Comedy Catch Up

TV Review: The League of Gentlemen

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The League of Gentlemen is a dark comedy classic, full of hideous characters and disturbing events. It is often a very difficult show to watch, if not only for the sheer number of times we must see Mark Gatiss die in the most brutal of ways. That would be pretty traumatic for anyone.

Royston Vasey is a place for misfits; a place for the flawed, the unsettled and the peculiar. It is obvious when there is an intruder in the village, and we all know what happens to intruders, to un-locals. From the iconic married couple: Tubbs and Edward, who insist that their shop is a “local shop for local people”, to the patronising head of the Job Centre: Pauline (who would have guessed that Steve Pemberton would make such a wonderful woman?), The League of Gentlemen covers a wide range of characters and sketches.

There is one advantage to being fifteen years late watching this programme and that is that I can clearly see how it has influenced, and shares similarities of, our British comedy culture today, especially shows like Little Britain and The Mighty Boosh. Another development that should be clear to today’s viewers is that of Inside No. 9: the most recent work from Shearsmith and Pemberton, and another dark and twisted comedy delight.

It is clear that a huge amount of care and general hard graft went into the making of this programme and this is evident in the fragments between sketches, such as posters for crazy things like missing fingers and downright disgusting things like an exploded tortoise stuck to the roof of a taxi. The camera work is wonderful at sweepingly through the village and showing some of the various absurd places and people.

The League of Gentlemen is a programme that no comedy-lover should miss, though I expect most people haven’t missed it at all; it was only I who was stupid enough to do that.

TV Review: Green Wing

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I know I’m late to the party with this one, with Green Wing having first been broadcast in September 2004 (though you could say I’ve chosen the best time to watch it: on its ten year anniversary).

IMDB describes the show as a “funny hospital-based sketch-comedy-drama type show,” which I think is very accurate, but if I had to describe Green Wing in just one word, I would probably say it is ‘dense’. This is neither a negative nor positive judgement of the show, though I do like it very much. I think my feelings stems from a few core values it holds throughout: firstly, the episodes are physically very long (each around 50 minutes) and there are nine of them in the series. As well as this, however, I think this feeling of density comes from the vast amount of quality acting, writing and directing throughout.

The cast is thriving with young (therefore not so young and very well known now) British comedy talent, including Tamsin Greig, Mark Heap, Stephen Mangan, Michelle Gomez and Olivia Colman (a few of my favourites, though there are more than ten big roles). I admire the cast of this programme because they aren’t afraid to look foolish: the writers make it clear that this is not a serious drama from the offset by scripting in surreal situations along with extremely childish behaviour.

green wing

There is a great deal of slapstick comedy with an almost Mr Bean-like quality to add to the entirely strange experience of watching Green Wing. The use of camera and soundtrack will often accentuate this in cases where everything will speed up at times and then slow right down to less-than-natural levels.

A stand-out performance for me would have to be that of Michelle Gomez, who plays Sue White, an actress who recently appeared in a recent episode of Doctor Who: Deep Breath and is also recognised as Bad Education‘s Isobel Pickwell. She captures the insanity of Green Wing effortlessly with her deadpan delivery of lines like: “I could put a spell on you” in the middle of a mature conversation.

Although Gomez is a particular favourite of mine, it would be impossible to pick an overall ‘best’ performance because they are all incredible and devoted actors. The insanity of Pippa Haywood and Tamsin Greig’s characters teamed with the typical almost-character-tropes of Stephen Mangan, Olivia Colman and Karl Theobald’s roles makes for truly excellent viewing.

This is obviously a show for every comedy-lover out there and I regret being so late to the party.

TV Review: Lead Balloon

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Although this show isn’t particularly new, I still feel it deserves some praise and I’d like to get some more people to check it out if they haven’t already. Not enough people talk about the SitCom Lead Balloon, that ran from 2007 to 2011 (running for four series) and was written by the brilliant Jack Dee and Pete Sinclair and also starred Dee as the down-beat and sarcastic Rick Spleen.

I would describe it as almost an anti-comedy as the plot revolves around Rick Spleen, a failed and world-weary comedian, going about his daily life and just upsetting people as he does so. Rick lives with his lovely wife, Mel, and teenage daughter, Sam. He spends his days with friend and writing partner, Marty, who is undeniably wittier than Rick himself, and they have lunch in the same café every day- the café belonging to Michael. Sam, her boyfriend, Ben, and the house cleaner, Magda, together manage to get under Rick’s feet and continuously irritate him as he grumpily goes about his daily business. As a result of his unaddressed anger, Rick manages to make all the wrong choices and simultaneously annoy everyone in his path. Every episode presents countless disasters for Rick that are actually caused by himself in the first place.

Lead Balloon

There are two characters that I absolutely adore: Michael (played by Tony Gardner), the loveable but almost certainly ‘unhinged’ cafe owner, and Magda (Anna Crilly), the house cleaner, who is grumpy and sarcastic and has a very strong, unspecified Eastern-European accent. One of my favourite episodes was S1E3, where Michael holds a sponsored skip to raise money for a mental health charity. To cut the story short (sorry, spoilers), Michael winds up being hit by a car (Rick’s) and the way the plot plays out is truly hilarious.

The format of the programme is simple, repetitive and homely. There are many recurring jokes throughout and I’ll outline them to give you more of an overview as to what each episode entails:

  • Marty is a lot funnier than Rick.
  • Sam’s boyfriend, Ben, never commits to anything properly.
  • Sam is always after her dad’s money.
  • Michael is creepy (unknown mental health issues).
  • Mel is always right.
  • Rick will always upset most people/dig himself a hole.

There are many parallels to be drawn between Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm and Jack Dee’s Lead Balloon:

“Many people have compared Lead Balloon with a similarly excruciating comedy from the US, Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. Dee, however, says that Curb didn’t directly inspire his sitcom. ‘Lead Balloon was about me taking 20 years of stand-up and putting that kind of comedy into a dramatic situation. I would claim my right to that comedy because I’ve been doing it for a lot longer than Curb Your Enthusiasm has been around, much as I love it.’ “

I love Lead Balloon because it is simple, uncomfortable and warm. I’m a firm believer that it is also accessible to pretty much anyone and it has a fond place in my heart.