Is British Comedy Dead?
CJWALKER
Posts: 545 Forum Member
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Is Comedy on Tv dead?
Stand up and Sitcoms?
Ive noticed lately that almost every new comedy show that comes along is completely PANNED by the viewers!
Its safe to say that 99% of new comedy will be detested the public! But why???
With the influx of 'attack comedy' and controversial comedians it seems weve seen it all.
What we find funny is such a personel thing but it seems the majority of new comedians, and the old ones are not hitting on our funnybone anymore!
Whats gone wrong
Stand up and Sitcoms?
Ive noticed lately that almost every new comedy show that comes along is completely PANNED by the viewers!
Its safe to say that 99% of new comedy will be detested the public! But why???
With the influx of 'attack comedy' and controversial comedians it seems weve seen it all.
What we find funny is such a personel thing but it seems the majority of new comedians, and the old ones are not hitting on our funnybone anymore!
Whats gone wrong
0
Comments
And these people know that to make the money you have to play it safe so you have very dull comedy from the likes of McIntyre, Bishop and Bridges.
Michael McIntyre drives a Jag and wears and Rolex, these dull middle-class career people aren't what British comedy needs, it'll not be long before they start talking about golf like Tarby and Forsythe.
Comedy shouldn't just be a way to pay off the mortgage and buy a holiday home in France.
So you're basically saying that only working class people should be allowed to be comedians??
If so, that is a steaming pile of s***
I would say that with Sean Lock, John Bishop, Sarah Millican, Shappi Korsandi, Kevin Bridges, Rhod Gilbert, Milton Jones and others about it's in rude health.
Take Billy Connolly, Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle though and it should be put down
But as I see it Miranda, Mongrels, Psychoville & The Inbetweeners, Armstrong and Miller, and The Trip were/are all pretty much well received. Peep Show is still very funny despite it being on its 7th (i think) series. The IT crowd is really good (despite it's last series lacking a bit)
Sales of Michael McIntyre and John Bishop DVDs were very strong this Christmas. And with Eddie Izzard, Ricky Gervais, Russell Brand and Peter Kay we have comedians capable of selling out large arenas.
Of course most comedy shows are rubbish or painfully average but it's always been like that it's just Sturgeon's Law. I agree there is a bit of a 'we've seen it all before'; but commercially and critically British comedy is quite healthy.
I do love things like Benidorm and Gavin and Stacey, so it can't all be that i am just a niggly old c*w......
John Bishop,Sarah Milican,Shappi Korsandi--Love them
You haven't got much of a chip on your shoulder then.
Psychoville
Rev
Grandmas House
Roger and Val Have Just Got In
The Great Outdoors
The Trip
Cowards
We Need Answers
Getting On
Sean Lock and Milton Jones are quite funny but you could hardly call them hilarious, like say Billy Connolly in the mid to late 70s.
Thought Alan Patrtidge was funniest comedy this year, notably not on TV.
But its much like music - the quality ebbs and flows. Television as a whole ( as well as culture in general) is very conformist at the moment, and this is reflected in comedy. Broadly, it has become very formulaic.
It will be interesting to see if any comedies today ( such as the Peep Show) become classics.
It's filtered through TV executives who are very risk averse.
This will get very much worse on commercial TV as product placement comes in and no company is going to really want to be associated with risky social comment.
Nothing new there! Fawlty Towers was ripped into by the critics until the public "got it", and then it was universally lauded.
That just shows how much opinion differes because most of these I would classify as "anti-comedies".
But on the whole we rarely see a good sit-com. I thought Outnumbered was one..... quite liked the IT crowd and erm.... sorry, can't think of any more just now!!
I agree with another poster that political correctness has killed an awful lot of humour. And those risk-averse idiots in TV exec jobs. And the bean counters who are allowed to make way too many artistic judgements. I could really get going now!!!!!
The three part Red Dwarf special was pretty good and The thick of it political satire at it's best but not really a sitcom.
There's a lot of good stand up out there just not on television even the best stand ups on tv a dumbed down because of the PC brigade and can't use their best material. Harry Hill is funny but a sell out and is basically a kid's entertainer these days compared to how he was when he started out.
What humour has political correctness killed?
Considering you liked Outnumbered and IT Crowd, what kind of politically incorrect jokes do you think would have made them better?
I loathe Some Mothers and don't find Fawlty particularly amusing but that's comedy - so personal to us individually.
I wouldn't say British comedy is dead but it is in the High Dependency Unit.
Thank goodness for the likes of Stewart Lee.
I'm not a huge fan of Gervais, but you do get the sense with him that he is driven by trying to say something.
I guess a few years into a Tory government might see the kind of reaction we got in the early 80s and comedy might begin to have a purpose again rather than the sheer inanity of McIntyre, Howard, Brand et al.
OK, what is it people used to be able to do but aren't allowed to now?
Agree about the risk averse businesspeople having too much say. If your main concern is making money, you shouldn't be involved in any form of art or entertainment. When what should be about creativity becomes about £££, it begins to stagnate and become dumb and dull. I don't think British TV is that bad yet, but it does seem to have got worse for this recently.