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

Was The Trip on BBC? The Mortimer thing feels like a response to that.

(only better. I never really like the trip)

the bob Mortimer thing is as far as i can tell is proper improv.
and nowhere near as staged and a lot more natural.
i much prefer it to any of the trip.

and yes, 'the trip', was on the bbc for a while before it got nicked by £££.

watched a couple of episodes of Camping off the back of Dear Joan and Jericha and it's really not good, is it? it's like the worst bits of the worst Mike Leigh films turned up to 11 (and I like Mike Leigh mostly).

I was going to watch that - maybe I won't!

I saw an episode of Friday Night Dinner. I won't be watching another.

i liked individual bits of camping but it's so relentlessly bleak and awful that it's hard to take.

This Is America, anyone? it seems slightly superfluous but the one i watched this morning (episode 3) was quite ballsy, the mexican party...

Stewart Lee's Content Provider was on on bbc2 on saturday and was... long... but generally funny

I've been watching content provider in half hour chunks. He's cruising a bit now, but at a very high level.

Romesh Ranganathan is on TV a lot, isn't he?

He is. I really enjoyed his short series of travel to unpopular destinations. As a result I was looking forward to the Judge Romesh show but I barely made it to the end of the first episode of that, it came off too blokey for my taste.

recently i saw a show that didn’t have romesh in it, i think it was a documentary about whales

I've always quite liked him in stuff, but he's definitely over-exposed.

His hip hop podcast is good.

Watched half of the Greg Davis special in Netflix. It was alright. He's got that 'I'm finding this as funny as you are' schtick which i really like on panel shows but over a stand up show, quickly starts to look disingenuous.

I watched Romesh's guide to Haiti and found it incredibly frustrating. going around going 'wow this is so intense' but it was all really superficial. could've asked some basic questions of that guy's mum who was living in a tiny concrete hut but they were too busy with the kerazy rap antics

Tube advert reminds me that task master starts again this week. Wednesday at 9.

Acaster, Wong, Rhod, Jessica Knappett, Kerry Godliman.

They appear to have run out of women I know the names of. Actually, I recognise both of them now I've seen pictures.

First one wrote and starred in Grifters, second one was the female lead in Derek.

I have seen neither of those things. In fact, nothing on IMDb rings much of a bell, until you hit 'self' and it lists all the 8/10 cats and go 8 bit and mock the week appearances.

Isn't Jessica in that dreadful festival-based advert for something, tug of war with drag queens etc?

Yes, for tea I think? Or ice cream?

The other one was in the Rob Beckett video games thing I mentioned somewhere up there^.

There’s an episode of something with Luke McQueen showing on the TV in the A&E I’m in and I’m considering writing to someone.

The short Sara Pascoe thing on bbc2 the other night was snappy and full of ideas. Kind of a comedy lecture.

(She does regular stand up slots in London for a fiver a time, I should go to one. James Acaster's work-in-progress shows, by comparison, are £15 a pop)

Which reminds me, new Taskmaster. Nobody currently stands out. I wonder if they'll show the American version.

Was that the one about monogamy? I enjoyed that a lot, though felt a bit "well, actually..." and her using the example of Sartre and De Beauvoir.

Monogamy, yes. There was perhaps a bit too much dissing of the ex, a specific ex, which is nagl. There's an episode of Infinite Monkey Cage where she talks on a similar subject.

(next week's is by Nick Helm)

i think QI hit a nadir last night - jason manford and lee mack at the same time? aren't they basically the same person?

and the bit with the dolls, it was like #metoo never happened.

Toksvig revealed recently that she gets 40% the salary that Stephe Fry did.

mack is sour and chippy, but at least quick-witted; manford is a moon-faced oaf who has made a career out of this facial expression

I loved Camping but now there's a US version?

cha-chingg! good for Julia Davis.

Been watching a couple of shows on a whim after watching noting for years.

Pls Like is a vlogging satire on bbc3, it has lots of new ideas, many of them good ones, and has respect for its topic in a way I haven't seen before. The two big problems with it are that the script seems undercooked and it is clearly too scared to get serious or dark at any time because it's for kids. Still, it's ok.

Also seen two episodes of The Bisexual, billed as a 'comedy drama' so I guess it belongs here, even if it's not really at all funny. I like how well-observed it is, the characters really feel like real people in a way they so rarely do, the stories are meandering, but meandering is a good thing, leads to good dialogue, could not care less about the plot. I think it's received some flak from the gammony UK viewers for being too, uh, intersectional, but obv. that's their problem, not the show's. The only reason I'm not enjoying it that much is that even though it's a show about lesbians and bisexuals written and directed by an Iranian-American woman, it's still about successful media/creative people in London, and I really don't want to know anything more about the inner lives of successful media/creative people in London at this point.

-watching nothing for years

Bob Mortimer was wonderful on WILTY tonight.

The last leg was... Strange.

Oh I was wondering if anyone would post about Desiree Akhivan's The Bisexual. I really liked her films Appropriate Behaviour and Miseducation of Cameron Post, so was looking forward to this. But it seems incredibly flimsy and insubstantial, and not that funny - so I was actually having trouble concentrating on it. Probably the best bit was conveying the grimeyness of East London, in the housing and social venues.

pls like s1 was better than it had any right to be. mainly because of the guy playing james wirm. but s2 is doing nothing for me. though i have only watched ep 1.

It isn't funny, the Irish writer character is imo irredeemable, but I am getting quite into it anyway, Desiree is just really good at playing herself.

Xp

James Wirm in Pls Like is Tim Key

Yeah, series 2 starts and ends badly, episodes in the middle were better. I don't like how they made the protagonist more stupid.

The last leg was... Strange.
― koogs,

I think its fair to say that Chris had enjoyed hospitality to the max.

I liked how everyone was totally on board with him being hammered - the dawning realisation of the lack of wisdom when they put the cakes and candles in front of him was good.

Way behind the curve here but a couple of years ago this was posted upthread:

Armando Iannuci's Radio 1 shows from 1994 are back up for a few weeks:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jzbt

still totally holds up imo

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 12:03 (two years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

But what shows are these? I went on a mega download spree getting all the AI stuff I could, and the only thing from 94 is his In Excess series. Is that the same thing? His wiki page radio section has Armanndo Iannucci (1994) but no mention of the two 'In Excess' series. Can anyone nerdier than me about AI help out?

here's a list of 24 episodes of Charm Offensive.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007w6x6/episodes/guide

there's also this from 93:

Armando Iannucci (BBC Radio 4 Extra) Sun 28 Sep 2008, 22:00:00 BST
Anarchic humour originally heard on Radio 1 in 1993. Armando Iannucci is joined by David Schneider, Rebecca Front and Peter Baynham. Episode 1 of 2.

Armando Iannucci (BBC Radio 4 Extra) Sun 28 Sep 2008, 22:30:00 BST
More anarchic humour originally heard on Radio 1 in 1993. Armando Iannucci is joined by David Schneider, Rebecca Front and Peter Baynham. Episode 2 of 2.

but there's no other details

i think 'when records began' in this case is 2007 and anything before then may not be on the web pages unless it's been repeated in the meantime

april 19 1994 he says in the second one of those, so not 1993...

on the Radio 1 show he played a lot of records and did bits inbetween, often keyed quite hilariously to what record he was going to play next

he's adding john major samples to the records he's playing in those latter two things...

I don't think it's Charm Offensive, that was a lot later than 94, right?

There's a mention of In Excess here in an article from Dec 94:

You can hear undiluted Armando on Radio4 at 3.30 this afternoon, and for the next three days, in a bijou series called In Excess, filling in at this funny, floating, weightless,timeless part of the year. He will just be himself, thinking aloud on various topics, such as money, and doing a few interviews with money people. Hard to explain, really. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/when-news-satire-is-beyond-a-joke-life-1390697.html

But that doesn't really sound like this sketch show feat Rebecca Front et al, esp when the R4 webpage above says "Anarchic sketches and music, first heard on BBC Radio 1 in March 1994." Seems like this sketch show wasn't recorded by anyone, annoyingly, not even when it was repeated a couple of years ago.

Tell a lie, just found these episodes in my archives:

Armando Iannucci R1 Show S1E1 (27393).mp3
Armando Iannucci R1 Show S1E2 (4493).mp3
Armando Iannucci R1 Show S2E1 (7394).mp3
Armando Iannucci R1 Show S2E2 (14394).mp3
Armando Iannucci R1 Show S2E3 (21394).mp3
Armando Iannucci R1 Show S2E4 (28394).mp3

Which all tallies up, Mystery solved. Think I got them off Soulseek if anyone's interested.

In other UK comedy news, I wax lyrical about Limmy's recent audiobook over at: Limmy's Show

Those two stories I mention (three including Benidorm finale epic) are up there as the best and most surprising things he's ever done.

Did anyone watch the Inside No.9 Hallowe'en special? Hmm. Moments were good, but mostly it felt a bit 'will this do?'. It was almost worth it for the Bobby Davro clip.

there were ~3 comments in the dedicated LoG thread. but yes. apparently that clip is now used inside the BBC as a Health and Safety lesson. i thought they'd faked it, specifically because the people in it were so quintessentially 80s light entertainment.

i need to watch the whole thing again.