British Comedy

[Reply #640 on:]

 

Originally posted by User_names_suck:
Even better than 'The Office' is the sketch in
'The Day Today' called The Office.
The DVD of it came out a few days ago, its very good anyone else know of it ?

Chris Morris Thread  <-- Ripe for bumping.  <IMG SRC="http://peel.gotfuturama.com/ubb/wink.gif">

I got the DVD of The Day Today this week, loaded with Eggs and Extras.  And I loved "The Office" segment in TDT, especially releasing a live pig into the office to see how they cope.

[Reply #641 on:]

I've just been to see Dylan Moran live. It rocked.

It was teh shit. He is just like Bernard from Black Books actually. He wears the same clothes too. (Like all men he must only have 2 outfits  <IMG SRC="http://peel.gotfuturama.com/ubb/tongue.gif">) He was really good though. He started going on about planes shaped like boots that ran on custard and he did impressions of Irish people's hair. He was so funny I bought a poster. It's a pity I have no room left on my bedroom wall.  <IMG SRC="http://peel.gotfuturama.com/ubb/biggrin.gif">

I can't wait till his first dvd of his tour comes out in November.  <IMG SRC="http://peel.gotfuturama.com/ubb/biggrin.gif">

[Reply #642 on:]

Why isn't there an Irish Comedy thread?

And you're too young to be going to a show like that young lady!
*confiscates poster*

And stop yer swearin'!!

[Reply #643 on:]

He's got a DVD coming out. Good infomation where'd you get that.

[Reply #644 on:]

Fazey: Irish people aren't funny, they imported it from here. They steal our jokes, our language and our potatoes! Now I'm doubly mad! :nukes Ireland again:

UNS: I got a flyer at the show. It's his first tour: Monster 1.

Bill Bailey is coming to Liverpool too. I doubt his will be as funny, although it is about trolls and cutlery. I'm not sure if I'll go, Dylan Moran is much better. Also, I'm a snob. it's at the Royal Court. :gasp: Only commoners go there.....  <IMG SRC="http://peel.gotfuturama.com/ubb/tongue.gif">

[Reply #645 on:]

Kate Thornton interviewing Samuel L Jackson about SWAT:

- Thornton: What was it like working with Colin (Farrell), cos he is just so hot in the U.K. right now?
- Jackson: He's pretty hot in the U.S. too.
- Thornton: Yeah, but he is one of our own.
- Jackson: Isn't he from Ireland?
- Thornton: Yeah, but we can claim him cos Ireland is beside us.
- Jackson: You see that's your problem right there. You British keep claiming people that don't belong to you. We had that problem here in America too, it was called slavery.

[Reply #646 on:]

Where's that interview from?

[Reply #647 on:]

Shut up faze! :hits him around head: And make me some hot chocolate! Now!

Anyway, there's a difference, no one cares about the Irish.  <IMG SRC="http://peel.gotfuturama.com/ubb/tongue.gif">

[Reply #648 on:]

Mouse: whichever British show Kate Thornton worked on at the time SWAT came out, if I were to hazard a guess I'd say the showbiz bit of the This Morning show.

*releases 24 hundred rottweilers around Liverpool to rip cat to shreds*

[Reply #649 on:]

I just watched Peter Baynham's new animated comedy I Am Not An Animal on BBC Two and found it very good. The best new thing I've seen on TV in ages. Anyone else catch a glimpse of it?

[Reply #650 on:]

I missed it, because I'm working tonight, I heard that Coogan and Pegg are in it too. 

Baynham can do no wrong too.

"....sil-ver!"

[Reply #651 on:]

Was that the weirdly animated animals?
I thought it looked a bit weird and I think I was watching something else at the same time, but I might watch it next time.

[Reply #652 on:]

I Am Not An Animal was very weird, but entertaining 

[Reply #653 on:]

I quite liked it, as above : weird but entertaining.

The cat was brilliant too. 

[Reply #654 on:]

I missed it.... and Dead Ringers....... Argh!

[Reply #655 on:]

Coogan and Pegg were indeed in it, as were Kevin Eldon and Arthur Mathews. Very much an established cast.
 
 My favourite joke in it was the screensaver in the window. "Bloody hell, we're only in space!"

[Reply #656 on:]

   

Originally posted by Teral:
Favourite british movie? "Monty Python & The Holy Grail", no competition.

[Scruffy] Second![/Scruffy]
Oh my god yes the best movie ever! Not just the best British movie but
[Comic book guy] Best........Movie..........Ever![/Comic book guy]
Does anyone else know about Wallace and Gromit?

[Reply #657 on:]

Agreed it is a good movie, but Life of Brian has its charms...

[Reply #658 on:]

I quite like Wallace and Gromit. Nice cosy fun.

[Reply #659 on:]

I watched I am not animal for the first time and I thought it was really good. I like the monkey, the horse and that cat with the huge body (Pegg!)

[Reply #660 on:]

I found I Am Not An Animal very funny last night  The animation, especially of the humans, is done in what I'd call a Angela Anaconda style. And the animation works well!

My favourite bit came from the sparrow, when he was trying to get a record deal:
"She smokes dope, she smokes dope, when she wakes up early in the morning, she smokes dope..."

[Reply #661 on:]

It is good, I like the cat, shame he wasn't in last nights episode as much as the first ep but it was still funny nonetheless.

"A horse walks into a bar and asks..."

 

[Reply #662 on:]

*bump*

Did anyone watch the 2-part series "Borat's Television Programme"? It was very, very funny.

[Reply #663 on:]

No I missed it 

[Reply #664 on:]

I haven't read through the 17 pages, but one of my favorite shows is Coupling (the UK version, I didn't really like the US version). I've seen every episode-- although there aren't that many per year.

It's the only British show I've really watched (I live in the US).

[Reply #665 on:]

Coupling gives British comedy a bad name.

Its like a shite version of Friends which I didn't really like anyway what with its housebroken males and all...

Spine Chillers on BBC3, watched a couple of good episodes on Fri night, it had rather strange stories to them but was quite funny, I recommend for peeps who don't go to bed until 4am getting wasted.

[Reply #666 on:]

Is anybody watching the new Ali G show on E4? Borat is really funny.

[Reply #667 on:]

Da Ali G Show is freaking hilarious...I just picked up the Season 1 (from HBO) DVD, and I can't get enough of it. For all I know, someone's gonna tell me he's jumped the shark in his homeland, but the stuff I've watched so far has been some of the funniest shit I've seen in awhile. The Season 2 finale was great, too...loved the segment about religion, when Ali G commented how all faiths practice "mahogany" except for "the Morons"...LMAO! 

[Reply #668 on:]

Here's a discussion point, and something I've been thinking about recently.

Anyone remember the series, Rock Family Trees?

Well, you could do the same with British Comedy.  Starting at, say, The Goon Show and plotting from The Frost Report and At Last, The 1948 Show through to Monty Python's Flying Circus downwards through the 70's and 80's with Fawlty Towers and Not The Nine O'Clock News to The Young Ones and Blackadder by way of The Comic Strip Presents... and Saturday Live.  All of these pretty-much featured a small(er) amount of comedians and comic-actors.

And onwards, from Spitting Image (which features young impressionists, Steve Coogan and Rob Newman) and The Mary Whitehouse Experience, to Radio Fours Radioactive producing the likes of Angus Deayton and Geoffrey Perkins (now Head-Of-Comedy for BBC1) and it's TV counterpart, KYTV, then heading onwards and downwards to Have I Got News For you and the - more subversive - The Day Today which (alongside it's radio counterpart, On The Hour) made a household name of Steve Coogan's most famous character, Alan Partridge, as well as launching the career of the fantastic Chris Morris.

From then on it's familiar territory, Coogan gave starts to Simon Pegg (anyone who remembers Pegg's early TV appearance on an advert for Benelyn, get's a prize), appearing in his Live Show, and alongside Kevin Eldon and Mark Heap in Morris' Brass Eye.

This puts us where we are now, the vanguard of Britcom consists of the aforementioned Coogan, Pegg, Eldon, Heap, as well as Julia Davis (writer/star of BBC's Nighty Night as well as in Human Remains with Rob Brydon), and the three on-screen members of The League Of Gentlemen, and stars of The Fast Show, The Royle Family, The Office and Black Books.  Add to this a little-known series for Paramount called Asylum written by Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson...

Anyway, the point is, that it's all interconnected, and therein possibly lies another series idea in itself.

This idea: © Melll 2004.

[Reply #669 on:]

Has anybody saw Green Wing on Channel 4? I am watching it right now and I thought it is bloody brilliant and funny. I like the slow and fast motions during the scenes.

[Reply #670 on:]

Yeah it was quiet good, a couple of stupid lines and breast jokes. But it pretty good, very nice to have a proper sitcom with characters and no studio audience. and an hour long as well although I guess thats due in part to some dragging out due to the fast and slow motion things.

[Reply #671 on:]

I actually thought it was pretty crap, to be honest. There were one or two good jokes (my personal favourite: "Is this your signature?" "Yep" "Well, its a death certificate. I think the smilie face is a bit inapproprate dont you?" ) but for an hour long comedy programme, that's a pretty poor average. The rest of the dialogue fell into either the "I'm a weirdo, me" or the "I'm better than this weirdo, me" style epithets and the only actors who felt comfortable with their characters were those like Julian Rhind-Tutt who for them playing smug, thoroughly dislikeable smart-arse characters is second nature. The directing/editing also did the show little favours, coming across as a Media student wrongly given Channel 4 funding to work with. 

 Maybe I'm being a bit harsh for what's the first episode of a 9 part series but let's be honest here: how many other shows d'you know that morphed from thoroughly mediocre into classic comedy gold in the course of a few weeks? 

[Reply #672 on:]

It seems your being a bit harsh, I mean at least its a british comedy thats not just another sketch show or chat show parody. Its a sitcom with characters but no laugh track and it has  Mark heap so I'm giving it a chance . Its not quite clear what you make of it because you describe it as pretty crap and thoroughly medicore at different points in your review.

I guess I must be overrating it because I had very low expectations based on the trailers, and the fact that I didn't think the smack the pony crew would be able to do something with a coherent story and developed characters. But even if it wasn't that great it exceeded my expectations.

 

[Reply #673 on:]

 

Originally posted by User_names_suck:
It seems your being a bit harsh, I mean at least its a british comedy thats not just another sketch show or chat show parody.

 On the other hand, nor is it a coherent sitcom narrative, so what is it exactly?

 

Its a sitcom with characters but no laugh track...

 Not everything with a laugh track is bad and not everything without a laugh track is good. Just imagine how Green Wing would've worked with a studio audience anyhow.

 

...and it has  Mark heap so I'm giving it a chance.

 But then so did Stressed Eric. As good as he is, not even Heap constantly switching between hushed tones and manic uncomfortable shouting can polish a turd.

 

Its not quite clear what you make of it because you describe it as pretty crap and thoroughly medicore at different points in your review.

 They're both negative things to say though aren't they? Although mediocre might be more of a neutral term, I guess. At any rate, I probably have a harsher view of it because of the sorry state that British comedy has been in as of late and that this sort of show isn't going to help rectify matters.

[Reply #674 on:]

Shit I completley forgot heap was stressed eric.
I agree with your points but I'll still give the show a chance, and its not like I'll have anything better to do.

[Reply #675 on:]

Sorry for the unnecessary double post but

Black Books Series 3 October 4th and Big Train series 1 and 2 (as one set) October 25th
according to www.amazon.co.uk

Definatley the weakest season of Black Books but I'll be getting it anyway.

Wow Shaun of the dead, Spaced rerelease, Big Train, The guest appearnce in black books. I think I'm going to overdose on Simon Pegg.

[Reply #676 on:]

On saturday night, my public access channel shows Coupling, Red Dwarf, and Blackadder in a row.... Mmmmm what a saturday night!

[Reply #677 on:]

Why what was on afterwards 

[Reply #678 on:]

 

Originally posted by User_names_suck:
Black Books Series 3 October 4th and Big Train series 1 and 2 (as one set) October 25th
according to www.amazon.co.uk

Definatley the weakest season of Black Books but I'll be getting it anyway.

Wow Shaun of the dead, Spaced rerelease, Big Train, The guest appearnce in black books. I think I'm going to overdose on Simon Pegg.

I'm going to be getting the 3-disk boxed set of Black Books, and both series' of Big Train.

In other news, Chris Morris is back next year with a new show, a sitcom, based around the life of Nathan Barley (if you've ever seen the spoof TV Website, TV Go Home, it's the spoof documantary series, "Cunt" ) - albeit the new show's going to be called "A Box Of Slice".

[Reply #679 on:]

[squeals with delight]

A British comedy board!  [gestures with feet] Back of the net!   

Anyway, back to serious discussion.  ANyone remember an obscure sketch show in the mid-90s called "Glam Metal Detectives"?  It was the best thing on TV at the time, and it features "The Day Today"'s Doon Mackichan and future Dead Ringer Phil Cornwell among others.