I really like comedy, have spent many an hour at the Comedy Store in London, been to see many comedians live everywhere from scruffy pubs to Wembley and I do love a good sitcom. Except there isn’t a good sitcom anymore. Not on UK TV anyway.
Oh, you can tell me about Mrs Brown’s Boys if you like but I
watched a couple and it didn’t tickle me in the slightest. Yes, I know it’s
hugely popular but to me it’s just meh. Last week I watched Ben Elton’s new
sitcom on BBC1 The Wright Way. Now
Ben Elton isn’t my favourite but he did have a large hand in The Young Ones and Blackadder all those moons ago but this new one was atrocious. You
can watch a clip here if you don’t believe me. It’s not just the situation (the
sit bit of sitcom) that was dreadful, it didn’t have any com either.
So yesterday there were two new ones on ITV, not a channel I
hold out much hope on for comedy, Vicious
and The Job Lot. Vicious (clips here) had the fantastic
actors Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi who I can usually happily watch all day.
Last night I watched them unhappily. Such fine actors but a script that
signposted its gags with a huge blaring red light and acting which to call
hammy would have been a bit unfair on dead pigs. That’s a no for that one then.
Some ham |
So I stuck with ITV for The
Job Lot (clips here) and I was much happier, it was pretty good. The sit bit worked, the
characters, although exaggerated as in most comedy, were on the right side of
believable and, most importantly, it made me laugh. Hurray! It gave me a slight
hint of disquiet as I once wrote a pilot for a sitcom many years ago partly set
in a Jobcentre and some of the jokes were very similar to the ones we wrote.
Don’t worry I don’t think this is anything sinister just coincidence. Our pilot
was turned down for being a bit too depressing, being about the unemployed and
all. Times do change a bit then! So thumbs up for The Job Lot then, I
will be tuning in next week. It isn't the best sitcom ever but it's certainly the best at the moment. I just want more good sitcoms on TV.
So can anyone suggest anything good? Not Miranda, not a big fan, and certainly
not Not Going Out. Anything new that’s
like Black Books, Father Ted, The Office, The IT Crowd and
so on? Or do we have to just make do with the plethora of comedy quiz shows that
we now get?
Incidentally if you do like comedy you might like to try my
book The Alien Files now available on kindle, saves you watching the telly. Was
that plug subtle enough?
No comments:
Post a Comment