Lesley and I are on a lethal late-summer cocktail of U.K. comedies—Saxondale, Yes, Minister, The IT Crowd, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, even a little (forgive me) Father Ted—which is maybe why I stood to attention at this (best if read in interior voice of Alan Partridge):“Humor is therefore not a rhetorical leavening of one’s message. It is the best evidence of the door to the source being left wide open.”On the same tack, good to see student of Britain Johnny Clay and his band, The Dimes, traipsing about as redcoats in St. Cupcake.
9 comments:
Yes, Rodney! Steve Coogan is an utter genius. Keanu Reeves is one of the most funny/disturbing characters ever. The theme to Saxondale is my ring tone at the moment but everyone thinks it's Jethro Tull.
Nietsche: "Origin of the comic. If one considers that for some hundred thousand years man was an animal susceptible to fright in the highest degree, and that anything sudden or unexpected meant that he was ready to do battle, perhaps to die; indeed, that even later in social relations, all security rested on the expected, on tradition in meaning and activity; then one cannot be surprised that at every sudden, unexpected word or deed, if it comes without danger or harm, man is released and experiences instead the opposite of fright. The cringing creature, trembling in fear, springs up, expands wide: man laughs. This transition from momentary fear to short-lived exuberance is called the comic. Conversely, in the phenomenon of the tragic, man quickly goes from great, enduring exuberance to great fear; however, since among mortals great enduring exuberance is much less common than the occasion for fear, there is much more of the comic than of the tragic in the world; man laughs much more often than he is devastated."
add to cart;
Mighty Boosh
Nighty Night
Nathan Barley
Peep Show
Spaced
Thick of It (and film takeoff In the Loop)
League of Gentlemen
Little Britain
Jam (and anything Chris Morris has done, radio or TV)
Asylum
most avail free via youtube or elsewhere on line
DB
and big train for stuff like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIIAQME1Uhg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQZDFv0aTlk
Hi Will,
I'm with you. Why is he frittering his talent away on the Hollywood B-list when he can get away with so much brilliance in the U.K.?
Hi Nada,
You remind me that Nietzsche, dodgy 'stache aside, was "gay."
Hi David,
I wish I'd know this--we gotta talk! The Mighty Boosh is in the queue (the Matt Berry/Richard Ayoade interest); Little Britain I love but am kind of over; League of Gentleman I didn't quite get into but probably could if I gave it time. The rest are all new to me. The Big Train bits, Prince esp., look good.
Black Books...
I know a good one. What am I saying, I know a bad one, possibly the worst sitcom ever. Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, with Michael Crawford. The bottom of the barrel, and yet Dodie and I got hooked on it 10 or 12 years back and have long looked for some sort of therapy to rid our minds of persistent images of Michael Crawford looking stupid.
Hi Kevin,
Hadn't heard of it, but thanks to the magic of YouTube, am set to hunt it down. It says "British sitcom" the way those generic beers say "BEER."
Hi Jordan,
Just time for a Wikipedia crawl, but it seems like Graham Linehan is in back of every British comedy anyone likes in the last 10 years, in the way the Irish were in back of British Modernism.
O.K., just watched some "Black Books" clips. Looks great, with kind of a "Butley" vibe.
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