He Used To Be Funny

[poliphilo]

I watched a tribute to a formerly much-loved comedian last night. He's been off our screens for about thirty years and I've always thought it sad and unjust, but then I got to look at his material through twenty first century eyes and realized why he had to go. He was dire. Feeble jokes needlessly elaborated, no pace, impersonations of celebs whom no-one under fifty is likely to recognize, much gurning. This guy- no I'm not naming him because he pleased me once- was famous for playing every speaking role in his shows. The effect is airless, claustrophobic, oppressive. How can you have chemistry with yourself and it not be creepy?

Maybe it's just a matter of taste. Plenty of people were standing up last night and saying how funny the man was, But- no- really you couldn't re-run his big- and very expensive- shows now and expect anyone to want to watch. Other shows of similar vintage survive. I think Morecambe and Wise are over-prized- some of their stuff is really ropey- but you can still repeat them at Christmas and people will tune in; There's something there that survives. A few days back they showed a similar tribute to Frankie Howerd- who is older and deader than our man and still glorious. Then there's Dad's Army. Same vintage, still funny in parts. Clive Dunn- who died at Christmas- is a national treasure and all that. Our man- much bigger in the day than Dunn- is not a national treasure. The kids won't have heard of him. Nothing of his stuff that they showed last night made me want to do anything but curl up like a salted snail.

Comedy is one of the great mysteries; what lives, what dies. How can something be funny for a season and then not? And why do some things go on being funny forever? 

Comments

[mrwaggish.livejournal.com]

Guessing this is someone I've never heard of. I grew up watching whatever made it onto the basic cable channels in America and whatever records my parents and their friends had. Even at a young age, could tell that Are You Being Served was some sort of nadir in human achievement. Even back then, I thought Monty Python was sometimes genius but very inconsistent--pretty much the same now. Fawlty Towers was genius, still is. Very fond of Ripping Yarns as well, possibly more now than then.

Blackadder hasn't held up as well--my standards of cleverness must have gone up in the last 20 years, and for a show that relies on an attitude of being terribly clever, that can be a problem. It might have been that it was still more clever than anything America managed in the 80s...the American sitcom hadn't really progressed after the Honeymooners (which I still love), until the Simpsons finally jolted some life into it.

Beyond the Fringe (the LP) really has stood the test of time, which I wouldn't have expected. And that one-season Stephen Fry pseudo-doc This is David Lander still cracks me up.

No idea if I'll still feel this way in 20 years, but the 90s still seem like kind of a pinnacle for British comedy, almost solely because of The Day Today crowd and affiliates: Morris, Coogan, Iannucci, Baynham, Brydon, Davis. I caught most of them in retrospect--none of it was available in America pre-internet.

On the other hand, the likes of Peter Kay and Catherine Tate make me want to vomit.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Fawlty Towers is arguably the most accomplished British sit-com ever.

I like Blackadder.

I think you're right about the 90s. That's a brilliant generation. Kay may be an acquired taste- he's in a long tradition of Lancashire comedy. Tate seems to have stopped doing comedy and switched to straight acting- a wise move, I think.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Agree about 1, 2 & 3. 4 falters a bit (really tricky subject matter) but the ending is extraordinary.

[mrwaggish.livejournal.com]

Blackadder is definitely the best thing Ben Elton ever did. But sort of like Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, they just aren't as great as they want to be, maybe because they're trying too hard to ape an earlier generation. Was that the 80s?

I should add in People Like Us to the 90s--remarkable stuff predating Gervais's watered down version of it. Sort of fitting that Tate has joined the American Office in its death throes, where she is being loathed by all.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I never saw People Like Us.

I like Tate as an actor. She was rather good in Dr Who, I thought.