Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ January 25 2012, 8:18 PM GMTI think there's way too much comedy on now, especially in the form of cheap panel shows, which have become the modern 'light entertainment' filler show. Cut down on these drastically and most other comedy shows will seem less tired and a bit fresher. We are swamped with too much comedy, especially from sub standard stand ups wanting to cash in on TV.
This. 
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ January 25 2012, 8:10 PM GMTYou can't blame the writers because they have no freedom anymore. They're given a brief, a remit, a demographic, a star, a set of incredibly strict rules on 'decency' and told to make funnies. It's an impossible situation and results in the worst kind of designed by committee comedy programmes.
Not sure about this. Americans writing comedy have to be rigidly formulaic too. Just to break in they write spec episodes of existing shows and have to get the formula exactly right (characters, tone, story-restrictions, timing of acts/ad-breaks) - and be funny. Once they break in the rules are just as, or even more, firm.
I think they study the craft more closely than Brits (there's loads more American sitcom scripts around on the net than British ones). They deal with the restrictions and as a result are better at sticking to them and still making brilliant shows.
And just to contradict myself, there's loads of bland American shows out there too. We mainly get to see and hear about the good ones like Parks & Rec, Community, 30 Rock and Big Bang Theory.
Yeah - too many panel shows though.
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ January 25 2012, 8:10 PM GMTSociety and comedic tastes have moved on
Have they? This might be called the Hoxton Delusion: the idea that everyone is new and edgy, because six people in Hoxton are. Aside from the problem of not actually being funny, the reason why Nathan Barley flopped was because 99% of the UK population had no idea whatsoever about the context being satirised.
but the networks have gone backwards to appease the mythical 'Middle Englanders'. Instead of Alexi Sayle, we're given Michael McIntyre
Who has ratings, and sales, and mass popularity that Alexei Sayle never achieved even in his pomp. I find McIntyre crashingly unfunny, but I find the whole genre of "I was walking down the street and this implausible scripted thing that I'm going to pretend was real happened to me, or at least I'm going to say that it did" "observational" comedy incredibly tedious. But (perhaps by dint of my age) I know a lot of people who think he's the second coming of Christ Almighty. 'Lex is, in my book, the single funniest man of his generation, and I was lucky enough to see him live on several occasions when he was still doing stand-up: I can't, however, deny that I certainly wasn't seeing him in big venues, and his TV programmes got small numbers on BBC 2. Ratings aren't, of course, the sole (or perhaps even a major) measure of quality, but mass-market TV supported by a compulsory license fee has to show programmes at least some of the viewers want to watch.
You can't blame the writers because they have no freedom anymore. They're given a brief, a remit, a demographic, a star, a set of incredibly strict rules on 'decency' and told to make funnies. ...
It's an impossible situation and results in the worst kind of designed by committee comedy programmes.
Neither Tramadol Nights nor Life's Too Short had any sort of committee, and were authored rather than commissioned from a brief. They also had a tenuous link with "decency" rules, as Boyle's brushes with Ofcom attest. They were also both unmitigated shit, without any redeeming features. So the problem is not just mechanically rendered production line shlock - and let's face it, the right production line can turn out Bilko, so the concept isn't entirely without merit - but deeper than that.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ January 25 2012, 8:18 PM GMTI think there's way too much comedy on now, especially in the form of cheap panel shows, which have become the modern 'light entertainment' filler show. Cut down on these drastically and most other comedy shows will seem less tired and a bit fresher. We are swamped with too much comedy, especially from sub standard stand ups wanting to cash in on TV.
The essential problem is that "quiz show as framework for pre-prepared skits" now covers hours, and hours, and hours of TV and radio (HIGNFY, QI, Unbelievable Truth, Mock The Week, the list is endless). In each case, over the course of the evolution of the format the number of questions got through falls, the editing becomes looser, the riffing becomes more riff-y and the funny leaves the building. All those programmes have an incredibly limited set of people, so the programmes become almost interchangeable. The BBC has an incredibly slim address book, and works it very hard. There's a panel game to be made, in which you're played a 30s clip of another panel show and asked to guess which one it is. Stephen Fry could chair it. Maybe Sarah Millican and David Mitchell could be on it.
Quote: Tokyo Nambu @ January 25 2012, 9:28 PM GMTAside from the problem of not actually being funny, the reason why Nathan Barley flopped was because 99% of the UK population had no idea whatsoever about the context being satirised.
Many people liked the show, and found it funny. All you needed to get was that it was taking the piss out of overly hip dicks; everyone knows about that.
Quote: Matthew Stott @ January 25 2012, 9:31 PM GMTMany people liked the show, and found it funny. All you needed to get was that it was taking the piss out of overly hip dicks; everyone knows about that.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/mar/23/broadcasting.channel4
Nathan Barley, Chris Morris's Channel 4 sitcom which mocked the trendy media set of east London, finished its six-part run with just 700,000 viewers, a 4% share of the audience at 10pm on Friday...The sitcom began with 1.2 million viewers nearly six weeks ago, but by episode five its audience had dropped to just 500,000, a 2% share or one in 50 of the TV audience.
Many people liked it, many of them actually catching it later on DVD over the years; as you'll notice in the figures you dragged up, it didn't exactly start with many watching to begin with, so it's not as though it started with five million then shed a ton. It has fans, accept this truth, DVD gave it a second life.
And again, all you needed to get it, was that it was taking the piss out of try hard, painfully over-hip idiots.
Nathan Barley was a deeply disappointing show. It should have been so much better considering the talent involved.
I loved it.
Quote: zooo @ January 25 2012, 9:57 PM GMTI loved it.
That's because you have what I like to call 'taste'. (Apart from whatever things you like that I don't, then you're just some dumb girl)
Barley was a real mixed bag, and Tokyo's assessment of it is correct. It's only become ever so slightly more popular on DVD; hardly enough to even describe it as a "cult hit".
Quote: Matthew Stott @ January 25 2012, 9:58 PM GMTThat's because you have what I like to call 'taste'. (Apart from whatever things you like that I don't, then you're just some dumb girl)
Quote: Aaron @ January 25 2012, 10:07 PM GMTTokyo's assessment of it is correct.
Well obviously, if you yourself agree with it. Not as right if you don't, though! I thought it was pretty funny stuff.
Quote: Tokyo Nambu @ January 25 2012, 9:28 PM GMTHIn each case, over the course of the evolution of the format the number of questions got through falls, the editing becomes looser, the riffing becomes more riff-y and the funny leaves the building.
A lot of truth to that.
Quote: Matthew Stott @ January 25 2012, 10:08 PM GMTWell obviously, if you yourself agree with it. Not as right if you don't, though! I thought it was pretty funny stuff.
I'm not talking about any judgement of its quality, but that it failed to gain any kind of audience due to its miniscule, largely unfamiliar world.
Quote: Tokyo Nambu @ January 25 2012, 9:28 PM GMTNeither Tramadol Nights nor Life's Too Short had any sort of committee, and were authored rather than commissioned from a brief. They also had a tenuous link with "decency" rules, as Boyle's brushes with Ofcom attest. They were also both unmitigated shit, without any redeeming features.
The elephant in the room is that bits of Tramadol Nights - admittedly the Frankie Boyle stand up bits and not the overly indulgent sketches - and huge swathes of Life's Too Short actually made me laugh. Not just laugh, but laugh out loud. Which is more then can be said for many a 'comedy' show broadcast in the last 12 months.
Neither show was particularly ground breaking, but neither were they bland, cosseted, beige coloured, watery pulp shoved down my throat by 'my betters'. I am quite happy to be the arbiter of my own taste and don't need to be guided by the questionable morality (and motivations) of others.
Like them or hate them, they made a definite impact on the comedy landscape, unlike so many BBC3 sitcoms so lacklustre and derivative, that their titles, plots, characters and jokes are virtually interchangeable.