| A Salute to Graham Chapman |
[Feb. 23rd, 2012|10:54 pm] |
Ok, television comedy is it seems a hard thing to get right... i grew up with A Bit Of Fry And Laurie and Alexi Sayle, and back then it seemed effortless. New comedies come and go all the time at the moment. Sometimes we get a Black Books or a Peep Show, but often it's just wading through shit.
Miranda seems to win awards, but the bits i've seen make my internal organs tighten, and not in a good way.
I've concluded Noel Fielding's new television show could have been considered a success if only it had been named, 'Surreal Gobbledygook' instead of 'Luxury Comedy'. Being called Luxury Comedy you expect laughs i think. And are understandably disappointed when they don't come. If you don't expect laughs you can marvel at the surreal journey you're taken on.
We watched Richard Ayoade's directorial debut Submarine last night... on the LoveFilm sleeve it proudly proclaimed, 'The Best British Comedy In Years'. Sat down to watch it only to discover it was a very tender, quirky, coming of age drama. I mean it had some funny moments in it, but by no stretch of the imagination could you justifiably call it a comedy.
Why do marketing companies insist on mislabelling things?
At this point of time, i can only conclude that there's nothing more sinister going on, than people being shit at their jobs. Sitting around thinking how to maximise the sales, rather than how accurately to describe something to potential i want to say 'clients', but that sounds bit dirty. And of course you can argue in my face that maybe they're good at their jobs by mislabelling things and increasing their otherwise sales.
This week also watched John Cleese's first ever stand-up DVD, 'The Alimony Tour'. Which, aside from some reasonable early material around how much the Californian judge has made him pay his ex-wife in alimony, and how he's been forced to slog himself around repeating the same dreary shit to strangers to make a few quid, was essentially a selected history and greatest hits of Cleese, with him regularly leaving the stage to shows us clips from Finally The 1948 Show, The Frost Report, Monty Python, Fawlty Towers and A Fish Called Wanda.
Many of the clips were brilliant as you'd expect... As a stupidly massive fan, i'd heard all the Fawlty anecdotes before but it's such a masterful work i could happily hear them until i'm blue in the face. (note: there was nothing on Fierce Creatures)
But lots about his awkward relationship with his mother... a lot of the great geniuses had awkward relationships with their mothers, so i often think, if only she'd been a bit worse, i could've really been something. etc.
One of the strongest things that came across though was the affection for regular co-writer Graham Chapman. (The late night agonising of what to say the night before his memorial service and then footage of what Cleese actually said, was a lesson in perfect timing.) Rightly, or wrongly I'd secretly harboured the suspicion that Chapman essentially was Python with everyone trying to write to please him for years. And Cleese makes no holds barred statements about how little Chapman actually contributed to anything, and how as a writing partner, he was the best ever sounding board, because he an invariably correct ear for comedy.
Which i like. There's lots of excellent anecdotes, but i found cheap on amazon some unproduced Chapman scripts... and leave you with this opening scene from 'OUR SHOW WITH RINGO' (co-written with Douglas Adams)
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"RINGO in 'Goodnight Vienna' costume, neutral setting, pointing, like God, at things as we see them happen, including: a rocket launching, an atom bomb exploding, the summit of Everest, a Spanish hotel being blown up and down (FILM and REVERSE FILM) with accompanying ACCORDIAN MUSIC, New York being flattened by an enormous mouse dropping on it, a knockout punch from Mohammed Ali, Chairman Mao, enormous crowds cheering wildly, paramilitary police shooting up a bed of roses, a person in an ant costume having a cup of tea, he is messily crushed by an enormous boot to cod FAIRY-TALE MUSIC."
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