Giggle box

Pardon the weary cliché, but good sitcom’s are like London buses: full of different characters and… well, there the similarities end, really. Yeah, you could trot out that hoary old one about waiting ages for a good one before loads come along at once, but that wouldn’t be strictly true of good sitcoms, and only really applies to Dublin’s 15A or 123, in my experience of waiting for public transport.

Truth be told, there’s never been a shortage of good quality English-produced situation comedies. Rising Damp, Dad’s Army and Fawlty Towers are timeless classics, Porridge still holds its own, and more recently, Father Ted, The Royle Family, anything with Alan Partridge in it and Black Books have lorded it imperiously over patchy-at-best offerings starring Davina McCall, Johnny Vaughan and anything called Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps.

Still, bad television programmes get made every day, and nobody dies. (Although be careful if Michael Barrymore throws the wrap party.) Writers, actors and directors can’t be expected to hit the bull’s-eye every time, but when one considers the number of factors that have to fall neatly into place for a show to be a hit, the crop of quality shows currently littering the TV schedule would suggest we’re in the middle of some sort of golden age of English comedy. The fact that no two of the shows that comprise the current proliferation are alike must surely be a sign of even better things to come.

Although The Office is more mocu-soap than anything else, it is to all intents and purposes a sitcom. The characters aren’t real but, although they do funny things, we end up cringing with embarrassment on their behalves rather than laughing at their “antics”. Then we tell everyone we know that there’s a bloke in our office who’s exactly like that twat David Brent.
An egocentric arsehole who’s not half as funny as he thinks he is, everyone that has ever worked in an office has encountered someone who’s exactly like that twat David Brent.

Therein lies the beauty of Ricky Gervais’ excruciating character. Everyone knows a David Brent but to the best of my knowledge, I’m the only person I know who’s happy to admit to being like that twat David Brent. Statistically speaking, I can’t be the only one.

When the spectre of the middle manager from Slough looms next Monday, and you find yourself gnawing on your fist and turning your head from the screen in horror at his latest cringe-making monologue, ask yourself why it is exactly that you’re reacting in such a fashion. Then uncurl your toes. The truth hurts, doesn’t it?

Elsewhere on the dream box, brilliant young stand-up comedian Peter Kay has hit pay dirt with Phoenix Nights, which has just ended its critically and publicly acclaimed second series. An absolute gent, Peter entered and won Channel Four’s So You Think You’re Funny? stand-up competition the same year I entered and didn’t.

He has since gone on to become an unlikely star of the small screen purely by sticking to the old adage of writing about what he knows. What he knows is the excruciating minutiae of day-to-day life in small-town Lancashire. Hence the hilarious antics of the small-minded and hugely delusional club owner Brian Potter his motley crew of associates. If you’re unfamiliar with it, imagine the kind of stuff D’Unbelievables would come up with had they been born and bred in Bolton. Mouthwatering, eh?

Mr Kay also fronts the latest promotional campaign for John Smith’s bitter, a series of commercials that are so funny, couch potatoes have taken to making the tea at pivotal moments in expensive ITV dramas in order to be back on the sofa, mug in hand, before the ad breaks start.

Better established in the schedule and longer in the tooth, The League Of Gentlemen and Coupling are both back for another run. Bleak, dark, obscene and downright grotesque, the former is unlike anything ever seen on television before. Many people find it vile, some don’t get it, and others do get it but just don’t find it funny because of the horrors contained within. You could be forgiven for thinking the Gentlemen in question were in some way twisted, but having met and interviewed them in the past, it is with considerable disappointment that I can say that four nicer, more normal blokes you couldn’t possibly hope to meet. They make hilarious television, though, and long may it continue.

Despite never having captured the public imagination to the same extent of the aforementioned trio of programmes, I’m firmly of the opinion that Coupling is as good as any of them. It has never seemed to recover from unfavourable early comparisons with Friends, which is unfortunate as the comparisons in question were unfair. True, there’s three blokes, three girls and a sofa, but its plots are so ingenius that it nods more in the direction of Seinfeld than anything else I’ve ever seen. And let’s face it, if you’re going to copy at all, you might as well copy from the very best.

After all, do you think Father Ted would have won all those Baftas if Messrs Linehan
and Mathews hadn’t been reared on the peerless RTE mirthfest that was Leave It To Mrs O’Brien?