British Comedy Guide

Campus - Series 1 Page 11

Not surprising. The cripplingly long running time didn't do it any favours. I struggled to get beyond the half hour mark of each episode.

A real pity, I think. It certainly wasn't great - not in the realms of its predecessor at least - but I thought it was a quite enjoyable, wholly acceptable show. Certainly had room to grow. We often talk about these things, but long gone are the days when something was more or less guaranteed at least a second series to find itself. A real shame.

I am a sad panda :(

I'm disappointed to hear this. I didn't get into it at first, but really started to enjoy it as it went on. Struck me as one of those shows where the comedy and characters were growing and becoming better. It wasn't fully formed, but given time...

Anyway, it was a brave attempt. Worked for me (in the end), but I guess most people weren't prepared to stick with it.

I quite enjoyed it, but the fact that I wasn't desperate to catch up on it after the third episode obviously suggested it wasn't as compelling as it possibly should have been.

I liked it; it was nice. But perhaps it should have be generating better adjectives than 'nice'.

Dan

Shouldn't this thread just be called simply Campus now?

There was a separate pilot, so no.

Quote: swerytd @ June 30 2011, 9:12 AM BST

I quite enjoyed it, but the fact that I wasn't desperate to catch up on it after the third episode obviously suggested it wasn't as compelling as it possibly should have been.

I liked it; it was nice. But perhaps it should have be generating better adjectives than 'nice'.

Dan

Yeah, I think this pretty much sums it up for me. I watching it when it was on, but never felt the need to go out of my way.

Good. Did not like it at all, while I'm still alive & stubborn it will never be part of my tastes.

I definitely enjoyed this series more on second viewing on DVD.

I'm disappointed that a second series hasn't been commissioned, but am now going through the same thought process as after Green Wing finished for good: I'm looking forward to what the team are going to do next. It will be a few years, probably, and hopefully they will have learned a little bit from some of Campus's shortcomings.

While not every scene works in Campus, every so often it will throw up a scene or a line that will leave me in hysterics like no other show can (apart from Green Wing, of course).

I thought it was awful and am glad it's not coming back. How many of the Green Wing writers were actually behind it?

All of them.

I, weirdly, didn't really think it was anything like Green Wing.

I missed Campus completely first time around but I've now found it on Netflix.

I've just watched the 45-minute first episode and it's absolutely superb!

I can't remember ever seeing a sitcom or indeed any comedy programme where so many genuinely clever and funny lines were fired at the audience in such quick - and entirely natural - succession.

There's somebody mimicking Indian accents. There are multiple references to vaginas. At least one woman uses the C-word and another woman refers with commendable good humour to the occasion upon which she was raped by a pig. A depressed student is encouraged to commit suicide and somebody threatens to cripple a man who is already confined to a wheelchair. What's not to love about this stuff?

The fact is, of course, that it could be seen as highly offensive: even I myself might denounce it if it were all being done in a gratuitous, school playground, intended-to-shock sort of way.

It could also be seen as absolutely effing hilarious - and that's exactly how I see it because all the potentially offensive lines are delivered by university students, staff and employees who are significantly more at home than most with the potentially offensive aspects of real life and are, it appears, completely unembarrassed by them.

I do acknowledge the right of sensitive viewers to be offended by this programme but I have to say I think it's sensationally good.

In 2019, rapid-fire comedy in sitcom is to be found in Not Going Out: the problem is, however, that the comedy is for the most part as weak as gnats' pee.

In 2009, the rapid-fire comedy in Campus was, by comparison, pure Glenlivet.

If anybody hasn't seen it and they have access to Netflix, I heartily recommend looking it up.

Quote: Rood Eye @ 21st May 2019, 11:00 PM

do acknowledge the right of sensitive viewers to be offended by this program but I have to say I think it's sensationally good.
If anybody hasn't seen it and they have access to Netflix, I heartily recommend looking it up.

I agree wholeheartedly. I loved this on first airing and have rewatched several times since. Andy Nyman is brilliant and one of Britain's most underrated (and underused) actors.

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