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

S12 UK was great! Desree! Guz!! Morganna!!!

Hmm, I just remember it as Alan Davies and VCM being able but not really funny. I thought Morgana was great but stood out in a shallow pool.

> Liza Tarbuck was a manic, mischievous energy

the thing i remember most about her in this series was her just stomping something into the ground.

The thing where she gets Alex to plant his naked arse into a cake

That's what I won't forget

Anyway, this show is remarkable in how it's redeemed a whole slew of what I imagined were low-table DAVE panel-show dullards and proved they are actually very very very funny (tbh I watch no panel shows beyond WILTY). The TM magic failed with Russell, however.

Very few people can't be redeemed by Taskmaster, so it's quite an achievement for Russell Howard to be as bad at this as he is at everything else.

Do you guys get to see the New Year one-off specials? There's some real gold in there too - Rylan Clark and Kojey Radical and Shirley Ballas should really have done a whole series.

I liked Alan Davies a whole lot more than VCM on their series. And I concur that it's probably possible to die laughing at Tim Vine's stand up. He's the absolute GOAT at his format.

Yeah Kojey was great.

i thought it was time for a dedicated taskmaster thread: a thread for Taskmaster

I’m in!

catching up with Colin from Accounts and it's pretty good, albeit without much Colin. episode 5, the Brisket episode, especially good.

they were on Front Row tallking about it and it gave it a bit more context. all those jokes about being married, all the age difference jokes, the odd phrase here and there (Dame Edna, sleak brown dog...) all from life.

and Ludwig starts tonight, him from everything and her from everything, comedy detective show. i will give it a go but it's on bbc1

Love Colin, tho heart sank as everything went tits-up in the final ep (hoping there's a s3 to make it all good again). the episode in the resto with her mate's awful gf was excellent. it's a sharp and warm romcom but - and this is key - it also has a line or a joke or a setpiece every episode - and indeed, often several - than genuinely has me LOLing.

Still not clear if the couple also partook of the drug party in that one episode and I think they purposefully kept it vague

and Ludwig starts tonight, him from everything and her from everything, comedy detective show. i will give it a go but it's on bbc1

― koogs, Wednesday, 25 September 2024 18:22 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Watched ten minutes of this and couldn't be bothered with continuing, not enjoyable or interesting on any level.

As someone who likes wry, silly, murder mysteries based around puzzles, and Mark Corrigan trying to wing it in fish-out-of-water situations, and Anna MM being a bit sarcastic, this in theory is right up my street. Unfortunately the "case of the week" aren't fun puzzles you can work out (yet) and you don't see any of the 'main' puzzle. So it's more for people who like the idea of puzzles but not actually doing them. I'll watch them all though I guess.

Really like Colin From Accounts. Altho - did I miss something with Meggles and who she was with then wasn't? And the Rumi character at the dinner was amazing!

https://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2024/10/02/56722/whos_taking_part_in_last_one_laughing_uk%3F?rss

Feel like Ayoade is absolutely going to win this.

just finished ludwig, thought it was good enough to be annoyed at having to wait for series 2. ymmv.

chance would be a fine thing

oh, i can't stand him...

my mother about chris mccausland.

and not only do they not watch taskmaster, they didn't even know what it was.

i guess they've stopped doing comedy

anyway, i have been enjoying these things on bbc sounds whilst walking around (all recently repeated on radio4extra)

Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b00fq3kr
Lee and Herring from 1993, Rebecca Front and Armando Iannucci

Women Talking About Cars
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00clsbk
Coren-Mitchell talking to various showbiz chums about cars. So many minis and morris minors...

Sarah Kendall: Australian Trilogy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b08hk1jq

Alex Edelman's Peer Group
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b08smc1c

and probably my favourite
Isy Suttie's Love Letters
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b042m6pl

Bridget Christie: Mortal
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000v2sy

Sean Lock - 15 Storeys High
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b09hmrrk
oh, this is disappearing off sounds but it's quite close to the tv show anyway

Paul Sinha's Perfect Pub Quiz
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0024dg9

some ivor cutler as well, but they seem to be short and short-lived

I didn't know there was a 15SH radio show - thanks!

Great list.

I’ll add Tim Key’s Poetry Programme (spoiler: not actually a poetry programme)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b03pn5pl

oh i meant to add more notes than i did

the Kendall is more stories than jokes but still contains jokes. probably best, i learned later, listened to in order (it lists them in descending order of series but ascending episode order so 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, then 1.1...)

it's funny listening to IA on his new show about political language and then playing the professor of urology at Leicester de Montford in the Lee and Herring show from 30 years ago.

Isy has a new show with Dara which is basically the same as the one he does with Hannah Fry but they both play the dumb one.

one of Love Letters includes how she and Elis met and is quite sweet when you realise.

Thanks for all the recs! Not BBC, but I've been listening to James Acaster's audiodrama (audiocomedy?) Springleaf, which picks up on some of the plot strands from the Repetoire netflix specials. Not the greatest thing he's ever done, but slots in nicely amidst the Goon Show and Beyond Our Ken eps I've been listening to.

it's funny listening to IA on his new show about political language and then playing the professor of urology at Leicester de Montford in the Lee and Herring show from 30 years ago.

Listen, a lot of careers go down the drain as people get older.

This is the podcast he's doing with notorious TERF Helen Lewis? Yeah hard pass on that and disappointing that he's working with her (though after the last decade my expectations of IA were already very low)

Helen Lewis and Armando Iannucci investigate which political buzzwords are strong and stable and which are a crock of covfefe.

There is not enough cringe in the world.

i guess they've stopped doing comedy

I watched two (2) new BBC comedies recently, and enjoyed them both. Season two of Alma's Not Normal was solid working-class, exaggerated, character comedy from Sophie Willan. And also Smoggie Queens on BBC Three, which maybe wasn't the most polished sitcom ever, but I got a kick out of, especially with my be-generous-to-the-young-up-and-comers head on.

https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/news/8204/most-watched-tv-comedies-2024/

nobody even mentioned Gavin and Stacey (i didn't watch it)

too much of the rest of that list is entertainment or chat show rather than comedy imo.

armando is good on that podcast, anecdotes for days with his stints on Veep etc. barely mentions being the Hammond Organ specialist or Gordon Burns in Inexplicable World.

I rewatched all of Gavin and Stacey over the holidays and it's that rare beast of a comedy which didn't outstay its welcome and whose infrequent Christmas specials didn't feel hideously gratuitous.