Another eleven: comedy

A selection of eleven comedy-related posts, mostly reviews of books or TV programmes. Click on any image to be taken to the post described immediately below.

1: Eric and Ernie

Well, I say "reviews" ... in the case of this first piece it would be more accurately described as: "notes reflecting on the few aspects which interest me because that's how I roll." 

This first piece is about Peter Bowker's TV drama Eric and Ernie, recreating the early days of Morecambe and Wise, and because I'd read so much about the pair I became fixated on sins of omission, as you will see if you click on the picture above, which shows Victoria Wood as Eric's mother, Sadie Bartholomew, being waved off, her job done, as the pair embark on their career.

2: The Night Shift

The first series of The Night Shift, a sitcom from Iceland set in an all-night petrol station, was shown on BBC 4 in 2011. It doesn't seem to have attracted a sizeable following in Britain as subsequent series weren't taken up, even though all the classic elements are present and correct, namely characters trapped together in a quasi-family. This piece was written after seeing the first two episodes. 

3: PhoneShop

Another assessment of a sitcom, UK-made this time, after viewing its first series. I'm probably not the target audience for PhoneShop but even I can see that, as with The Night Shift, it's a sitcom which obeys the right sort of rules, as borne out in the final episode of the series, placing it firmly in the great British sitcom tradition of self-deluding failures battling gamely on. 

4: Nightingales

 It's difficult to describe Paul Makin's sitcom Nightingales, and I don't think I did a particularly good job of doing so here, but it's up there with the greatest of its genre.  There'll be another post along in a minute.

5: Little Ern

I may have been a little more generous in this review of a dedicated Ernie Wise biography than it strictly merited: the material not already familiar from Morecambe and Wise books and Little Ern's own autobiography is really only enough for a substantial magazine article. But my reservations were expressed with what some may see as uncharacteristic tact because it galls me that Ernie's contribution to the success of the act is so often downgraded. (By way of balance, it should be pointed out that Graham McCann's celebrated biography of the duo - praised, indeed, by Eddie Braben - also benefited from being able to draw on a great deal of already published material.)

6: Hardboiled Eggs and Nuts

This is a radio play imaginatively recreating the circumstances in which Stan Laurel made his stage debut. The outline of the story will already be familiar to students of Laurel and Hardy, as it appears in one or both of John McCabe's first two books, and it's not the first time it's been dramatised - in 1987 there a short TV play called Stan's First Night - but Colin Hough's radio rendering is neatly structured, witty and unsentimental. There's a good scene at the end where mother and son, about to be sundered, affirm their bond by making fun of melodramas.

7: Count Arthur Strong

I could never quite believe the world around the radio incarnation of Count Arthur Strong but was much taken with the revised TV version of the character. Here are three posts I wrote about the first series of the television sitcom as well as some thoughts about the radio show. Count Arthur Strong ran for a further two series on the box, although in my opinion it was beginning to run out of steam by the end. 

Clicking on the image above will take you to the first post in the series; the second, Goodbye, for the moment, to Count Arthur Strong, is clickable here and the final post, More thoughts about Count Arthur Strong, can be found here.

8: No Place Like  Home

Although I didn't watch the mainstream BBC sitcom No Place Like Home (1983-1987) when it was first broadcast I made up for it in short order in 2015, when all five series were shown back to back on the Drama channel (surely stretching the definition of that term somewhat). My grand plan was to provide a comprehensive account of the evolution of this unfamiliar show from another era; as it turned out, however, it wasn't  really the kind of sitcom which develops much over the years. Despite engaging performances the quality of the scripts was variable, and my promises to "continue to bring back bulletins from the frontline - or, if you will, my crumb-infested sofa - " were not kept. I think part of the problem was that it was quite densely populated and some characters with great comic potential seemed underused. It was also a major blow when one of its key players, who had served as a most useful irritant throughout the first three series, decided to leave; the production team must have felt her loss as she was eventually replaced by a lookalike in Series Five. As I put it in one post: "Arthur [William Gaunt] may be the centre of the show but he needs his batty satellites." I realise I'm not exactly selling the show here but I do think the posts are worth reading, because in part they're an exploration of the elements which make for a good sitcom.

Clicking the image of Marcia Warren, above, will take you to the first post; the others can be found here, here and here, in that order.

 

9: The Johnny Vegas Television Show

 Johnny Vegas has had a great deal of television success in recent years but in 1998 an excellent show came and went on Channel Four without being made into a series. It portrays him as a truly desperate but driven man, an alcoholic loser in thrall to the memory of his shining hour at Butlins Skegness: dark stuff, even though he is the recipient of occasional kindnesses from others, which may be why Channel Four didn't take it further. 

Another reason, however, may be that the story seems self-contained, perfect as it stands. Even though sitcoms are cyclical by nature, with characters forever trapped in the same set of circumstances, there needs to be variety in the plotting each week - witness the multiplicity of manoeuvres employed by Del Boy or Harold Steptoe to break free - but it's difficult to imagine Johnny's character being capable of anything other than a retread of his behaviour in this one-off show. Still, that's only a criticism of the show's potential as series: it's a more convincing attempt to put the character into a dramatic situation than the later Who's Ready For Ice Cream? 

 

10: Fiddler's Green

Still on the subject of sitcom pilots, in the summer of 1987 I was lucky enough to attend rehearsals for a Thames show called Fiddler's Green, written by John Chapman and Ian Davidson for Donald Sinden and directed by Tony Parker, famous for Shelley. It was never transmitted and didn't make it to a series, although I'm not clear why. Having long been an admirer of sitcoms it was a wonderful experience to watch the process at close quarters, and I will always be grateful to Tony for making me so welcome. Ten years later I had my own sortie into sitcom writing, briefly alluded to here.

 

11: Not About Nightingales

A character in a Harold Pinter play talks of events "which may never have happened but as I recall them so they take place." Which is just about as much as I wish to say about this review of Charles Hamm's Not About Nightingales, an unlikely tome placed directly into my hands by the author. 

When books about sitcoms or comedians start appearing they are generally about, or by, the key figures: it's only some way down the line, once show or performers have National Treasure status thrust upon them, that memoirs by the likes of Eric Morecambe's chauffeur (or whoever) are deemed commercially viable. 

Which is what makes this current work so odd: even though it's true that Nightingales was critically acclaimed in the Guardian and elsewhere it was never exactly what you might call a popular success, so you'd expect the first full-length study of the show to focus on its stars, especially as both Robert Lindsay and David Threlfall achieved wider fame in later TV roles, which must be good for a few extra sales. Perversely, however, Mr Hamm chooses to focus on the supporting cast, who didn't appear in more than a couple of episodes apiece at most. 

Yet I have to salute his achievement and his faith - the book is self-published - and it is an enjoyable read, for reasons explained in the post, even if you do not emerge greatly enlightened about this unique sitcom.

Oh, and if you're wondering, Robert Lindsay only mentions Nightingales in passing in his autobiography, and places it in the wrong decade.

And so ends today's selection of vintage posts; hope you found something to interest you. There may be one last grab-bag of goodies tomorrow but after that the celebrations will come to a halt because you can't be a-wavin' of flags everyday. 

Who knows, I may even get down to writing something new ...