The Wright Way Page 8

Quote: Tokyo Nambu @ April 25 2013, 7:04 PM BST

Actually, I read it somewhat differently. The subtext of a lot of the BBC's excuses for making weak, same-old, inoffensive programmes featuring known faces in known roles is that challenging material is all very well, but mainstream audiences demand mainstream material. BBC commissioners want you to believe that left to their own devices they'd be making edgy and dark programmes, but they're constrained by the need to keep the mainstream (read: Daily Mail readers) happy.

So here's a programme that should be mainstream heaven. It's got known faces essentially reprising known roles, it's written by a known name, it's got at its centre the saloon bar received wisdom idea that health and safety is all a bit risible, and there's even a laugh track to tell you when to laugh. Short of remaking All Gas and Gaiters it's hard to see how it could be safer. It's the BBC saying "sorry, old people, we know you don't like all that loud stuff on BBC3, so here's something just for you." Of course it's dated: it was designed to be so. Which is odd, because anyone who saw, say, Monty Python when first broadcast is nearer sixty than fifty, but for thirty year old commissioners, everyone over forty merges into a blur.

But even the Mail hate it. And Mail journalists are very rarely out of step with their readers.

There's a lesson there. Pandering to the lowest common denominator is not only patronising, but doesn't even always make you popular with the people you're patronising. Perhaps next time, they could give someone under fifty a go.

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Anyone in mind?

Euripedes trousers Euminides trousers. The comedy play has always been a tough nut to crack.

Quote: Marc P @ April 25 2013, 11:41 PM BST

Anyone in mind?

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No. I just watch the stuff in the provinces.

Quote: radiat10n @ April 25 2013, 4:50 PM BST

Haig did as well with the material as possible, but the supporting cast were disgustingly 3rd-rate - Mina Anwar excepted.

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This. I didn't mind this too much simply because David Haig is in it but the supporting cast are embarrassing. Painfully over the top acting.

Lest anything comes across as bitter BCG Forum people passing bitter comment bitterly, the BCG itself is reporting "what the papers say":

https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/the_wright_way/press/

Newspaper critics are just bitter joyless hacks though, aren't they?

Are they? Is that off topic?

I've got no problem with people liking this, that's up to you. I can see it appealing to fans of ITV sitcoms of the 70s, because that's what it plays like. But I thought those sitcoms were shit in the 70s. This isn't even the 70s.

I only brought up the critical reaction because it might interest some people. And it might save them a bit of time.

Quote: Badge @ April 26 2013, 1:24 AM BST

Are they? Is that off topic?

I've got no problem with people liking this, that's up to you. I can see it appealing to fans of ITV sitcoms of the 70s, because that's what it plays like. But I thought those sitcoms were shit in the 70s. This isn't even the 70s.

I only brought up the critical reaction because it might interest some people. And it might save them a bit of time.

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It might. As evidenced in other threads in the past though, critics can put people off trying shows that they then find they love. (My memory does not stretch to which titles this has been the case for, alas.)

But of course, perfectly valid to point out that there is that critical reaction.

Quote: Chappers @ April 25 2013, 9:23 PM BST

So you read the Daily Mail too then.

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No, I was responding to a Mail link that Tokyo posted in this thread.

Here's one of the problems you get with studio audience sitcoms nowadays - the domestic sets look so bland and characterless and not at all lived in (not to mention cheap). Nothing is noticeable about them - nothing about them grabs you or gives you a vibe of cosiness or any atmosphere whatsoever . The flat set in Men Behaving Badly looked a bit grubby and mouldy in places - that's REALISM. It was also realistically cluttered.

Now you get house/flat sets like the one in this and Not Going Out where every appliance and piece of furniture looks so new and shiny and sterile like it's all straight out of Argos or Littlewoods and straight out of the box.

Quote: johnny smith @ April 26 2013, 2:29 AM BST

Here's one of the problems you get with studio audience sitcoms nowadays - the domestic sets look to bland and not at all lived in. Nothing is noticeable about them - nothing about them grabs you. The flat set in Men Behaving Badly looked a bit grubby and mouldy in places - that's REALISM. It was also realistically cluttered.

Now you get house/flat sets like the one in this and Not Going Out where every looks so new and shiny and sterile like it's all straight out of Argos or Littlewoods and straight out of the box.

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Funnily enough my missus said the same thing tonight. Truth is though, the sterile feeling fits Wright's character perfectly. He'd be horrified by dirt or mess of any kind so it makes sense that his house would be like that.

Yeah true. Still applies to Not Going Out though. (Which must be guilty of the most hollow sitcom aesthetic EVER - complete with glossy establishing shots of famous London landmarks that could wrongly give you the impression that the main characters live inside Canary Wharf or the Natwest tower)

We didn't actually get to see any upstairs rooms - maybe they (the makers of the show) couldn't afford to

On Digital Spy - someone, whilst watching the first episode as it aired, posted that Kacey Ainsworth will be on soon.

She never was. Why this week's What On TV guide said 'Little Mo returns' on the front I'll never know.

Traditional sitcoms do, for some reason, seem to be getting cheaper looking and more stagey. The trailers for ITV's Vicious makes it seem like it's a filmed stage play in a theatre.

In this age of being able to have almost any TV show - no matter how obscure or unsuccessful - on DVD, it's made me automatically question the re-watch factor of shows like this - and even just by the first episode I can't imagine I'd ever want to watch it and it's follow up episodes again and again like I can with Fawlty Towers, Rising Damp, Only Fools and Horses, Blackadder and Father Ted. Even The Thin Blue Line has a hell of a lot more re-watchability than this tripe. There just doesn't seem to be any substance and richness and just overall pure quality to shows of this format nowadays. It's like studio audience sitcoms are becoming so disposable and nothing that will stand the test of time (you imagine) and become hugely rewatchable pieces of comedy gold in the future. Of course only time will tell.

Have to agree about the realism. Ruins the authenticity.

I switched off when he was messing about with the dishwasher. Obviously being a fan of sitcom and writing myself you do think about it a little bit more than your average viewer. With that being said my other half (not a sitcom buff) had just came home, walked into the room and watched a tiny segment of that scene and looked at me and said "Is there no football on?".

She hates football.

The general consensus is that if you enjoyed The Thin Blue Line, then you'll pretty much enjoy this new show. However, if you never liked TTBL/never heard of it then you won't find this terribly funny or original.

It was funny for me because Grim is one of he funniest comedy characters to be created.

As far as I'm concerned, when Ben Elton was penning this script, he was feeling nostalgic.

They need to bin the lesbian girlfriend of Gerald's daughter. Bloody awful acting/dialogue given.

Quote: Badge @ April 26 2013, 1:24 AM BST

Are they? Is that off topic?

I've got no problem with people liking this, that's up to you. I can see it appealing to fans of ITV sitcoms of the 70s

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Strip out the politics of the era --- it always seems unfair to castigate mainstream entertainment of the 1970s for reflecting the politics of the 1970s --- and you're left with programmes which were at least competently written and directed. This is neither. Just at the basic craft level of writing dialogue which is plausible, it fails. As Harrison Ford is supposed to have said of the script of Star Wars, "George, you can type this shit, but you sure as hell can't say it.".

Consider the oft-cited gag about "proud erection". It's not a double entendre seen by the audience and the rest of the characters, but purporting to pass the speaker by. A joke like that might be funny, although given Elton's oft-repeated aversion to "knob gags" it would still appear awfully like another knob gag.

But to do that relies on finding a line that someone, somewhere, might say in normal speech, without already intending it as a double entendre. "Proud erection" isn't that line, because it's already in quotation marks. So the gag falls onto the floor, leaden.

Mind you, in the BCG interview, at least Elton shows he can still spin a fantastical tale and get the audience laughing. I assume, at least, that this is meant as a joke: he can't possibly intend for anyone to take it seriously.

Well clearly Beattie got her job 100 per cent on merit: I auditioned her three times and she was up against a number of wonderful, talented funny young women all of whom I would love to work with another day. If I was conscious of Beattie's comic heritage at all it was only to be even more rigorous in my decision to cast her. Of course Adrian and Jennifer have been two of my dearest friends for more than 30 years so once I was absolutely sure that Beattie was right for the role it was lovely to share in their delight at seeing her begin to fulfil her ambitions. They came up to Salford to see one of the recordings and it was a very special night.

I think it was a meta knob joke personally. And is your 'proud erection' fallen to the floor leaden, just more of the same kind of thing? Or was that a subconscious turn of phrase given the context?