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

i think the NZ one might've had a gap between tasks and the live show - there are references to covid but they don't seem to be distancing in the vt

That would explain the repeated references to the tasks being recorded a long time ago.

I watched the first half hour of the Dara O'Brien thing and it didn't raise a single smirk so I turned it off. Sorry.

loved the TM NZ S01E08 costume task

Watched Jamie Demetriou's Netflix special 'A Whole Lifetime' the other day. I like this guy, especially the Jarressey short, and Stah Lets Flats. But this didn't quite cut it.

Some occasional laffs, but too many Bo Burnham-esque musical pieces in which the joke hinges on the song and singing being deliberately bad. There's even a very tiresome song-and-dance social commmentary piece at the end about the mundane things people write on Facebook etc.

But I didn't come here to talk about that show. I came here to talk about toilet humour.

Maybe it's me getting old and boring, but I've noticed a lot of UK comedy lately seems to fall back on cheap and childish scatological laughs.

At the start of 'A Whole Lifetime', a schoolboy chucks a bucket of water at Demetriou's arse to "make it look like you've taken a really wet shit".
Later a man on a stag-do soils himself in a pub in an over-enthusiastic display of machismo.

It's not that there isn't a time and place for the odd well-executed gross-out joke, but when it's the punchline that the sketch has been leading towards, it feels like a cop out; like the writers couldn't think of a way to end it so they just fall-back on someone shitting themselves.

For nostalgia's sake I listened to a bit of the recent(ish) Fonejacker podcast, an audible reboot of the 2009 show. I wasn't expecting great things to be honest - I liked the show back in the day, but couldn't imagine it working too well now. It turned out to be fine really, other than parts where, again, the calls just devolve into the prankster talking about 'tits and arses' etc until the victim hangs up. There's no real joke there - it's just schoolboy stuff.

Even Philomena Cunk, whose (much as I like her) schtick might be wearing a bit thin now - I saw a clip of her asking a historian about Greek audiences being able to see "right up wrestlers' bumholes" apropos of them being naked. Later "If Victorians saw a penis they'd probably have a stroke".

It's not totally unfunny. Maybe I've become a total prig in my middle age. But I just think it's a bit lazy, a bit "hurr hurr poo and wee", especially for comedians I think of as being a bit above all that.

Is this even a new thing? Are we so keen to carry on Carrying On? At least those old films worked with double-entendres, cleverly weaving the smutty stuff into the jokes. These recent examples just feel like toilet humour for toilet humour's sake.

"Adult" humour. I remember, years ago, seeing Stanley Baxter being interviewed about alternative comedy and saying it seemed kind of immature to him.

I think of the late 90's/early 00's as the period when scatological humour was most popular, tho the examples I can think of are US (South Park, Farrely Bros)...I guess Inbetweeners was a UK manifestation of this? Anyway don't think it's prevalent currently at all.

Ayoade being quoted on the cover of this is depressing as fuck. pic.twitter.com/srByG0xorA

— JC (@Jonnyishh) September 13, 2023

Oof.

Linehan looks like someone drew a face on a balloon that was drifting away

Jesus, I have a creeping sense of horror that someone will buy me that for Christmas.

'The publisher described the memoir as "emotionally charged" and "by turns hilarious and harrowing". Linehan "reveals the secrets of the writing room and colourfully describes the high-octane atmosphere of a sitcom set", the publisher said. "But he also berates an industry where there was no one to stand by his side when he needed help".'

Hard to know who this is for. Also it's only 288 pages long which seems short. Supposedly a tiny publisher too.

!

https://i.imgur.com/OpONw0V.jpeg

Hard to know who this is for. Also it's only 288 pages long which seems short. Supposedly a tiny publisher too.

Tiny publisher, tiny violin.

Pulp me faster, tiny publisher

That's a who's who if ever I saw one

Not so much a who's who as a "Who's that?"

outspoken transphobes and Spiked contributors exclusively

becoming a living litmus test feels like a truly dismal fate to bring upon oneself. making it so that nobody can engage with you in any way that isn't charged to a polarity

there is absolutely no way that this book will be free of libellous statements, he can't resist writing them and there's no way this publisher employs an editor competent/brave enough to fix them

Good to see Kathy Burke calling out the Glinch

That BLOKE with the book coming out once tweeted at me demanding why I wasn’t sticking up for another BLOKE on here. All in the name of women’s rights apparently. Funniest thing he’d written in while to be fair.

— Kath 🇺🇦💙🙀🇪🇺✊🏾 (@KathyBurke) September 14, 2023

Guess who shows up in the replies?

Fairly sure Ayoade has also continued to stump for Woody Allen in recent years, so unfortunately there is precedent here. Still stings though

People are disappointed that Richard Ayoade has nice things to say about Graham Linehan. As a trans woman, I’ve built up a solid defence to this kind of thing by operating under the assumption that every person in British media falls somewhere on the scale between cunt and nonce

— Cathy Brennan (@TownTattle) September 13, 2023

mawaan riswan has a new sitcom, Juice, but it's probably a bit too bbc 3 for me, trendy ad agency, zany bits

loved starstruck 3

the burner phone task on Taskmaster NZ...

and ghosts us doesn't quite hit the highs of the best uk episodes but it'll do

Taskmaster Australia S1 is a genuine contender for best series of the franchise. I don't care for the hosts much, in fact the Assistant is not right at all, but the cast are brilliant and pretty much every task one of them is totally on it. Lots of examples of my favourite subgenre of task, the ones where the player's solution is so deranged you worry for their mental health. And there's a live task which is the best ever.

first repeated task in TM NZ in series 2 episode 10 - hold the milk over the microwaves (why microwaves?)

the guy who sat around for over an hour drinking tea and didn't immediately open the envelope was an international weight lifter

(series 3 starts immediately, which is good)

Alan, where did you watch Australia? I can't find it.

i am enjoying 'no activity'

I watched Australia on the dodgy streaming services, T, but even they didn't have all the episodes so I had to resort to dodgier download sites. I think some of it is on YouTube?

Yeah, we just downloaded it in the end.

I've been enjoying all the contestants on the new series of Taskmaster, but particularly Julian Clary. I think there's something about that style of camp that involves a defiant dignity, regardless of what humiliations life inflicts on you, that makes him a perfect fit for the show

lol I was gonna say this is the first Taskmaster season I've caught live where I really don't find anyone particularly engaging, still a good watch tho

I think Clary in the blindfold saying "I expect you're enjoying this, aren't you Alex?" while Horne cracks up was my favourite moment from any series

Sue's "portcullis" thing was also glorious a couple of weeks ago. She's such a delightful opposite to Julian Clary (and I agree, his general air of disdain and distance is a brilliant fit)

Also Susan is great fun. She reminds me very much of Katy Wix as a contestant. Completely off her trolley without seemingly trying too hard to be all "look at how wacky I am".

'distance' is a good word for it, feel like usually a contestant conspicuously not entering into the spirit of the show wouldn't work, but he pulls it off

I'm at the total opposite end of the scale. I don't like him, so I don't think he pulls it off. oo-er, etc. I think his sense of humour is old-fashioned, and not in a charming way. It was really cemented for me when he was on that reboot of Friday Night Live recently, and he took the piss out of some woman in the crowd because of how she was dressed. Unless he knew her (and even then, we didn't know if he knew her or not) it was completely uncool and is just not how the good comedians do it these days. But I guess that's personal taste for you.

Perhaps if I'd seen that I may feel differently, but I'm literally only going on this which is the first time I've seen him on anything for over a decade. I wasn't a huge fan back in the day, but his demeanour is pleasingly at odds with the others and doesn't seem mean-spirited. I bet he's a total bitch next week now.

I seen him on tv for years either, but the format of the show means that the only person he really has an opportunity to be mean to on Taskmaster is Alex, which feels fair enough given that Alex is the one making them play these annoying games, maybe I'd find it less enjoyable on a different show

It's very easy to carry baggage and expectations though, but I like it when people change them by being on Taskmaster. I mean, Lucy Beaumont irritates me hugely elsewhere with her "what is this... [perfectly normal thing] *giggle* " schtick which might not even be a schtick, she might actually be that ditsy all the time, but ditsy people doing Taskmaster is fun, so it's ok in a way that watching her baffled by the concept of words and numbers on Countdown just isn't.

I only have indirect dislike of Beaumont because of her horrible husband but I realise this is unfair and sexist.

this week's taskmaster started terribly but was saved by contestants in the second half

i sometimes wonder if the pre-recorded tasks for a given episode can be chosen to dictate the winner (although Greg is too unpredictable with his scoring and the bookend tasks are live so...) but i think they may be chosen to mix the dull tasks with the more successful ones. and i guess there could be tasks that just don't make it.

AIUI there are a fair number of tasks that don’t make it, plus there are the tie-break mini-tasks and occasionally if one of those is super-funny they’ll promote it to a main task.

yeah how do they film the tie breakers? they're pre-recorded but as koogs says the final results are up in the air, so do they just film a bunch of them with every contestant and then apply as needed? if so, they must be sitting on mountains of outtakes that a reasonably ravenous fanbase would probably pay for...

they do manipulate the results at least a little so that every contestant gets to win at least once (think there's an exception to this but can't remember who).

romesh (s1) didn't win an episode (6 episodes)

wilkinson (s2) " (5 episodes)

pasco (s3) " (5 episodes)

aisling, nish (s5) (8 episodes)

wang (s7) (10 episodes)

judi (s13) (10 episodes)

frankie (s15) (10 episodes)

i absolutely fucking hate lucy beaumont

Only a couple of eps in to this series but I've found her very funny - classic Taskie-washing effect of the show rendering funny and likeable the very people I generally find tedious.

Probably the weakest lineup of recent years. I found Sam Campbell funny at first but got sick of him fairly quickly. Susan Wokoma is likable enough. Don't mind Clary, but he's not exactly hilarious.