Charlie Brooker returns to the BBC with a six part series which aims to show how TV misrepresents reality. The format is essentially the same as his "wipe" shows and it benefits greatly as he has confidence in this layout. The only real difference is a lack of guest slots (no Doug Stanhope), instead replaced by the TV comedy show achilles heel; sketches.
I really enjoyed it, mainly because this is Brooker back in his full on miserable cynic persona only with a shit new haircut and a set instead of his living room. The sketches weren't fantastic, but at least Brooker wisely doesn't feature in them and they don't look as cheap and tacky as Boyle/Howard/Lee's (his director ,who I think is the guy who plays Barry Shitpeas and I think is called Ali Campbell (but he doesn't front UB40), deserves credit for all his BBC shows).
The thing I felt it achieved brilliantly was the balance between funny and serious, something 10 O'Clock Live still needs to iron out. When the point gets serious he doesn't try to force humour into it. This does lead to stretches where you don't laugh, but it doesn't matter because what you get instead is interesting.
Showing posts with label comedy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comedy. Show all posts
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Thursday, 20 January 2011
10 O'Clock Live (Channel 4)
Channel 4's new topical comedy show, hosted by Jimmy Carr, David Mitchell, Lauren Laverne and Charlie Brooker, was something of a mixed bag. It's lumbered from the off with the baggage of being a satirical news comedy show and therefore has an instant hurdle to overcome in that any satirical news comedy show on TV has to live up to the original, and possibly still best, comedy quiz show in Have I Got News For You and Chris Morris's classic The Day Today and Brass Eye, which isn't really very fair; 1o O'Clock Live isn't trying to be either.
Instead it is trying to be everything and herein lay the problem. Due to the sheer volume of content they tried to pack into an hour nothing quite fully worked and some things (the horrific US news spoof) were appalling. I'm hoping that as they have a 15 week run they will tweak the format to make it work better. Here's how I'd do it.
First I'd get rid of Lauren Laverne. She seems like a spare wheel. Apart from being the closest there was to a host her only input was the aforementioned US news sketch. I suppose she's useful as the focal point of the round the table discussion (which needs to be tweaked by the other 3 letting Brooker talk instead of just talking over him). Second, get rid of the desperately poor sketches they take up time that will easily be filled with content already there.. For example, Mitchell hosting a debate with 3 people started chaotic and just as it was starting to work they had to end it for a Brooker video segment. Brooker was followed by a break and when it returned there was THAT sketch and a Jimmy Carr segment so poor I can't remember anything about it. Cut the crap after the break, move Brooker there and allow the debate to run longer.
The best between break part of the show was the one that started with Brooker's cynical rant and then had Mitchell discussing tuition fees with a single politician. Brooker was very funny, the discussion was interesting. This should be how the whole show plays then you'd have Intro, Carr monologue about the news, Mitchell does a serious bit, ads, Brooker video, Carr interviews someone interesting, Mitchell monologue if the interviewee is less interesting than he was this week, ads, round the table talk (preceded by Mitchell if the interviewee was as interesting as this week), ads, Brooker rant, Mitchell discussion, Carr sign off. Credits. Better programme.
Instead it is trying to be everything and herein lay the problem. Due to the sheer volume of content they tried to pack into an hour nothing quite fully worked and some things (the horrific US news spoof) were appalling. I'm hoping that as they have a 15 week run they will tweak the format to make it work better. Here's how I'd do it.
First I'd get rid of Lauren Laverne. She seems like a spare wheel. Apart from being the closest there was to a host her only input was the aforementioned US news sketch. I suppose she's useful as the focal point of the round the table discussion (which needs to be tweaked by the other 3 letting Brooker talk instead of just talking over him). Second, get rid of the desperately poor sketches they take up time that will easily be filled with content already there.. For example, Mitchell hosting a debate with 3 people started chaotic and just as it was starting to work they had to end it for a Brooker video segment. Brooker was followed by a break and when it returned there was THAT sketch and a Jimmy Carr segment so poor I can't remember anything about it. Cut the crap after the break, move Brooker there and allow the debate to run longer.
The best between break part of the show was the one that started with Brooker's cynical rant and then had Mitchell discussing tuition fees with a single politician. Brooker was very funny, the discussion was interesting. This should be how the whole show plays then you'd have Intro, Carr monologue about the news, Mitchell does a serious bit, ads, Brooker video, Carr interviews someone interesting, Mitchell monologue if the interviewee is less interesting than he was this week, ads, round the table talk (preceded by Mitchell if the interviewee was as interesting as this week), ads, Brooker rant, Mitchell discussion, Carr sign off. Credits. Better programme.
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Frankie Boyle's Tramadol NIghts (Channel 4)
Frankie Boyle was by far the best thing on Mock The Week and the live show I saw a couple of years ago was excellent so I was looking forward to his first solo TV show. Boy was I disappointed. Not because it didn't quite live up to the expectation I had of it, but because it was plain terrible.
It started OK with a stand up section to start, but having only around 5 minutes meant there was no structure to the comedy and instead it was just a series of "dark" jokes. On Mock The Week when contrasted against lighter comics and across a 90 minute show where the level of darkness can rise and fall this worked brilliantly. When strung together fast and unrelelnting almost everything good about Frankie Boyle vanishes and he just comes across as cruel and vulgar.
Yet the 3 stand-up sections were the undeniable highlight compared to the woeful series of sketches that filled out the rest of the show. One sketch was a funny idea done badly and the first installment of George Michael's Highway Code would have been funny if it had just been "mirror, signal, wank, crash, wank" instead of going on. Other than those two none of the sketches were anything better than utter dross. Crude ideas executed very amateurishly. Whoever shot and directed the sketches should never work in TV again as they looked cheaper than the sketches off that cheap sketch show that Michael Marshall Smith appeared on (I can't remember the name of it but hopefully someone (Al?) might). Thing is, that was very cheap while this is Frankie Boyle in a prime Channel 4 comedy slot and will have a budget.
Overall an unmitigated disaster that can't be fixed until a second series it doesn't deserve. So bad I genuinely mean this final sentence. Much worse than The X Factor!
It started OK with a stand up section to start, but having only around 5 minutes meant there was no structure to the comedy and instead it was just a series of "dark" jokes. On Mock The Week when contrasted against lighter comics and across a 90 minute show where the level of darkness can rise and fall this worked brilliantly. When strung together fast and unrelelnting almost everything good about Frankie Boyle vanishes and he just comes across as cruel and vulgar.
Yet the 3 stand-up sections were the undeniable highlight compared to the woeful series of sketches that filled out the rest of the show. One sketch was a funny idea done badly and the first installment of George Michael's Highway Code would have been funny if it had just been "mirror, signal, wank, crash, wank" instead of going on. Other than those two none of the sketches were anything better than utter dross. Crude ideas executed very amateurishly. Whoever shot and directed the sketches should never work in TV again as they looked cheaper than the sketches off that cheap sketch show that Michael Marshall Smith appeared on (I can't remember the name of it but hopefully someone (Al?) might). Thing is, that was very cheap while this is Frankie Boyle in a prime Channel 4 comedy slot and will have a budget.
Overall an unmitigated disaster that can't be fixed until a second series it doesn't deserve. So bad I genuinely mean this final sentence. Much worse than The X Factor!
Friday, 24 September 2010
An Idiot Abroad (Sky One)
Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's comedy punch bag Karl Pilkington is each week sent to one of the seven wonders of the world. Hilarity enshews (for the most part).
This week Karl is sent to China to check out the Great Wall, but first he wanders around a Chinese market where he gets wierded out by locals eating insects while he munches away on a bag of Monster Munch. He is less than impressed by the Great Wall when he finds out it was refurbished in the 50's and again in the 80's which leads him to the conclusion that it's no longer a great wall, just a wall.
Gervais and Merchant appear briefly at the start when they send Karl off (and rip the piss) and as disembodied voices on the phone giving Karl things to do, but other than that it's just Karl being Pilkington and very funny it is too; on the whole. Occasionally he doesn't have anything utterly ludicrous to say and these, admittedly short, periods come off as bad travelogue with someone who can't teach you anything. But generally this is consistently as funny as you'd hope.
This week Karl is sent to China to check out the Great Wall, but first he wanders around a Chinese market where he gets wierded out by locals eating insects while he munches away on a bag of Monster Munch. He is less than impressed by the Great Wall when he finds out it was refurbished in the 50's and again in the 80's which leads him to the conclusion that it's no longer a great wall, just a wall.
Gervais and Merchant appear briefly at the start when they send Karl off (and rip the piss) and as disembodied voices on the phone giving Karl things to do, but other than that it's just Karl being Pilkington and very funny it is too; on the whole. Occasionally he doesn't have anything utterly ludicrous to say and these, admittedly short, periods come off as bad travelogue with someone who can't teach you anything. But generally this is consistently as funny as you'd hope.
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