Quote: Crusty427 @ January 14 2010, 3:41 PM GMTJust a nerdy response, did anyone notice the guy out of the pot-noodle advert played the company owner, the Australian bloke?
That's right.
Jarrod Christmas.
The Persuasionists Page 5
I only saw the preview for this show, it featured a segment on "Your Mum" jokes. As it's 2010 I decided not to watch.
Quote: Martin H @ January 14 2010, 5:09 PM GMTI only saw the preview for this show, it featured a segment on "Your Mum" jokes. As it's 2010 I decided not to watch.
Agreed, 'your mum' jokes smack of the playground braggadocio, and are generally rather tiresome and hackneyed, but what The Persuadinists manages to do is 'reinvent' the 'your mum' joke, giving it a fresh coat of postmodernism over a metaphysical primer.
Has anyone mentioned The Creatives (from the Absolutely team) as another ad agency sitcom?
Anyway...
The problem with trying to do Lineham-esque comedy is that it's very, very hard to get right. If you're going to create a mad world where anything can happen, then the most difficult (but vital) thing to do is to make that world convincing on its own terms.
For an audience to buy into a crazy world where odd things happen, I think they have to really want to get to know the characters. The difficulty thing to achieve is, from episode one, make your characters a) have likeability and b) feel like they totally belong in this situation and, indeed, are rather trapped in their strange little world.
I think the first episode of this show might have benefited from not having the 'Cockney Cheese' chap altogether. It crosses the line between accepting that things are a bit nuts in the ad agency itself, and extends it to the more difficult idea that the whole world is mad. Craziness needs to be contained in sitcom. Further to that, this ad agency is glossy and looks fairly successful, despite being populated by these "mad", loser characters. Consider Father Ted, The IT Crowd or Black Books: the "mad" characters are trapped in basically loser territories, out of sight of the normal world. In the first episode of The Persuasionists one is expected to believe that this is a functioning ad agency, with a completely mad boss, where the "mad" characters are working alongside normal people - sharing the same office with them, in a way that the guys in The IT Crowd, for example, don't. They are shut away in the basement for good comedic reasons.
Also, I think it's incredibly important for the main characters to actually like each other to some degree, which was pretty much absent in episode one of this show. One has to feel that they need each other to survive, rather than just exchanging digs and mostly acting independently ("madly") of each other.
The show never really got going in episode one, partly because much time was wasted on the 'Cockney Cheese' character (whom I presume is not going to be a regular), which left less to concentrate on exploring the main characters. There was too much wackiness for a first episode and not enough time spent on creating convincing characters and justifying their situation.
Audiences will buy into all sorts of strange things happening once they like the characters and have been convinced by the world they occupy. But you've got to get the audience on your characters' side before you start to test their suspension of disbelief. That, to me, is where someone like Graham Lineham's genius lies - his characters and their situations are so well thought out that as a viewer you really enjoy buying into the weird stuff that is said or done. As always in good sitcom, the comedy streams naturally from the characters.
There were some nice lines in this opening episode and I could see what the writer was trying to achieve but, as I say, it's really tough to get this style of sitcom right. I'll keep watching it, as I think the plot was a huge issue in the first episode. It didn't feel like an episode one, it felt like an episode you'd show after you'd established your main characters.
I'd definitely agree with that. Episode two has a lot more interaction between them (no clients that I recall), but even then I don't really think it's confined enough to really set things up in that manner. Maybe episode 3 will bring that, but possibly by then a little too late.
Quote: Godot Taxis @ January 14 2010, 3:54 PM GMTNo-one ever said about Porridge/Father Ted/Dad's Army "Things really kicked up a few notches when Fletcher/Mrs Doyle/Corporal Jones was on screen". If it only works when a certain actor comes on it doesn't work.
I was just pointing out that his character was quite appealing, which to me it was, I wasn't commenting on the merits or otherwise of the sitcom as a whole. I think, having read several previews about the show, I wasn't alone in thinking he was the best thing in it.
Quote: Godot Taxis @ January 14 2010, 3:54 PM GMTI'm beginning to wonder if you have some kind of problem with scripts Matt. Seriously. You often don't seem bothered by the absence of good writing or lack of imagination in shows.
I don't think I've really reviewed the show as such anywhere in this thread, other than saying I liked Farnaby and that I would watch a second episode. And if I do happen to like something that you don't, that doesn't automatically mean that that show is badly written or devoid of imagination.
I didn't enjoy this but will give it another go, my first impressions have been wrong before.
Other than that I agree with Tim.
I gave it ago after watching the first pilot a few years back and thought the original pilot was funnier. Too many silly gags, a bit childish and some of the characters did not work at all. Ian Lee is playing Ian Lee and not even well. The only positive of the programme for me was Daisy Haggard.
Might give it one more chance next week but we'll see.
Oh dear - most of you really don't like this do you!
My viewing experience was a bit mixed too - but I think all the characters have potential. Adam Buxton's character Greg was fun, the slapstick violence and shouting from Jarred Christmas was fun too, and as has been commented previously, Simon Farnaby's Keaton was clearly the biggest draw.
I think it worth giving it a couple of weeks to settle in before judging too hard - it always takes a while for silly, OTT sitcoms to bed in (at this point I point at We Are Klang, which took a few episodes before the audience became comfortable with it)
It was rather poo. I didn't make it to the end. After five minutes I started to hope it was meant to be a parody of really bad sitcoms. There were a couple of ok moments but mostly it was awful.
I don't understand why the actors got involved in this.
I felt quite sad when Adam's character said 'can you lend us 10p for a cup of tea' cos it just reminded me of A+J and how funny Adam normally is. 
I defended Lab Rats and Big Top, but I am probably going to have to draw the line at this. There were some funny ideas, but like the two afore-mentioned shows it suffered from the "sensible one" being insufficiently engaging, and from them being surrounded by rather two-dimensional characters whom the actors were struggling to make work.
And please, do we have to keep having foreigners with funny accents?
I thought Lee Ross gave much the funniest performance, but presumably Cockney Jim is not a recurring character.
The studio audience seem to have been hyped up to the point where they would have collapsed in hysterics at the weather forecast. Nothing shows up a weak line like someone laughing uproariously at it.
Quote: Tim Walker @ January 14 2010, 5:36 PM GMTHas anyone mentioned The Creatives (from the Absolutely team) as another ad agency sitcom?
I was going to. A show I enjoyed.
A good crit, Tim.
Quote: Tim Walker @ January 14 2010, 5:36 PM GMTI think the plot was a huge issue in the first episode. It didn't feel like an episode one, it felt like an episode you'd show after you'd established your main characters.
Given the Beeb's track record of showing sitcom episodes out of sequence so as to start on a 'strong' episode, that was very probably the case.
All the 'haters' have made Iain Lee cry....
lol.
lol Poor bloke, nobody likes anonymous twats slagging them off constantly.
I thought The Persuasionists was pretty bad. Terrible characters with nothing particularly funny to say. I'll give it another go next week just in case it gets better, but I doubt it will.
It amazes me that something like this can premiere of BBC Two when something tried and tested like Ideal can't escape from the clutches of BBC Three to be viewed by a bigger audience. Shame.
I like Jared Christmas's stand-up act, Simon Farnaby makes a good conker-head, Adam Buxton is fab and I like Iain Lee's radio shows.
I didn't really get into this as, to be fair, I was making a packed lunch while it was on. Maybe it's a grower...
I'm also surprised by the premise; it's usually one of the workplaces writers are told to avoid.