Class and Comedy

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1485352,00.html

i didn't find this unfunny, nor do i find HIGNFY or 'the news quiz' unfunny, but over the years the 'middle-classness' of these and similar has started to get to me, somehow. i can't locate it precisely -- it's not as if briggers is making arcane literary references -- but there's something in these things shutting me out. which i don't get with the comedy that i really love: the morris-coogan-blah 'nuum.

so what is it, in comedic terms, that makes these shows differ from more populist stuff like 'little britain'?

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not interested in reading articles about football by people who hate football.

― $V£N! (blueski), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:44 (twenty-one years ago)

that's a coincidence, i'm not into reading articles about football by people who do like football.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd put Little Britain in the same closet - privileged people sneering at people who can't afford privileges.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought Little Britain was basically Matt Lucas's autobiography.

Not that that makes it funny, necessarily...

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Paul Merton's hardly middle class

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:47 (twenty-one years ago)

You don't have to be middle class to do middle class comedy.

Just a Minute to thread, although the middle-class smugness of it all is something that I really don't mind.

― Come Back Johnny B (Johnney B), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:50 (twenty-one years ago)

The middle-classness of Britain as a whole is was getting to me

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:51 (twenty-one years ago)

re merton, it's true, he's not. maybe that's why HIGNFY is better than 'the news quiz'. otoh the AWFUL linda smith only props up the middleclassness when she's on by being aggresively non-middleclass.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:51 (twenty-one years ago)

do i mean linda smith? you know who i mean.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Speaking of funny, it's about time Dadaismus thought of another of his new names for himself.

Truly aristocratic comedy is what we need.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:55 (twenty-one years ago)

What, like Audrey Roberts in Coronation Street you mean?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:56 (twenty-one years ago)

That is a very bad, lazy column, I think.

(Are you sure Paul Merton's not middle class, Dad?)

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Truly aristocratic comedy:

http://www.thespoof.com/picstore/royal/resize_175470_prince_harry_nazi2.jpg

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I stopped reading at 'Marcus Brigstocke'.

― robster (robster), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Adherence to and channelling of all three main class stereotypes results in the same level of abhorrence with me.

― $V£N! (blueski), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 10:58 (twenty-one years ago)

"I was one of the kids who didn't like football at school"

you revolutionary! why don't you write an article about it?

honestly, talk about wheeling out ones insignificant childhood resentment in an article. lots of people played different sports at school, truly dire. and the clichéd way in which he supposedly dehumanises football at the beginning is possibly even worse, THEY'RE KICKING A PIGS BLADDER! DID YOU KNOW THAT. FOOTBALLS ARE MADE FROM BLADDERS, HOW PERFECTLY BARBARIC!"

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Is there any reason to read, never mind buy, the Guardian any more?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:03 (twenty-one years ago)

"Part of my problem with the national sport is that I've never understood the nature of the pre- and post-match collective bellowing. I did learn in Chelsea one afternoon that if a group of 30 people all ask at once, "Who are ya?", it's a rhetorical question and that on no account, even if they ask several times in rapid succession, should you attempt to answer. Especially not with "Who is any of us?", which, for the record, is almost guaranteed to get you a kicking."

This=I have been dead inside for many years now, anything which is not dead frankly disgusts me.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Paul Merton's dad was a train driver and his mum was a nurse, so I think he is pretty working class, yes. (Although he used to be far more of a ponce when he started out (I remember seeing a pic of him wearing a beret!) before he settled into his kind of blokeish surrealism).

There is an argument that the 1970s Golden Age of BritSitCom was all about tensions within the Working Class ('Steptoe' and 'Likely Lads' most obviously (although of course, this ignores things like 'The Good Life' and, um 'To the Manor Born') whereas it's difficult to remember the last truly working class sit com. 'The Royle Family' I suppose - though I think there's an element of grotesque spectacle in the way it's received - not that far from 'LoG', in a way.

I like to blame Richard Curtis - for most things.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:06 (twenty-one years ago)

ronan -- well, this is kind of what i mean, because i think in-built into this kind of comedy is this 'we have done this' before thing. you're not *supposed* to find it original or even exactly funny. it's paying respects to a certain thing We All Acknowledge, reviving an old standard, ie that in mentioning football or 4x4 drivers you may as well give them a kick. it's like going onstage and playing 'smoke on the water' or something. i'm not explaining this well, but anyway: knowing that it's been done to death is part of this kind of comedy's appeal, i think.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Bryan Ferry's dad was a miner but his missus still called for miners to be shot!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:07 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/dustbinmen.jpg

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Written by that nice middle-class Jack Rosenthal.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I stopped reading at 'Marcus Brigstocke'.

Ding ding ding!

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Where are they finding their new columnists? You just can't get the staff these days.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Pay peanuts...and you get...

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:23 (twenty-one years ago)

... Marcus Brigstocke

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Well I was going to say Monkey Brigstocke, but the same "principle" applies.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it's always a good idea to define and clarify your terminology. So what is meant by middle class? It's become a term of abuse, but how do we actually define it. I may write more later, but I've got to go now.

― andyjack (andyjack), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Well what's the point of telling you, if you've got to go?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:27 (twenty-one years ago)

It'll keep

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Guardian columnists (and many Radio 4 regulars) are unfunny. I don't think their unfunniness is a function of their middleclass-ness, though. Maybe a certain specific TYPE of middleclass-ness, the type that is most smug and insular? And working class comedy can be smug and insular too.

(Went to our local annual 'poets vs MCs' slam/battle last night. Personally I don't like to draw such antagonistic distinctions, but anyway. Talk about barely suppressed class warfare - illusory however since half the poets were working class and half the MCs had clearly been to grammar school. The poets were enormously funnier.)

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Bad comedians are not usually very funny. I didn't think class came into it.

― Come Back Johnny B (Johnney B), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I think we need to factor Ash Attalia's unfunniness in here.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the typical Guardian column - and most Radio 4 comedy - is meant to appeal to a specific kind of middle class audience who are extremely uncritical of themselves, and extremely critical of others (though not anyone it would be un-PC to have a go at, obviously). I don't know why this is so. But it's why I don't really read the Guardian any more and why I throw things at the radio when the Now Show is on. Not being able/willing to laugh at yourself is a dismal failing.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 11:40 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, that's why i started the thread, really, to define 'middle class comedy'. of course there are middle class comedians and audiences who create or enjoy things that don't fit the radio 4 model, but the thread is about that (IMO dominant) strain.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 12:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Sneering at other people seems to play a large part in it - works best when the other people are poorer than you are

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 12:08 (twenty-one years ago)

In a way isn't middle class defined in this sense as classlessness?

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 12:32 (twenty-one years ago)

and the clichéd way in which he supposedly dehumanises football at the beginning

Do you not think that the intent might have been to render it absurd instead?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 12:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Paul Merton's hardly middle class

i think Merton works like a wildcard on HIGNFY... the others toss the puns and the japes and the bon mots to and fro, and Merton hits like a suckerpunch, with spite and surrealism and surliness. its quite jarring. and when he gets indignant, its always worth watching.

he's the best thing about the show, though its obviously an ensemble piece. he's from round my way too, so obviously that makes him cool.

― stevie (stevie), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 13:07 (twenty-one years ago)

A big problem for R4 is that good comedy has major audience potential. Anything that even threatens to work gets snapped up by TV. What's left is almost by definition rubbish, because if it wasn't it'd be on the telly.

― frankiemachine, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 13:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Merton and Hislop were both lovely towards the suicidally depressed Paula Yates, weren't they?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 13:39 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't think it was on the record that she was 'suicidally depressed' then was it? the fact that she was criminally negligent as a mother was on record, though.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 13:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm back now, but the question I'd most like answering is why Marcello stopped buying The Guardian. Something in particular or a general malaise?

― andyjack (andyjack), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 13:43 (twenty-one years ago)

The racing tips are better in The Star

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 13:43 (twenty-one years ago)

What's left is almost by definition rubbish, because if it wasn't it'd be on the telly.
Is this true? R4 has often been a testbed for new comedy before it gets to TV cf. Little Britain, Mighty Boosh, Goodness Gracious Me etc. I think it's just that there's a lot of crap as well. TV producers are both more canny and less daring, maybe.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 13:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Merton and Hislop were both lovely towards the suicidally depressed Paula Yates, weren't they?

Oh give me a fucking break (cue 'hilarious' pun response).

― $V£N! (blueski), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 13:48 (twenty-one years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.