Shitcom

Us Brits are funny you know, even the Americans admit it. Turn your TV on today and there is little proof of this. We supposedly have a rich history of great sitcoms (or in general: comedy shows, whatever you want to call them), but it appears that we are resting on our laurels and are content on writing what can only be described as shitcoms.

While we have made many great shows, it is becoming ever increasingly apparent that we’re not that funny anymore. Yes, there are some absolutely brilliant shows still running like Peep Show, The IT Crowd, and The Inbetweeners, but these never get the recognition they deserve. Perhaps Britain’s sense of humour has shifted somewhat.

The last two comedy shows to have really taken the Great Kingdom by storm have been Little Britain and Gavin and Stacey. This suggests to me that we bloody well chuffing love a good catchphrase. “I’m a lady”, “What’s occurring?”, ha ha ha, how we all laugh. A catchphrase is essentially regurgitating the same punch line over and over and over and over again, and when you start to hear these being repeated by what can only be described as morons it induces long and painful brain haemorrhages…for me at least.

Take the latest Nationwide adverts, we can all admit that Little Britain was funny (the first series at least), but we can also come to terms with the fact that we’ve had enough of it. Who is laughing at these adverts? And why did Nationwide think they would make us want to bank with them? Probably because they are a thousand times less annoying than any Halifax advert in the last ten years. I don’t want my bank to make me laugh, I want them to look after my money. You wouldn’t ask a clown to look after your savings, you’d tell it to fuck off.

The truth is that no one is laughing at Little Britain anymore, because we are still too busy laughing at Gavin and Stacey. While it was admittedly written very well in the sense that it had a good narrative, it wasn’t really that funny. It is fundamentally about spotting things that people do in real life, and laughing at them. It worked best when watched with someone Welsh (or vice versa), but I doubt that many English homes are sold with a complimentary Welsh person. The strange myth that James Corden is hilarious is also something I cannot fathom. We always have a pair of celebrities we love at any given time, and at the moment it is Corden and Cheryl fucking Cole. The problem with Corden, is that he is just quite cheery and chirpy, and doesn’t have an opinion of anything. Having been one of the many unlucky souls to see his World Cup show, I saw a horrific interview between Corden and former England El Capitan John Terry. Instead of asking John Terry some pretty darn important questions like “why did you sleep with your team mate’s girlfriend”, Corden went on to ask such monumental questions as “what time does the England team go to bed?” Forget Frost/Nixon, this was the real deal!

I digress, this rant is all about the state of British comedy, and ignoring the “nation’s favourite” comedies, you have to turn to the other poison that is slowly killing our reputation, and that is BBC Three. BBC Three is a finely oiled machine, exceeding in giving us fucking awful comedies (and anything else it broadcasts). One example is a show that I regrettably laid my eyes upon, Off The Hook. I envy you if you haven’t seen or heard of it. Looking like BBC’s answer to Skins and The Inbetweeners, Off The Hook followed some University student losers going about University life. This was void of…well everything. Without a doubt the worst thing I have ever seen, and the BBC will keep on commissioning shows like this, because they always have. My biggest question is “what were the writers thinking?” Surely they’d have some inkling that it was worse than shit?

It’s not all bad though, we are halfway through the fourth series of The IT Crowd, and it’s still pretty darn good. Mitchell and Webb return next week, and The Inbetweeners and Peep Show will be here before the end of the year. Why can’t all comedies be like these? Peep Show has remained consistently funny for six series (while most other shows rarely go beyond a third), yet it has never attracted a huge audience. This is probably because not everyone gets it, and this is a shame because we should have more shows like it, rather than the atrocities that are conjured up on a regular basis.

It’s sad that I can only be positive for a short paragraph, but that is the current state we are in, and we have to do something about it before the US can say they are funnier than us, and they probably already can. Even House is funnier than the majority of our shitcoms, and if we don’t act fast it will be one more thing the Yanks beat us at. What will we have left? Snootiness?