Why is Little Britain so damn popular?

(only with like, apparently, awards and such, instead of universal derision)

... yeh, parochialism. that's the key.

[1] while writing this i realised that, eh, most of the characters are quite outre. but hey, that would fuck my argument a bit.

xpost I think there's about the same balance of observational comedy/nonsense as on the Fast Show.

i think i saw little britain once, it was ok. i dont really like comedy very much, but it didnt seem so bad

I don't think, unlike the Fast Show, there's anything in there apart from that. I can't imagine Little Britain ever reducing me to tears (as in tears of crying) as one episode of the Fast Show did.

Also it is popular because it has catchphrases which children can repeat at the school bus stop (excpet they don't seem to have school buses any more).

I have only seen brief snippets of the Fast Show and League of Gentlemen and I prefer Little Britain.

wasn't it on radio for years? i never listen to radio

I bought the first series on DVD and to be honest after abou three of the eight episodes I'd had my fill. It is the same joke over and over again in the same way that Fast Show did it, except maybe less clever? A lot of the sketches are directly lifted from League of Gentlemen (Fat-Fighters lady = Pauline from the Jobshop) but again, less clever, less attention to detail (acting and aesthetics). Somehow you always know it's a bloke under the dress in LB but with the League you'd be forgiven for forgetting that Tubbs is actually just a bloke so grotesque is the makeup and costumes.

I'd say there's some truth to this. Look at the Lou and Andy sketch. Lou is the blind do-gooder, endlessly striving to help people out while Andy is the lazy parasite, leeching off those who'll provide. In a way this could be construed by right-wingers as a parabel for the liberal way of thinking. Lou is obviously the Liberal while Andy is a sponger. Lou gets his come-uppance at the expense of Andy in each episode but is endlessly forgiving and turns a blind eye to Andy's ableness.

cf eg the two ladies of llandudno or whatever they were called

True again. When the Fast Show first came on TV I was taken aback. It literally ble my mind because I'd never seen anything like it. All these super-quick surreal catchphrase sketches that were repeated almost exactly the same way every week. Funny how this became the standard soon after and now the Fast Show is admittedly very dated in its delivery and observations.

I think there is more scope for this sort of thing in America though, provided it was 'done proper'.

(this is only a guess, as i haven't made a thing of FOLLOWING it)

anything, this mode of comedy is surely bound to be more popular, just bcz most viewers are somewhat distracted and not Committed TV Watchers and Commentators

That was brilliant, Lauren. Have you ever thought of becoming a one man band?

I am interested in the adoption of the right here though because there's an awful lot of stuff (Morris and League included) which I can't imagine papers like the Sun and the Mail really being into. I've been thinking about some of the other characters and they all seem to slide into the Tory/Blair way of thinking.

i think it is a way too-easy line of crit though, not much more convincing than the "monty python all went to public school" attacks of yore

and i don't even LIKE harry enfield

andy m3dhurst wrote a really sour feature on harry enfield in S&S once and i wrote a letter disagreeing which in its uncut form was three times longer than the entire S&S letters page

i remember that!!!!!! sadly i don't remember seeing your letter. but yeah, it was VVV tendentious. and yet, knowing that, it has soured my view of enfield. not that i was a big fan but come on: smashie and nicey was genius.

ie it is not satire at all, just silly

(even i cannot defend dead ringers)

you've got a dour Yorkshireman stereotype to live up to remember.

but really, how is it different from disapproving of pop music? you seem to do that as well! (but i know this is not strictly true). it's a general aversion to the mainstream in pop culture perhaps, or jus trying to avoid cliche and appearing to be like everyone else.

marcello he wz the guy in the coffee advert soap opera!

also he is murray head's brother!!!!!!

That's why I always found It Ain't Half Hot Mum a zillion times funnier than Dad's Army. The latter is wryly (wry = not funny) written and beautifully performed but, as with the Two Ronnies, it comes across as something to be "respected" rather than loved passionately, i.e. bulwark for not taking away the licence fee, viz. BBC equivalent of Alistair Cooke's Masterpiece Theatre. It "doesn't date" and therefore keeps getting repeated because it doesn't actually offend anyone, or upset them, or inspire any emotions whatsoever.

yes i agree - same goes for much 'mainstream not mainstream' music of that time ('electronica' etc.) surely.

(which I personally thought was the funniest thing ever when I was ten, but then I was ten)

and i was all but 8 years old when i found Alf Garnett referring to 'the coon' just as 'hilarious', ack (but this was recognition of how absurd Garnett was making himself look rather than laughing at racism...whew)

Mark you know I wuv ripping off and updating.

The problem with a lot of sketch shows is the ideas/performance balance. Some sketches seem much more like a 'funny idea' than a properly constructed piece of film - the suggestion that the idea is the most important part of a sketch is usually false - it's the acting, the characterisation, the turn of phrase which the whole deal hangs on. Big Train suffered from this a lot, but at least it had enough ideas and funny people involved to hit the mark occassionally. Little Britain seems to have a few ideas, repeated ad infinitum and often badly played. Also, Tom Baker's voiceover is simply awful - the kind of thing you can imagine someone writing and thinking 'yes that should be funny'. However, it's not. It's excruitiatingly not.

The whole zeitgeist thing is deeply unappealing - comedy for stupid people to laugh at characters more stupid than them? Or are there simply NO OTHER sketch shows currently on television (I'm struggling to think of any) and people need something to latch on to? Is it because it purports to be so proudly, definingly British, a nation of amusing oddballs, slightly sinister but not so threatening? Walliams and Lucas have been much better before (George Dawes was almost a masterpeice,a nd I like the popstar pieces well enough) so the whole affair was deeply disappointing for me.
As Marcello has mentioned, there also seems to be a lack of depth or emotional involvement with the characters - The League Of Gentlemen was so rich, so alive with real threat and sadness lurking, where LB seems to bob around, unsatisfactorily, on the surface. No danger, here.

This is a long, incoherent rant. Maybe the reason I don't like it is fairly simple - I don't find it very funny. But anyone else is entitled to. I mean, lots of people like Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps. Jesus Fucking Christ. I weep for our generation, sometimes.

I don't fancy "Little Britain" much.

a tom baker voiceover could be OK but little britain is bad.

crosspost to ally

is "danger" a must? possibly for for-the-ages status but not for just sat-down-chucklin surely!

Allo Allo is a billion times funnier than Hi-deHi. Tom Baker is terrible in everything ever. He is the Colin Baker of TV.

ally is otm abt sketch shows generally but little britain is at the high end of the ordinary run of these (better by far eg than not the fkn nine o'clock news, which bafflingly seems to rate high in the nsotalgo-meter)

big train is off on the "conceptualist/close attention" wing

This is not to say, however, that Jack White doesn't deserve similar treatment. Preferably with a Howitzer attached.

Hi De Hi = CLASSIC.

Tom Baker's recent radio ad for some awful website where he says "A Web. Site." is funny.

Allo Allo much, much funnier than Hi-De-Hi. I would have thought this went without saying, but obv not.

Dead Ringers is absolutely appalling on telly. Which is hardly surprising given its whole gimmick on radio was its (excellent) impersonation of Radio 4 personalities. Take that away and all you're left with is a third rate version of the unwatchable Rory Bremner.

it's funny bcz it's technique

i'm sorry, i've let everyone down, but more importantly i've let myself down.

i got the man's name wrong so you are exonerated

And yeah, you're right Mark, VP also works because it's actually, like, performed whereas most of the rest of the show feels knocked off in a will this do/do you see stylee.

No, but it IS clever!

(actually galloway is the most likely to break with this convention, on election-night form)
(of pundits, paxman or possibly the Great Kirsty Young)

bremner is bad but bird and fortune are OH MY GOD badness.

i did poptimism followed by seven straight hours of solo TV watching so my forensic crit skeez are a bit pulped

I think there are lots of Good Comedy People in the UK right now. The problem is that standard sketchcom and sitcom formulas really are knackered. You commit to those formats at your peril. Canned laughter track seldom makes a show better now - it's remarkable that Coogan pulled it off at all with the last series of Alan Partridge (and that was fraught with other problems anyway).

This is in reference to Bird and Fortune.

since each DJ's ego was inversely proportionate to their talent, this also meant he was one of the nicest people at the station. mind you, that's not saying much.

i still can't stand "dead ringers", though.

i REALLY disapprove of Culshaw impersonating David Brent though - on the one hand, unprecedented meta-hurrah. on the other, get one original idea.

It is Ernie.

I like that head slapping thing.

Really excellent.

Highly visual, yet intellectually stimulating.

(x-x-x-xpost)

Bring Back Dick Emery.

One of the prison guards from Bad Girls was in seven series of Dick Emery.

It's a start.

You've got me there. I didn't take into account Bobby Davro's hilarious Norman Wisdowm either. Or Les Dennis' Mavis Wilton.

This is why its a bit sad that Tubbs and Edward became the iconic sketch from the League of Gentlemen because although still funnier than anything from LB the whole schtick got a bit tired and there was so much more to the show. The reason why I liked LoG was the sparing way some of the characters were used (eg Shouty Actress Woman who would've been flogged to death if she'd been a Harry Enfield character). Then again, we recently watched the whole third series of LoG in one sitting and I still reckon its possibly the pinnacle of TV comedy. Swingers episode especially.

what are the viewing figures for Little Britain? Is it getting more viewers than the no of ppl who watched Enfield's prog on BBC1? Enfield does seem to me to be key here, as an avowed fan of Emery

when i worked at H*V, i was always getting asked for the music that played when Benny Hill runs around the park chasing after sexy nurses in sped-up motion. it's called 'yakety sax', shld you ever need to know

[boggles]

i'm with matt dc all the way. the last series in particular is probably the single best thing ever on british TV (although it was, of course, indebted to rowland rivron's seminal and sadly unrepeated "set of six).

Mentalism! I agree that Walliams and Lucas are great comic actors, the material lets them down somewhat, but they're always Walliams and Lucas. The great thing about the League of Gentlemen is the way they melt into the characters - Shearsmith and Pemberton especially. Mark Gatiss isn't quite as good as the other two when it comes to this (he makes a rubbish woman) but he's fantastic when it comes to the tragicomic monologue, like the cave tour guide and the guy in the mortuary.

Maybe. I guess it depends entirely on how it's handled. And I guess in retrospect TLOG handled it well.

This is why the "politics" (to read it far too straightforwardly) of many of the sketches boils down to a hazy opposition between two cultural archetypes, where one side is rubbished for not respecting the other - Marjorie Dawson blithely brushing aside the individuality of the Indian lady in her FatFighters course, the retired policmen who gets his kicks out of pretending to arrest black criminals while giving white kids driving lessons, the gay guy who is intolerant of lesbians, the conservative woman who vomits when she finds out the food she's eaten was prepared by a homosexual...

The point is not that these are "left wing" sketches, but rather that it affords the left/middle an opportunity to respond as if it was the right, to say "yes those people are like that aren't they silly!". Where the sketches are more superficially right-wing (Andy & Lou, Vicky Pollard, the eastern european immigrant babysitter) this argument doesn't work so well, but even then I think these sketches are pitched to liberal audiences, who are laughing at set-ups which contradict their own professed positions, and laughing at that contradiction (as Tom says re guilty pleasures, it's the guilt that is pleasurable).

In order to really understand what it's about, you need to watch a few episodes at least a couple of times. It's not necessarily the characters or the punchlines that are funny, it's the nuance of each character. They're written with serious depth and played with surprising conviction, and you'll find yourself choking with laughter because of something subtle that you didn't spot the first time, and wouldn't have understood if you did.

This applies to series 1 only btw. Series 2 was little more than a cynical succession of shit catchphrases and vom/tit gags. You can't milk a golden goose.

That "oooh he's gaw-geous" women literally does nothing but say "oooh he's gaw-geous" all the time. The bitty sketches are all about ever-more-disgusting situations about bitty. Bubbles and the vomiting lady are one-joke ideas stretched well beyond their worth. And Lou & Andy might as well have not been there at all.

i kind fof agree but i'd say it's popularity is about the exact opposite - people / kids latching on to three or four phrases and repeating them ad nauseum. (see also Loadsamoney)

having watched LOG again the last two weeks as well as Fat Fighters they did the Bubbles character and the Bitty character (Tubbs in epsiode 2 breastfeeding a piglet)

'Ernie' turns out to be quite rude, not really suitable for children.

This is why the "politics" (to read it far too straightforwardly) of many of the sketches boils down to a hazy opposition between two cultural archetypes, where one side is rubbished for not respecting the other - Marjorie Dawson blithely brushing aside the individuality of the Indian lady in her FatFighters course, the retired policmen who gets his kicks out of pretending to arrest black criminals while giving white kids driving lessons, the gay guy who is intolerant of lesbians, the conservative woman who vomits when she finds out the food she's eaten was prepared by a homosexual...

Of course it could be seen as the self-deprecation of the right, in the same way that left wingers will laugh at Alan Partridge or David Brent's floundering attempts at political correctness. Or maybe I'm pushing a particular point a little too hard?
I just find it strange that while ILX (with a high proportion of left wing and liberal posters) tends to champion a lot of new alternative comedy, yet reading this thread and others LB is never regarded that highly.
On the other hand papers like the Mail and the Sun champion this show, giving excellent reviews and also referring to particular sketches such as Pollard in their text. I think even Littlejohn proclaimed it as the funniest show on television or somesuch.

But yes, it's really quite poor. I wonder if the schoolkids who are into LB sneer at the schoolkids who are into Bo Selecta?

Bo Selecta is no worse than Little Britain - it may even be slightly better (guaranteed breasts etc.)

I have not seen Dennis Waterman or the retired policeman.

Maybe Catterick, which seemed to have it's moments, the bits of it I saw on BBC Three last year. Is the series currently on BBC2 the first one?

bo selecta is car-crash TV. there are one or two chucklesome moments, but most of the time you just sit there slack-jawed thinking, how the fuck did something this cack-handed and unfinished ever get the go-ahead?

I will stand up for 'Dead Ringers' if only for the k-rowr Jan Ravens.

Also Help! when it's on - I think it's finished now, mind.

> as for current comedy ... there's nothing i'd go out of my way to watch.

FAQ U The Mighty Boosh, does that count as current? LoG repeats? HitchHikers repeats? i'd like to see 15th Floor(?) properly as i missed about half of it when it was on.

(catterick was, i believe, a bbc2 repeat for the series that has already been on bbc3 stevem)

i also had a lot of time for monkey dust, although it did suffer from repetition syndrome.

I bet the Australian thing was rubbish too.

You are right, RJG.

Kath an Kim on the other hand was execrable. I could see that it was trying to engender that Royle Family/Office type discomfort but maybe the discomfort is too grounded in Australian society to cross over?

: )

This is a hallmark of a lot of character-based sketch shows like the Fat Show and Enfield, and why the ones which move onto something wholy new each time will always be better. The two which spring most to mind are Python obviously, Not The Nine O'Clock News, and more recently Big Train. The only thing Python ever repeated was the "It's...." man.

As for the best current British comedy, for newish stuff I'd say Green Wing or Keith Barret, but they're both some way behind Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I didn't think The Keith Barrat show was much cop, it's like Celebrity Alan Partridge. In all, a bit of a waste of a good character, especially after the superb Marion & Geoff.

Little Britain? I stopped watching after seeing the 1st episdode of the second series. I thought, I've seen this.

Green Wing is quite different in that it is a cross between a sketch show and sitcom, and takes place over an hour rather than the normal 30 mins. It also dispenses with the laughter track which can seem a bit condescending at times, kind of telling you when you should be laughing. I'm looking forward to a second series.

Finally, one senses that LB is getting all the awards because of the zeitgeist around it, where people don't want to appear old of the loop by not awarding it. No way is that swimming pool sketch better than the dead parrot sketch, which isn't even my favourite Python one (probably Upper Class Twit Of The Year if you're interested).

It's not that at all. It's a whole different type of show. It has more in common with its sketch comedy roots than it does The Royle Family, and it has little bearing at all on The Office. Saying it's trying to be those is undermining the writers, who in their own right are far more talented than to copy British formats.

If it looks cheap it's because the public broadcaster that produced it is woefully underfunded. We don't have the luxury of your GBP20 billion-a-year BBC here.

A certain branch of comedy (to which the royle family, early doors, the office, kath and kim etc) seems to be ploughing a furrow of looking at very banal situations and making good comedy out of them. I just didn't find Kath and Kim particularly funny.

(Some BBC producers would proably kill for that down and dirty VT look that Kath and Kim gets but they tossed all of the old analogue VT cameras that would produce it some years ago and probalby only allow stuff that is digital VT or digitally telecined nowadays)

Today's opinions: Bo Selecta may be the most obnoxious show ever made (this is not a good thing). I'm glad Ed mentioned I Am Not An Animal; I'd forgotten how wonderful that was. I'm not sure that there is a single good, current British comedy show. But then I can't claim to have seen them all.

I met a real life Ebony the other day! Although she didn't spell her name "Ehbohknee" or anything.

the mighty boosh is v. v. boring and crap, too. much like cook's favourite picture of two guys in a room, writing, going "this is hilarious stuff!"

No, I've been a big fan since the first series. As for Little Britain, I hope I haven't come across as a total hater on this thread. I bought the DVD of my own accord after seeing it on TV. It just dumbfounds me that it should be the most popular and rated comedy in a while.

some qualification: it isn't funny.

I hated The Smoking Room, specifically the ongoing attempt to remember the theme from Little House on the Prairie.

-- RJG (RJ...), May 17th, 2005.

did they reply? given that the show is advertised as comedy, this is surely fair grounds for complaint.

I enjoyed Kath and Kim.

I didn't exactly laugh my head off, but I liked everything about it.

This is unusual.

I think perhaps I just think Australians are funny.

Followed by something even less funny. Oh, Armstrong and Miller, so great together, so tragic apart.

Followed by something even less funny. Oh, Armstrong and Miller, so great together, so tragic apart.

I really liked the first series of Worst Week of My Life, but don't have any idea why they thought a sequel would be a good idea. (also, I didn't watch it as I switched off after trying to give Little Britain the benefit of the doubt for as long as I could (about ten minutes of not actually concentrating) and forgot to turn it back on again.

Rock Profiles was so much better than Little Britain has ever been, due largely to the fact it didn't just repeat itself every week.

Lighten up people, it's just television, it's supposed to be shit.

If they did this for the next five weeks, just to make a point, it would be immense.

Now what was funny!

god, it was awful! can't believe we've been sold another pup. i was forlornly hoping they'd at least do *something* new and interesting, but...no. i laughed out loud once and once only, and i can't even remember what that was about. charlatans. feh.

also, ahem:

The Smoking Room wasn't too bad, btw.

-- $V£N! (stevem7...) (webmail), May 17th, 2005 12:56 PM. (blueski) (link)

The Smoking Room was rubbish.

-- $V£N! (stevem7...) (webmail), May 17th, 2005 1:37 PM. (blueski) (link)

???

mrs fiendish said she laughed at one bit of it - i can't remember which - and the rest was shit. there seems to be a consensus forming here.

fwiw, i thought the first series was brilliant and the second patchy. why the fuck do producers persist in recomissioning things that so obviously have a built-in obsolescence?

Because they're lazy and useless perhaps?

I laughed quite a bit more than I expected last night.
It helps that I haven't watched series 2. I got it out of the library, but it was shit.

I did not approve of Tom Baker's leakage or seepage into the intro for the next programme, mind.

-- PJ Miller (pjmiller6...) (webmail), Today 12:08 PM. (PJ Miller 68) (later)

more to the point why are there two parallel threads for exactly the same thing?

didn't see last night's, was busy watching alanis murder dylan on ch4 (sadly true. was only watching it for the peel bit and that was right at the end.).

is the pirate memory games bloke back? that and dennis waterman = only good bits and even they were the same joke every week.

Oh come on, Alanis Morissette hasn't actually murdered Bob Dylan has she?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4449048.stm

This has to be the most boring, pointless idea for a book ever, and I'm someone who has both the League of Gents and Royle Family scriptbooks at home.

and mrs fiendish just sat there going: "what the fuck is he meant to be?"

shame, because the actual sketch was OK otherwise.

i find bits of it amusing, in a puerile and silly way. i think this series has improved as it's gone on. and sometimes utterly brainless comedy of repetition is just what a tired mind needs.

Our thoughts are with you, America, they truly are. Please don't give this unabashed shitheap the acclaim it tragically received on these unenlightened shores. Please.

Britain, I hate you.

Just noticed this on Metacritic. How's it going for you guys? :D

It's showing here on friday night. I'll probably watch an episode or two out of morbid curiosity.

That's what keeps them going, unfortunately.

Little Britain USA is 'too crude'

O RLY

Tracey Ullman has a current series!?

That Little Britain USA show was not very funny. The jokes used were old hat in the 90s.

I'm happy they got Tom Baker back to do this.

HBO is really rolling around in the litter box these days.

I expect Baker wasn't exactly in a pick and choose situation when it came to work offers.

I dunno, he seems to be 'voiceover man du jour' right now.

Maybe. Some of them sound like a cheaper Tom Baker impersonator.

If Tom Baker could do a sunderland accent, he'd get double bubble!

Sorry, Lauren Laverne's got that corner of the market sewn up.

That's fine, at least she is.

It's that "Weetabix" one with Egyptian Reggae, with the Rada trained singsong "Geordie" accent that makes the kids laugh derisorily.

Get that Paul Whitehouse to do it, he's a genius, he can do every accent brilliantly

Well, it's better than the Weetabix bloke, but still....

That Little Britain USA show was not very funny.

Well that turned out to be very otm. A complete laugh free zone as far as I could tell.

Oh..

That sketch where the old married couple at the restaurant, he overtalking, she saying nothing.

That was funny.

It was even funnier when it was on Bob Mills' "In bed with me dinner"

Exactly the ruddy same. Except that was from a 'fly-on-the-wall' documentary with BM's 'comments' edited in....