British Comedy

House of Fools

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January marked a much awaited time for Vic and Bob fans: the arrival of the brand new surreal sitcom, House Of Fools. The programme follows the troubles faced by Bob [Mortimer] and his group of unreliable and slightly insane ‘friends’ (plus his Norwegian son, Erik) who all insist on lodging in his house whilst continually mocking poor Bob as he manages to fail in all aspects of his life.

The casting of the programme is near on perfection, featuring Matt Berry as Beef, Dan Skinner as Bosh, Morgana Robinson as Julie and of course Vic and Bob themselves. I was pleased to see a new face on the programme: stand up comedian Daniel Simonsen as Erik, whose role in the show is refreshing, maybe because the exaggerated Norwegian accent is hilarious in itself.

Reeves and Mortimer have said in interviews that the aim of the show was to take the conventional idea of what should be in a sitcom and completely turn it on its head by recreating typical situations but in a new way. For example, when a neighbour tells the protagonist that they need them to look after something very important, the audience are immediately aware of the inevitability that something will soon go drastically wrong. The double act recognised this and made it the plot line of episode two, The Pork Pie Affair, in which Julie asks the group to look after an oversized pork pie that is to be given to Bruce Willis that evening.

The programme is broken up with songs of nonsense, that Bob describes as a “shortcut to telling a plot, so we set everything up via the gift of song.” The words are constantly going round my head on a daily basis and I can’t seem to get them out so beware!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-V7479MQC4]

No More All-Male Panel Shows

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Today the BBC announced they were to make sure every episode of shows like QI and Mock the Week are to have at least one female guest. My first reaction was along the lines of: ‘sure, this is coming from a good place, women should be greater represented in comedy. The idea behind this is a sound one.’ However, I don’t think this is the correct way to go about it in the slightest. Speaking as a young female, I felt embarrassed to hear that women would get such special treatment. From now on, even if it is untrue, every comedienne that is asked to appear on such shows will feel that they are just there to fit the BBC’s new criteria. They are being completely undermined.

mock the week

© BBC

Females comics don’t get half the recognition they deserve and some of the funniest people in the industry I know of are women. For example Katherine Ryan, Sara Pascoe, Dolly Wells, Morgana Robinson, Roisin Conaty, Sarah Millican and Aisling Bea, are amongst some of my favourites. I think women add a valuable new dimension to such panel shows. They make it interesting. So seeing my favourite comediennes on television is always a highlight for me as like most people, they have earned their place on the panel. Years of hard work goes in before people come anywhere near to performing on programmes like Mock the Week.

It makes me sad to think that the women mentioned above may feel undervalued in the future when invited to appear on BBC panel shows because they deserve to be commended for their hard work. In many cases, they deserve additional recognition purely for the way they have surfaced above the hundreds of male comics in the UK while facing constant discrimination along the way. How many times have you heard the phrase: ‘she’s funny for a female comic’ or ‘no female comics are ever funny’. These make my blood boil- do they have no idea that humour is not purely in your genetic information? Have they not stopped to consider that intelligence, wit and life experiences might have some influence?

Some Girls, Series 2

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I tend to try and watch all new sitcoms that appear on the BBC and Channel 4 in particular as comedy is clearly thriving in Britain at the moment, but the main thing that originally drew me to series 1 of Some Girls was the fact that it starred Dolly Wells (Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy).

some girls

Some Girls follows a small friendship group through their experiences at high school; most of the girls in the group are very odd. Viva is the character with the main focus as we are introduced to her family, which includes her pregnant stepmother Anna Hitchcock (‘Bitchcock’) who is played by Wells. Anna is also the girls’ school football coach and has most of the funniest lines in the whole show. One of my favourites from this new series was along the lines of: [In a full school assembly] “As most of you know, Mr Andrews has died. For those of you who didn’t know, Mr Andrews has died”. I found her sarcasm and impatience throughout the episodes hysterically funny.

The cast is refreshingly young and skilled. Amber (Alice Felgate) and Saz (Mandeep Dhillon) are completely insane characters and have such contrasting personalities- Amber is a typical ‘dumb blonde’ character with a really kind heart and Saz is sarcastic, angry and hilarious. Some Girls is surprisingly original and enjoyable; I found myself laughing out loud a lot.