Quite when the crisis started, it's hard to say. That, I suppose, is the nature of a crisis. But somewhere between the last episode of Extras and this weekend, TV comedy stopped being funny.
Put simply, there is a failure in quality control. Scripts which would never have progressed beyond a commissioner's desk a decade ago, are now being green lit for production. This can only be through laziness, incompetence or nepotism - and I suspect the latter. It is so easy for a section of the creative media - whether that is radio, journalism or TV comedy - to become a hermetically sealed community whose residents are too close to one another, too self-regarding and too lacking in objectivity. Such a community rapidly becomes resistant to both constructive criticism and talented newcomers. It also becomes rather powerful and as such, is handed almost unrestrained freedom to produce pretty much anything. You can see this process in the diminishing work of Ricky Gervais. Undeniably a skilled and sometimes brilliant writer and performer, the obvious flair Gervais demonstrated in the aforementioned Extras (when he still had to accept notes and interventions from producers) stands in stark contrast to the desperately flawed 'Life Is Short' - made when his star was so ascendant, the BBC were just grateful he'd come back from LA to spend some time with them.
There have been glimmers of genius like 'Peep Show' and 'The Inbetweeners', but they are merely the diamonds in the manure. The whole reeking heap reached a pinnacle this week with the first half of Channel 4's fortnight of late night humour. The format was sound enough: air some brand new shows then follow them up with vintage material into the early hours. But in execution, an unintended consequence struck. The retrospective programmes threw the staggeringly inept nature of the unseen work into sharp relief. Night after night, it was abundantly clear C4 had invested heavily in original scripts and substantial performers only to be left holding a collection of embarrassingly poor television without so much as a chuckle to offer.
Some of these debuting shows were screened once (in all likelihood pilots), others ran for the week, but without exception they all failed. Not because they were built on unsound concepts but simply and bluntly, because they were not funny. 'The Function Room' went out on the Sunday night. With a strong cast and a vaguely interesting setting (the spare room of a pub which would presumably, if this went to series, see various gatherings take up residence each week), it should have flown. It didn't. Pivoting on a meeting of the local public with community police officers, it attempted to weave in a mystery as to which resident was responsible for a series of crimes. Sadly, the characters were so badly drawn, the performances so awkward and the script so clumsy we didn't even begin to care. Or laugh. There was a time when the presence of Kevin Eldon and Simon Day (performers who have formerly rendered me helpless with mirth) was enough to guarantee a programme's pedigree. That now, seems an awfully distant past.
Worse, the preceding effort ran every night. It was a prank-based thing called 'I'm Spazticus' and it's horrible. Tastelessness has the ability to be enormously amusing, of course. And there is no reason a cast with disabilities cannot play on the fact for comedic effect. However, two aspects of 'I'm Spazticus' rendered it unacceptable. First, I was astonished and appalled to see that some of the pranks relied on the discomfort of the able-bodied, placing them in situations in which they were unsure of the appropriate reaction to a person with a disability. Cruel, unfair and heartless - if this was intended to highlight the difficulties society still has with these issues, it only succeeded in confusing matters further. Second, and I am forced to repeat myself here, it wasn't funny. The prank show is as old as the hills. 'Candid Camera' was running before I was born and the premise has been re-booted several times ('Trigger Happy TV' and 'Punk'd'), so this show has no claim to originality and even less claim to be humorous. If 'Beadle's About with the disabled' is a winning pitch in modern television, then we are undoubtedly in a bad place.
Monday gave us Mark Berry from the (actually funny) 'IT Crowd' with his project, 'Toast of London'. The construct here was so flimsy, I'm struggling to outline it. Essentially Berry's character is a semi-famous actor, Steven Toast, who isn't very good. The only slightly convincing gag saw Toast messing up a one word voice-over, but was so over-extended the amusement died long before the scene ended. Almost every other set piece died so painfully one could imagine them being rejected from a sixth-form revue.
And with tedium and dismay escalating, the week ground on. An attempt at an 'all-star' sketch show, 'Them From That Thing' - with Simon Callow, Sally Phillips, Kevin Eldon (again) - was so badly realised it was almost ironic. We know from the output of various 'supergroups' that gathering disparate headliners together
almost always amounts to something much less than the sum of its parts. TFTT was more than happy to prove that rule. Two episodes across two nights and not a solitary memorable punchline, catchphrase, pratfall or character. 'The Fast Show' managed all of this and more in about ten minutes. But that was when comedy was funny.
I completely accept that humour, like music, is subjective. We don't all laugh at the same things. For instance, to some benighted souls The Simpsons is just a kids' cartoon. But comedy isn't as arbitrary as we imagine. Anyone claiming 'My Family' is more amusing than 'Fawlty Towers' would rightly be regarded as a person who didn't quite 'get it'. Which is why I made a point of canvassing reactions from social media as these C4 shows aired and, while not a scientific survey, found it impossible to locate a single person enjoying them. Indeed, "Who commissions this stuff?" was the general consensus. If the channel is considering taking any of these pilots further, it too may want to undertake similar audience research before spending another cent.
Worse, the preceding effort ran every night. It was a prank-based thing called 'I'm Spazticus' and it's horrible. Tastelessness has the ability to be enormously amusing, of course. And there is no reason a cast with disabilities cannot play on the fact for comedic effect. However, two aspects of 'I'm Spazticus' rendered it unacceptable. First, I was astonished and appalled to see that some of the pranks relied on the discomfort of the able-bodied, placing them in situations in which they were unsure of the appropriate reaction to a person with a disability. Cruel, unfair and heartless - if this was intended to highlight the difficulties society still has with these issues, it only succeeded in confusing matters further. Second, and I am forced to repeat myself here, it wasn't funny. The prank show is as old as the hills. 'Candid Camera' was running before I was born and the premise has been re-booted several times ('Trigger Happy TV' and 'Punk'd'), so this show has no claim to originality and even less claim to be humorous. If 'Beadle's About with the disabled' is a winning pitch in modern television, then we are undoubtedly in a bad place.
Monday gave us Mark Berry from the (actually funny) 'IT Crowd' with his project, 'Toast of London'. The construct here was so flimsy, I'm struggling to outline it. Essentially Berry's character is a semi-famous actor, Steven Toast, who isn't very good. The only slightly convincing gag saw Toast messing up a one word voice-over, but was so over-extended the amusement died long before the scene ended. Almost every other set piece died so painfully one could imagine them being rejected from a sixth-form revue.
And with tedium and dismay escalating, the week ground on. An attempt at an 'all-star' sketch show, 'Them From That Thing' - with Simon Callow, Sally Phillips, Kevin Eldon (again) - was so badly realised it was almost ironic. We know from the output of various 'supergroups' that gathering disparate headliners together
almost always amounts to something much less than the sum of its parts. TFTT was more than happy to prove that rule. Two episodes across two nights and not a solitary memorable punchline, catchphrase, pratfall or character. 'The Fast Show' managed all of this and more in about ten minutes. But that was when comedy was funny.
I completely accept that humour, like music, is subjective. We don't all laugh at the same things. For instance, to some benighted souls The Simpsons is just a kids' cartoon. But comedy isn't as arbitrary as we imagine. Anyone claiming 'My Family' is more amusing than 'Fawlty Towers' would rightly be regarded as a person who didn't quite 'get it'. Which is why I made a point of canvassing reactions from social media as these C4 shows aired and, while not a scientific survey, found it impossible to locate a single person enjoying them. Indeed, "Who commissions this stuff?" was the general consensus. If the channel is considering taking any of these pilots further, it too may want to undertake similar audience research before spending another cent.
My harsh criticism is all very well (and I would be very cautious if asked to write comedy, as it is such a tall order), but if there is a crisis, what exactly is going wrong?
Put simply, there is a failure in quality control. Scripts which would never have progressed beyond a commissioner's desk a decade ago, are now being green lit for production. This can only be through laziness, incompetence or nepotism - and I suspect the latter. It is so easy for a section of the creative media - whether that is radio, journalism or TV comedy - to become a hermetically sealed community whose residents are too close to one another, too self-regarding and too lacking in objectivity. Such a community rapidly becomes resistant to both constructive criticism and talented newcomers. It also becomes rather powerful and as such, is handed almost unrestrained freedom to produce pretty much anything. You can see this process in the diminishing work of Ricky Gervais. Undeniably a skilled and sometimes brilliant writer and performer, the obvious flair Gervais demonstrated in the aforementioned Extras (when he still had to accept notes and interventions from producers) stands in stark contrast to the desperately flawed 'Life Is Short' - made when his star was so ascendant, the BBC were just grateful he'd come back from LA to spend some time with them.
A similar phenomenon occurs when commissioning editors attend the same dinner parties and industry bashes as the favoured writers and performers of the day. The formation of an unnamed, cosy club may well benefit the regular comedic actors (last week's C4 fiesta was littered with them) and make life very easy for those providing them with work, but it excludes the people for whom the business exists - the viewing audience.
So as Shane Allen, Head of Comedy at Channel 4 (and to be fair, the man responsible for the outstanding Inbetweeners) packs up his desk and mooches across town to the BBC, I'd make this appeal:
Shane. It doesn't matter who's in it, who wrote it, whether it's trendy, or where it came from. Before you commission it, just make sure it's funny. After all, that's your job.
Shane. It doesn't matter who's in it, who wrote it, whether it's trendy, or where it came from. Before you commission it, just make sure it's funny. After all, that's your job.
