppl just hated Reggie bcz they didn't like his work, not bcz he was an IRL creep to ilx0rs. {British ppl tend to hate Corden for a combo of his work, one-time ubiquity, and documented IRL assholishness. In LA he seems to be keeping the latter to disregard for staff, including attempted union-busting.})

Upstart Crow is all about the ensemble cast imo. Suffers a bit from being written by Elton but the last Christmas special, Shakespeare does A Christmas Carol was clever. "Marlowe was alive: to begin with"

who was Reggie a creep to? I've met him a couple of times and he was a nice guy.

I'm saying I hope that it was not NYC ILX FLX hating him for IRL reasons

let me rephrase: "before he got reggie watts paid, i knew Corden as a theater guy and somebody who a lot of people on ILX hated."

ahhhhh!

(I totally forgot RW (left a gig as a fake bandleader on a fake talk show to be) was Corden's bandleader and was misinterpreting that obv)

Upstart Crow, i've discovered, has a laugh track. Hard pass.

I abandoned the third Alan Partridge series because of the intrusive audience laughs. Whether they were live audience or laugh track I don't know, but they were ALL I COULD HEAR in some scenes and were really annoying. I don't really notice the Upstart Crow laughs at all.

I'm Alan Partridge had a live audience in both series - there's a fascinating audience bootleg of the recording session of one ep of S2, warm-up and retakes and all.

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.