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Cult British TV Comedy: from Reeves and Mortimer to Psychoville

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Cult British TV Comedy: from Reeves and Mortimer to Psychoville Cultt British TV comedycomed HUNT The Fast S The Fast Show • CULT BRITISH TV COMEDY CULT PeepP PSYCHOVILLE REEVES TO AND MORTIMER FROM Show CULT BRITISH Cult British TV comTV COMEDY Cult Brritish TV com CultCulCCu• FROM REEVES ANDultul MORTIMER TO PSYCHOVILLEt • BBritishBritisBritiBritBriBr ritishrritisiishshT TV V comcomedy The TV debut of Vic Reeves Big Night Out target niche audiences and possess a The FastCultCulCCu ShowultulttB on Channel BritishBritisBriBrB4 in 1990 is often seen as subculturalritishrritisrit aura – ini the early 90s,t comedy shsh TV commedy Vic Reeves BigBmarking a turningg point Nightfor British ightTV gwas famously declaredOut ‘the new rock’n’roll’. Comedy, ushering in what is often It places these developments within a TThe Fast Show characterised as the ‘post-alternative’ era. variety of cultural and institutional contextsoville The 1990s would produce acclaimed series and examines a range of comic forms, Ftththsuch as Father Ted, The League of from sitcom to sketch shows and ‘mock TV’ Gentlemen and The Fast Show, while the formats. It includes case studies of LEON HUNT new century would produce such notable Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer and the FaFatherath Teededshows as The MightyhFh Boosh, The Offi ce sitcom writerFS Graham Linehan. It examines ShhCULT BRITISH and Psychoville. However, while these developments in sketch shows and the CultCultltttB BritiBritBrBritisBiBBritish showsp enjoy the status of ‘cult classics’,iii emergence of ‘dark’ isiand ‘cringe’ shscomedy, hThhTVc TV V cocomedycom o dy comparatively few of them have received and considers the politics of ‘offence’ TV COMEDY scholarly attention. This book is the during a period in which Brass Eye, • FROM REEVES AND MORTIMER TO PSYCHOVILLE • TThehe SSmelmelfi rstlll sustainedl oof fcritical RReeves analysisee of thev es‘Sachsgate’ and and Frankie MMor Boyle provokedorttim imermer ‘post-alternative’Psychoville era, from 1990 to the different kinds of media outrage. Vic Reeves Big Night Out CultultttB BritBrBritish Britisititst shspresent day. It examineshTVchTh post-alternative Cult British TVTV T Comedy will be of interest V comedy co The SmelSmelll of Reeves and MortimMortimmeer comedy as a form of both ‘cult’ and to both students and fans of modern EExtrastras The Mightyy‘quality’ TV, Boosh programmesVicV that mostly TV comedy. Reeves Big Nigght Out Leon Hunt is Senior Lecturer in Screen Media at Brunel University T The Mightyy Boosh ExtrasExtrExt StuaaricettL Lee StuarSStumedymededyary t LeeLe Cult Britishritish TV V comedycom medymed • medyedyedyddyy hoville Psychov www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Cult BBritishritishPsychovitish TV V comedycom TheThmedy dFasty Showhowho TheTh Fastast Showhow mer ViBrassBc rassass E EyeEy 3885 Cult British TV Comedy:Layout 1 14/12/12 07:52 Page i Cult British TV comedy 3885 Cult British TV Comedy:Layout 1 14/12/12 07:52 Page ii 3885 Cult British TV Comedy:Layout 1 14/12/12 07:52 Page iii Cult British TV comedy: From Reeves and Mortimer to Psychoville Leon Hunt Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 3885 Cult British TV Comedy:Layout 1 14/12/12 07:52 Page iv Copyright © Leon Hunt 2013 The right of Leon Hunt to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed in Canada exclusively by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 978 0 7190 8377 8 hardback First published 2013 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset by Action Publishing Technology Ltd, Gloucester 3885 Cult British TV Comedy:Layout 1 14/12/12 07:52 Page v Contents Acknowledgements page vii Preface ix 1 From alternative to cult: mapping post-alternative comedy 1 2 Britain’s top light entertainer and singer: Vic Reeves, Bob Mortimer and the cultification of light entertainment 36 3 ‘Careful now’: Graham Linehan – a case study in post-alternative sitcom 69 4 Patchy in places: developments in post-alternative sketch comedy 98 5 Community and intimacy: from laugh track to commentary track 128 6 The ‘Zooniverse’ and other (furnished) comic worlds 147 7 Are you sitting uncomfortably? From ‘cringe’ to ‘dark’ comedy 165 8 Near the knuckle? It nearly took my arm off! British comedy and the ‘new offensiveness’ 201 Conclusion 232 Bibliography 234 Index 254 3885 Cult British TV Comedy:Layout 1 14/12/12 07:52 Page vi 3885 Cult British TV Comedy:Layout 1 14/12/12 07:52 Page vii Acknowledgements The following people read versions of some or all of the chapters in this book and offered feedback and/or encourage- ment: Susy Campanale, Milly Williamson, Tim Miles, Chris Ritchie, Sarah Harman and the anonymous reader of the manu- script. Chapter 2 was presented as a keynote at the Salford Comedy Conference in 2011 – I would like to thank Chris Lee for inviting me and to all those in attendance who offered helpful and confidence-boosting feedback. Sam Friedman kindly shared with me a copy of his essay on comedy and distinction prior to publication. I would not have been able to complete this book without Study Leave at Brunel University – many thanks to William Leahy in the School of Arts. And finally thanks to Matthew Frost and Manchester University Press for their support and patience because I (and they) had anticipated the manuscript being completed about a year earlier than it was. As it turned out, that year proved to be an interesting one for British comedy – no chapter was updated quite as much as the one on offence – so I hope that provided some compensation. 3885 Cult British TV Comedy:Layout 1 14/12/12 07:52 Page viii 3885 Cult British TV Comedy:Layout 1 14/12/12 07:52 Page ix Preface This book examines a range of ‘cult’ British TV comedy from 1990 to the present. Why have I taken the early 1990s as my starting point? The subtitle of Ben Thompson’s Sunshine on Putty (2004), the only book to look at the ‘post-alternative’ scene in any detail, characterizes the period from 1990 to 2002 as the ‘Golden Age of British Comedy’. Its best programmes, he claims, ‘not only stand comparison with, but actually overshadow the small-screen landmarks of any previous era’ (2004: xii). Such value judgements are always invitations to be challenged – Mark Lewisohn, for example, refers to the 1990s as being ‘generally barren’.1 But whatever one’s tastes in comedy, there are good reasons for seeing this period as, if not the then certainly a, ‘Golden Age’. It produced the best work of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer and some of Chris Morris’s most controversial comedy, as well as The League of Gentlemen (BBC 2 1999–2002), Father Ted (Channel 4 1995–98) and The Office (BBC 2/BBC 1 2001–2, 2003). If we move beyond Thompson’s cut-off point, we might also add Little Britain (BBC 3/BBC 2/BBC 1 2003–8), Nighty Night (BBC 3 2004–5), Peep Show (Channel 4 2003–), The Mighty Boosh (BBC 3/BBC 2 2004–7), Psychoville (BBC 2 2009–11), Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle (BBC 2 2009–) and Limmy’s Show (BBC Scotland 2010–), amongst others. This period has been charac- terized as the ‘post-alternative’ era of British comedy, differentiating it from the performers (Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, Alexei Sayle, French and Saunders, Ben Elton) and programmes (The Comic Strip Presents, The Young Ones) seen to comprise the alternative comedy of the 1980s. 3885 Cult British TV Comedy:Layout 1 14/12/12 07:52 Page x x Preface This is the first sustained critical analysis of one of the richest periods in British TV comedy history. Thompson’s book provides an invaluable overview of the period up to 2004, but while I am wary of polarizing academic and journalistic writing (which have more in common than tends to be acknowledged), his approach is very different from the one adopted here, often drawing on interviews and reviews that originally appeared in the Guardian. Academic writing, on the other hand, has been very selective in its coverage of the period, prioritizing sitcom and satire over other forms of TV comedy and visibly drawn to individual shows that serve current scholarly debates (The Office and the work of Chris Morris, for example). To say that there are some gaps to be filled would be something of an under- statement. This book is selective, too, of course. It emphasizes ‘cult’ over ‘mainstream’ comedy,2 for one thing – however precarious, and even arbitrary, that distinction might be. Selectiveness is inevitable when examining over twenty years of TV, and when it comes to comedy, matters of taste intrude too. While I don’t think it is necessary to find comedy funny in order to analyse it, it is certainly easier if it provokes some kind of reaction. Many of my favourites are here – The League of Gentlemen and Psychoville, Reeves and Mortimer, Stewart Lee, Father Ted, The Mighty Boosh and The Fast Show.
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