J-J-Jean-Paul! G-Get in here and serve these customers!

[hirez]

A sequence of commentary to a recent post (which has now wandered off into rat-fetish soap opera. Thankfully I don't watch anything like enough telly for it to make sense) reminded me that many things that are clearly considered funny by the majority, are in fact deeply depressing

Comments

[markeris]

Last of the Summer Wine is the nearest thing to a sense of aspiration I have ever had, having watched it aged about 8 and had a strong sense of "I have no idea what path I want to take through life, BUT NOT THAT". For me therefore it`s pretty much the piece de resistance of destroyed soul made manifest.

[hirez]

Exactly so.

[inulro]

The equivalent for me is Bridget Jones or anything of that sort.

[markeris]

ironically, the only response I`ve ever had to Bridget Jones is wanting to have a go on Renee Zellweger. Balance in The Universe would be perpetuated if it turned out that you fancied a go on Compo or something.

[markeris]

Admittedly at least last of The Summer Wine is Andy Capp with madcap flights of fancy instead of spousal abuse, so you`re technically right. But I never actually loooked at Andy Capp with a "no. If I end up there that counts as failure" eye as a young child, possibly because it was a comic strip that ran in The Mirror and singling out a 1/4 page on the back as the death of everything I could ever be seemed redundant.

[sarah_mum]

The first episode of Steptoe and Son (which was actually intended as a one-off) looks astonishingly like a Pinter play, only not as cheery.

Some say that Comedy = Tragedy + Time, I argue that it's Tragedy + Distance.

Then again, the secret of good comedy is utimately, not timing, but *being funny*.

[echo_echo]

I remember when The Royale Family came out...a friend said, you should watch it, it's great. So I watched it. I told him I didn't find it funny at all, in fact, it reminded me a lot of my own family.

[sarah_mum]

For similar reasons, I cannot stand The Office.

[hirez]

Quite.

The only one I've managed to watch is the Christmas special.

Perhaps I am a simple sort who prefers redemption and closure in his stories.

Mind, anything Carla Lane touched ever can jolly well fuck off.

[tails_redux]

I think the bleakness was all part of that era .. Porridge, Steptoe & Son, Rising Damp, Reggie Perrin ...

[hirez]

Yes, in the case of Steptoe and Damp. Terrible documentaries of lives unlived.

However, the premise of Perrin was that you could, if perhaps only briefly, escape The Norm. Porridge also had a hopeful message. Fletcher and Godber did their time and got out.

[tails_redux]

Suppose you could add Hancock to the list as well. A lot of this sort of thing, is about the brief moments of escape, little victories ... despite it all going to pot or being a dellusion of grandeur that's popped. Certainly there's a lot of cruelty in English humour.

Sitcoms (for the most part) are about people in a stable situation. For some reason there's a lot more humour got out of the lower end of the social ladder, than the oh we're quite comfortable and don't have to struggle (anyone for Terry & June?).

Turning things on their head, can you name a funny upwardly mobile (not sure if that's the right phraze, but you get my drift) sitcom?

[echo_echo]

Yes Minister, Teachers, This Life. Even the Bill and Ted sketch from the Fast Show.

I think there can be humour in most situations There are few situations in life that don't involve some form of struggle, be it for survival or for advancement/power. It think it is that conflict, whether internal or external, that provides good comedy.

[echo_echo]

After interviewing Paul Abbott a few weeks back, what came across was that Shameless wasn't in any way a comedy. It was a dark, bleakly honest, slice of his upbringing. The comedy comes from awkwardess about what people are watching.

[sarah_mum]

That's really quite surprising.
For me, the comedy of Shameless is more to do with the resourcefulness and character of the central players - though not in the style of other, dreadful 'cheeky chappy' things - than the awkwardness, which is what makes it a totally different kettle of fish to The Royale Family or The Office.

[echo_echo]

I think the resourcefulness sure. But the way he told it was that it was 'making do' in the most appalling conditions and from that comes a very dark humour when you look back on it.

Perhaps saying it isn't a comeny is wrong. It is more the subject shouldn't be something you laugh at, but the way it is portrayed makes it funny. He talked especially about the episode where one of the girls stole a baby and "How the hell do you make that anything less than tragic?". That was a very hard episode to write, to get enough humour in that it was entertaining and watchable without diluting the issue.

He said there was a version of Shameless that was brutally honest. Nothing given for entertainment, no humour, just 'as it was' that got canned because it was unwatchable. It was only when he went back and looked at it through his eyes at the time that he realised it was so horrible that it could actually be funny.