Hoot Press: Unhappy as Larry

Over the past few years, we’ve been treated to a feast of comedy shows, all of which in their own way have been innovative, provocative and, most importantly, downright hysterically funny: Marion & Geoff, Peep Show, Little Britain, Director’s Commentary, Nighty Night – the list goes on and on. With the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 increasingly reluctant to take the huge creative and commercial risks necessarily involved in commissioning sitcoms of a more traditional stripe, in recent times the misfits, mavericks and oddballs of British humour have enjoyed a period of unprecedented creative freedom.

And just when we thought things couldn’t get any better, the Yanks have now got their act together and chipped in with a classic comedy series of their own. Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is currently showing Thursday evenings on TG4, is every inch the equal of any of the great British comedy shows of the past five years, and is even quite possibly superior. The brainchild of Seinfeld co-creator, Larry David, Curb is an ingeniously structured, acutely observed and bitingly funny show in the Larry Sanders mould.
As with Garry Shandling’s masterwork, Curb is produced by – who else? – the channel which seems to be on a lone mission to redeem American popular culture, HBO. The parallels between CYE and its illustrious stablemate don’t end there; like Sanders, the show is set amongst the petty, insular and incomparably bitchy milieu of the LA showbiz scene, there are regular celebrity cameos (mostly from A-list players like Alanis Morrissette, Mel Brooks and Martin Scorsese, all of whom play themselves), and the programme is also shot in the verité style of This Is Spinal Tap.
Curb Your Enthusiasm grew out of a one-hour special commissioned by HBO in 1999. The format was simple enough – a mockumentary putatively tracking David’s comeback to the world of stand-up following his runaway critical and commercial success on network TV – but the execution was nothing less than sensational. As with the four series that have followed, the initial 60-minute special of Curb was filmed in accordance with David’s unique creative method.
Whilst each episode is plotted with painstaking precision beforehand (so much so that Curb, unusually for a half-hour comedy show, doesn’t really lend itself to easy story synopsis), the actors work with nothing except a brief outline for each scene, and extemporise the action in its entirety. That Curb is so consistently hilarious is a huge tribute to the improvisational skills of its gifted cast, many of whom are distinguished stand-up performers and comedy actors in their own right.
From the beginning, David’s tendency towards no-holds-barred, envelope-pushing humour was given free reign. In one of the first scenes in the aforementioned pilot, he is strolling through the HBO offices with his agent and friend, Jeff Garlin, when a black employee walks past, prompting David – apropos of precious little – to nod a greeting.
“Why am I always nodding to black guys?” he asks of Garlin. “Every time I see a black man in here or out at a restaurant, I nod. I think it’s because I want to ingratiate myself and assure them that I’m on their side, there’ll be no trouble from me. I’m basically saying, ‘Everything’s cool, we’ve got an understanding here, I’m one of the good guys.’”
Elsewhere in the same episode, David is asked by a Warner Bros. employee if he can put in a word for him with the personnel manager at HBO. Larry, a pusillanimous character at the best of times, agrees to make a pitch on the young man’s behalf, but keeps his fear of the HBO top brass to himself. Encountering the same man a few weeks later at a social function, David admits he never got around to making the call.
“But you promised you would!” the young man protests. “You never reminded me,” insists a largely indifferent Larry. “Maybe that’s because my grandmother died last week and I had to take care of the funeral arrangements,” responds David’s antagonist, stopping the comedian dead in his tracks. “Leave it with me, I’ll see what I can do,” concludes our genuinely moved hero.
Wracked with guilt over letting down this traumatised youngster, Larry scolds himself and promises to make amends – and never gets around to making the call. In the final scene, David, unhappy with the direction the show is taking, attempts to inveigle his way out of his stand-up special with HBO.
“Goddamn it Larry, we had an agreement,” responds an incredulous network executive. David, out of options and completely desperate, summons the perfect excuse. “My grandmother died,” he intones morosely, “I have to take care of the funeral arrangements.”
However, perhaps the most beloved instalment amongst Curb fans is the episode entitled ‘Beloved Aunt’. At the funeral for (Larry’s wife) Cheryl’s aunt, Larry offers to use his connections (Jeff) to place an obituary in the newspaper. But when the paper comes out, the “a” in “aunt” has – catastrophically – been inadvertently replaced with a “c”, and Cheryl’s family is convinced that Larry did it on purpose.
Further incensed that Larry counselled Chery’s sister’s boyfriend to break off their relationship during the funeral, Cheryl throws Larry out of the house. Larry stays for part of the night at Jeff’s, but is invited to leave after Jeff’s mother accuses him of trying to cop a feel. He ends up begging for a room at the hotel where his sister-in-law’s ex-boyfriend is staying, but is eventually thrown out of the hotel as well.
All in all – as David has discovered on more than one occasion over the past five years – it’s just as well that his car has reclining seats.

Curb Your Enthusiasm is currently showing Thursday evenings at 9pm on TG4. Season 1 of the show gets a DVD release on May 17