Crappy Twat Bang
A pun roughly on the same level as that used in the title of BBC3s sketch show "TittyBangBang", there. Titty because, they're women, you see? And no spaces because, it's modern! Spaces are for old fashioned wankers like you, Gramps. Like humour, or jokes, etc.
As intrepid followers of my online journalistic career will already be aware (Ian and John) I used to write in-depth critiques of terrible comedy shows. This was to some extent like shooting fat ducks in a small barrel with a big canon aimed directly at them and some kind of duck homing device in case of mild breezes, but I was intrigued by the fact that these programmes were continually being recomissioned while I wasn't aware of anyone I knew having sat and watched a full episode of them. They must, I presumed, have some kind of saving grace. They didn't, of course. It turned out that people are just really stupid and will watch anything brightly coloured as long as it roughly resembles a comedy programme, regardless of whether or not it makes any kind of internal sense. Look at this recent synopsis, paraphrased from the Radio Times for an episode of the fifth (yes) series of My Hero :
"George is feeling estranged from his wife, and enlists the help of a cat to help him understand women"
Lol, a cat. It's like the writers wait around the BBC Offices until nightfall, and then root through the bins in the writers room for their plots. Now that it stars James Dreyfuss rather than Ardal O'Hanlon (the character of Thermoman/George Sunday being able to regenerate a la Doctor Who, so the programme can thankfully continue for all time) it's even lost that curious "how the mighty have fallen factor" for watching. Seeing O'Hanlon slum it in My Hero just years after Father Ted ended was a bit like watching Marlon Brando eating handfuls of butter and sweating in those films just before he died, but James Dreyfuss' career trajectory started so low anyway that his slump has hardly been noticeable. Still, three prime-time BBC sitcoms and only one facial expression, someone must like him. Also coming up this series:
"George is left holding the baby when his wife goes to a relaxing health spa for the weekend. Luckily, George has won a pile of singing potatoes in a raffle!"
"George's arch enemy Freeze-o-chap is back in town. Luckily, George has been saving up all of his turds for six weeks!"
"The vicar is coming round to Georges house for tea. Will everything go off without a hitch? Yes."
But then you have the shows ostensibly set in the real world, where you can't invent plot elements like a time travelling rocking horse at the drop of a hat. Two Pints Of Crying And A Packet Of Dried Up Cat Shit, for example, in order to sustain itself over a staggering five series, has so far featured pretty much every character having sex with every other character, each couple splitting up and getting back together, and all the birds thinking they were pregnant. Hilariously, the back to back episodes showing the effect that these twin scares had on both the Will Mellor and Ralf Little-led couples were almost completely and utterly identical. Lack of plotlines aside, the series is notable for the cack-handed attempts at naturalistic dialogue between the characters. The mental processes that they must go through in order to spout the inane quips and asides that they do (aswell as the disconcerting purple-n-yellow colour filters) give the show the air of a Channel 4 Documentary about intensely disabled people attempting to live in the real world. Not mentioning the bit where Will Mellors brother, who I think is actually supposed to be disabled, takes female hormone tablets, grows breasts, and steals a bone off a dog to gnaw on.
However, a sitcom about modern, working class couples is at it's heart a workable idea. A sitcom about a suburban, low-rent English superhero less so, but at least it's original. What really makes me shit-myself furious about TittyBangBang is how entirely second hand the whole thing is, designed cynically to appeal to anyone who enjoyed Smack The Pony or Little Britain, but are too stupid to understand what made those shows vaguely enjoyable besides IT'S ABOUT WOMEN or IT'S GOT LIKE THEY'VE GOT WIGS ON OR SOMETHING. I didn't realise that if you're sitting in a darkened room staring at a television screen, what appears on it can actually be so dull that you don't really notice it. Your brain inadvertently focuses on the darkness and the vague outline of a chair just to stop you from slipping into a coma. So I've had to go on the website to remind myself of a few of these "characters"...
Don Peacock, a character thought up to justify a truly horrible make up job. One of the younger actresses in the Tittybangbang team done up to look bald, ageing and fat, retains her smooth, feminine features and looks like the victim of some kind of horrible disease sweating under piles of engorged organs. In the sketch, s/he cons a Doctor into aiming his/her penis into a bottle while s/he does a big piss, and then ushers her out of the door so he can do some breakdancing infront of a cameraman who's pressing those "character on Hollyoaks taking drugs in a nightclub"-style modern effects buttons. The staggering pointlessness of this character is only underlined by the fact that the sketch show is emphatically supposed to be about female characters - "bizarre, manic, grotesque, outrageous and strangely recognisable" female characters, to be specific - but you know, a man who stores up his piss to get a Doctor round but isn't actually ill? And he has a geordie accent? Irresistably funny! Their website perhaps should read "entirely alternative comedy take on the fairer sex, and bald men from Newcastle, or the one who works in the shop that sells jacuzzis or whatever the fuck that bit was about".
The Italian woman in the maids outfit who screams DON'T LOOK AT ME, I'M SHY! is eating a banana, underneath an umbrella. My, she does turn up in some funny places. A bin, later on. This sketch is sort of funny, in that it's a flimsy premise being milked by increasingly ridiculous settings and a performer really giving it 110%. In this way, it reminds me of ITV's All Star Celebrity Not Very Good Show from the other year, which Vic and Bob wrote. So I pop on the internet and find out, via the wonder of wikipedia.org, that this thing was actually written by Bob Mortimer! For shame! His name wasn't on it because of the "baggage" it carries, but hopefully that's BBC spin for some situation where he mislaid a large portion of his brain, got witlessly drunk in a lay-by, wrote a sketch show, and then insisted his name be taken off it because it's worthless shite. The two other moments which raised a smirk, in light of this new information, do appear quite Vic-and-Bob-ish - one character saying "Oh, that's nice! Would you like a bit of bread?" and someone referring to "duck and chips". They're not funny per se, but you try and find some reason to live in this situation.
Tittybangbang is plagued by sketch ideas that would sound funny if Vic was reading them off The Man With The Sticks helmet in Big Night Out, but as sketch ideas themselves, are completely useless. Some Women Doing Needlework Naked From The Waist Down is a reasonably amusing sentence, but it's not a sketch idea. It's not a joke. It's not a character. It's not a passable use of three minutes of my precious time. Some of them aren't even funny sentences. Let's look at "The Woman Who Lies And Steals". The woman, who is naturally a scouser (presumably to fulfil the "strangely recognisable" aspect of this twat menagerie) pretends to be blind and get free stuff off a butcher. The butcher doesn't agree, so the scouser nicks some sausages and a chicken and runs away. This is less a comedy sketch, more just a crime. Perhaps BBC3's next sketch show will just feature people getting burgled, fiddling their tax returns, or being raped.
Where the shy Italian cleaner woman milked the sketch concept for all it was worth, this one is so staid and boring as to feel like it's being improvised by some schoolchildren. The exchange "can i have free meat?" "no" is basically rehashed about five times, just so it'll last more than one second. And it's filmed on some kind of weird open air Butchers stand near a car park, Butchers presumably being quite discerning about which comedy shows they'll allow in the shop. How many great sketches have revolved around simple exchanges in shops? Off the top of my head I can think about ten million. And yet, in addition to doing nothing with the basis of having someone in a shop, this one doesn't even have a proper shop.
Let me take a minute at this point to talk about the fat one off Tittybangbang, better known as the fat one out of The Smoking Room. Someone has clearly told her that she's one step away from super stardom, the way she behaves in this. Rather than embellishing her performance with anything appropriate, she'll just throw an Australian accent or a Scottish accent on top to show off her range, or just gurn and waves props around like an absolute fucking cunt. If she's actually playing one steady character, Women Who Overacts Like A Precocious Eight Year Old Wanker In A Nativity Play, then she's doing very well. But if as I suspect she isn't, she can fuck right off. There's the obligatory character who makes reference to chavs and asbos because that's what people like these days isn't it, the sketch which makes fun of that show about the woman who works in the mortuary that I've never seen but find myself incredibly familiar with due to crap sketch shows obsession with making fun of it (the twist this time being that the corpse has an erection and the woman is going to have sex with it after a lengthy and irrelevant preamble that is such a clueless hamfisted attempt to do a Smack-The-Pony that it makes sick actually happen in my mouth) and the one that's a bit like Little Britain, the old woman music teacher who talks about sex for no apparent reason. At least Little Britains wig and chin-putty caricatures resembled something. An ageing divorcee whose cheques keep bouncing - that's a platform for some creatively written comedy! It wasn't particularly funny either, but that's besides the point. If it had been filtered through the TittyBangBang writers mouldy, tepid brain, it probably would have been an ageing divorcee whose cheques keep bouncing and she SPEAKS IN CREOLE and GIVES BIRTH TO A SWAN. Which would have been even less funny. And worse, it'd probably have been the fat one off The Smoking Room playing her. Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the "recurring catchphrase" family. Just incase anyone involved in TittyBangBang is reading this, let me state that THE FAST SHOW WAS FIRST SHOWN TWELVE YEARS AGO. With that out of the way, let's continue. The recurring catchphrase family appear quite early in the episode, and then return over the end credits in the way that sketch shows sometimes do, seemingly to try and prove that this isn't a druggy nightmare set in some dystopian future where this is the best the BBC can do, but a real actual sketch show on television in the modern present where this is the fucking best the BBC can do. The catchphrase itself, which is pretty much the ONLY THING uttered by any of the characters in the sketch, runs as follows. Ahem.
"Shut Up."
It must have taken them almost an entire lunchtime to write this series. You'll notice that in the last paragraph, I described about four sketches very quickly. This is because I realised about ten minutes ago that this programme is so depressing, so utterly fucking uninspired and godawful, that I can't be arsed writing about it anymore. I just can't be arsed. It's not unusual in some interesting way, it doesn't reflect a mindset that is in some way compelling, like the weirdness of My Hero or Two Pints Of Lager. It's just ceaselessly awful, and probably the worst thing I have ever seen on television.
About this entry
- By Michael Lacey
- Posted on Friday, August 11 2006 @ 2:03 am
- Categorised in TV
- 13 comments
I hope you're pleased with yourself after that rant! Just a couple of things -
a) I don't agree with your views on Two Pints; I actually think it's the closest thing we have to a straight sitcom that's funny and worth watching (well, there's 'The IT Crowd' but it's not been running long enough yet). Despite the fact that you despise the series so much you seem to know more about the plots than I do. The dialogue isn't meant to be naturalistic, the 'inane quips' you mention are sitcom standard. People shout and spout gags in a sitcom, no matter the setting. Is Father Ted realistic in terms of how Priests converse?
b) I agree with your views on My Hero, but only because it isn't funny. If it was actually funny I would readily accept all the stupid plots they use and the 'originality' of having the main character as a superhero (and a baby that can talk...).
c) I totally agree about TittyBangBang, but again only because I didn't think it was funny. The show definitely proves that there's a line you can cross where stuff just becomes fucking ridiculous/strange rather than funny/strange which I enjoy (compare the stupid OTT necrophilia stuff here with the excellent Mark Gatiss monologue morgue guy scene in The League Of Gentlemen series 3).
I agree, they can't just dress up and expect it to be funny when it's all been done before and better. Like Little Britain series 3 (and a great deal of series 2) supposed 'shock' value and 'look at me, aren't I funny' only works when it actually IS funny. Series 1 was ten times better because it was much more script driven and original. Then what do they do for series 2? "oh let's have a WI woman being sick all over someone after eating something made by an Asian person, and hey instead of it being the one off which it should be we'll make it a regular sketch!" Which also reminds me of how stupid they were to make the 'pirate memory games' guy into a regular studio sketch - pure laziness.
By the way, where does that Bob Mortimer thing come from? Sounds like bollocks to me, even though the Geordie guy is definitely something that could come from his mind. He would have put his name on it if it had turned out good.
By performingmonkey
August 11, 2006 @ 4:46 am
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"a) I don't agree with your views on Two Pints; I actually think it's the closest thing we have to a straight sitcom that's funny and worth watching (well, there's 'The IT Crowd' but it's not been running long enough yet). Despite the fact that you despise the series so much you seem to know more about the plots than I do. The dialogue isn't meant to be naturalistic, the 'inane quips' you mention are sitcom standard. People shout and spout gags in a sitcom, no matter the setting. Is Father Ted realistic in terms of how Priests converse?"
I do find it weirdly compelling viewing. To be honest, I'm pretty sure the dialogue is meant to have a naturalistic, blokey, matey kind of flow to it. At least, it's not meant to sound like people reading lines. But the whole thing is so forced and un-natural that it can't help but come across as that. And obviously all sitcoms are to an extent un-natural, but they do set their own parameters. Father Ted isn't attempting to portray priests realistically, but that Will Mellor and Ralf Little are realistic characters with realistic lives is fairly integral to the shows intended appeal. It's a programme about people like you and me down the pub drinking beer, wahey! , *balances empty glass on head*. But the writings so desperate it strays into the surreal, like Will Mellors song about sheep, or Ralf Littles rant about his impending daughter. Things that just sound totally out of place coming out of these characters mouths. The show does have certain qualities, but that the style of humour and the tone of the show are so apposite renders the whole thing utterly bizarre. It doesn't help that the jokes aren't funny, but that's a matter of taste, obviously. Inane quips are sitcom standard, but making it remotely believable that they'd come out of the characters mouths should be too. Five seconds of Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads makes 2POLAAPOC look like the shiny moist turd that it is.
"b) I agree with your views on My Hero, but only because it isn't funny. If it was actually funny I would readily accept all the stupid plots they use and the 'originality' of having the main character as a superhero (and a baby that can talk...)."
It might be funny if it didn't rely on such stupid plots. Plots are pretty central to sitcoms, I hear. They've just stopped trying, if they ever started.
"c) I totally agree about TittyBangBang, but again only because I didn't think it was funny. The show definitely proves that there's a line you can cross where stuff just becomes fucking ridiculous/strange rather than funny/strange which I enjoy (compare the stupid OTT necrophilia stuff here with the excellent Mark Gatiss monologue morgue guy scene in The League Of Gentlemen series 3). "
Well, I only didn't like it because I didn't think it was funny, either. Why else do you think I didn't like it? All I did above was talk about why it isn't funny. You seem to be talking about plots, characters, internal logic etc as seperate issues to whether or not something is funny, when they're all fairly crucial ingredients.
"By the way, where does that Bob Mortimer thing come from? Sounds like bollocks to me, even though the Geordie guy is definitely something that could come from his mind. He would have put his name on it if it had turned out good."
It came from Wikipedia, and I can believe it to be honest. The flimsiness of these characters and sketch-show-by-numbers structure is very reminiscent of the All Star Comedy Show, and Bob does like some dross. He was on Bo Selecta, wasn't he? Actually I quite like some bits of Bo Selecta. I do find it strangely endearing that Bob spends his time knocking out shit like this, though.
By Michael Lacey
August 11, 2006 @ 5:42 am
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> and Bob does like some dross. He was on Bo Selecta, wasn't he? Actually I quite like some bits of Bo Selecta.
Bo' Selecta! is one of my favourite shows of recent years. Leigh Francis was a REAL new talent. Sadly, A Bear's Tail was mostly shit, but last years' Avid Merrion Christmas special (aka the pilot for the new American-style Bo' Selecta! entitled 'Avid Merrion - American Sicko') was definitely up to scratch. I hope it hasn't been dropped because I'm pretty sure it should have been on by now.
By performingmonkey
August 11, 2006 @ 6:01 am
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In a stroke of coincidence, I also found myself watching this show the other night (having studiously ignored it first time around on the presumption that it was going to be shit based on the name alone, and then later the trailers). I had thought about writing a review of it for NTS, but as usual never got around to it. Yours is far better than anything I'd have written in any case. Anyway, the main thing that struck me about this show (given that I was watching it safe in the knowledge it was going to be crap and so wondering if it might have any redeeming features at all) was that it really appeared to me to be all about Lucy Montgomery. Forgetting the piss-poor scripts for a moment, I actualy thought that as a showcase for her acting skills it was quite good. Unfortunately for Debbie Chazen she was always struggling to keep up with Montgomery's superior ability to move seamlessly from character to character (as you say, shoving in a few accents doesn't really cut it when all you do with every one of the characters from that point on is make them grotesque gurners). Montgomery must be kicking herself that either wasn't around for, or wasn't offered, 'Smack The Pony'. That may have been hit and miss (as most sketch shows are) but at least it 'hit' several times per episode. The only character who made me crack a smile in this one was the mad 'don't look at me' maid, and the reason for that has now been explained by your Bob Mortimer reference.
So, if they'd just used it as a one-off showcase for Lucy Montgomery, that would be fine. Well actually it wouldn't because really that should just be something that's done privately and hoiked around to casting agencies. How they've managed to stretch an entire series out of it is beyond me, though. How anyone could write most of the content and even imagine it was funny is also beyond me. I think you summed it up quite well in that they started with a one-line description and then tried to stretch it to a sketch. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I'd like to see Lucy Montgomery in something else. Something well written and funny. I really think she has talent. Unfortunately it's wasted in this show that tries hard to be shocking but really is just shockingly bad.
By Pook
August 11, 2006 @ 10:00 am
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> I'm pretty sure the dialogue is meant to have a naturalistic, blokey, matey kind of flow to it.
Absolutely - the whol genesis of the show was the writer's desire to put something that sounded like her and her mates on TV. It's meant to be realistic - it just doesn't have the ear for it. Of course you have to bulk up the gags to make it a sitcom, but you only have to look at Porridge or somesuch (even OFAH) to see how realistic-but-sitcommy can be made to work.
Two Pints fails, and though I often blame the cast (aside from Sheridan Smith, who's clearly very talented) the truth is that openly stating obvious crude facts about wanking isn't enough on its own to raise the roof. There's a skill in the execution that TPOLAAPOC doesn't have.
By Andrew
August 11, 2006 @ 11:28 am
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*shuffles feet*
By John Hoare
August 11, 2006 @ 11:29 am
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Two Pints fails, and though I often blame the cast (aside from Sheridan Smith, who's clearly very talented)
Hmm, I disagree. From what I've seen of TP (and I don't think I've seen an episode since the first or second series), the cast were all quite strong (I've always quite liked Natalie Casey, Smith and Little are competent enough, and even Hollyoaks Bloke isn't bad given the unsubtlety of the character), with the exception of that godawful "thick student" girl (the one who was in Love & Monsters); but the writing completely drove it into the ground. But that's what you get when you trust entire control of however many bloody series of a sitcom to some bloody teenager? What's Nickson ever done that's actually proven her worthy of the opportunities that have been handed her on a plate?
By Seb
August 11, 2006 @ 11:58 am
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Yes, Lucy Montgomery is ace. And seemingly the most willing to make a twat of herself, her performances aren't as guarded or deliberate or actory as the big womans. She's just having a laugh, which is what's needed with this kind of flimsy material. She would have been ace in The IT Crowd, instead of that shouty shouty woman.
I can't really fault the cast of 2POL, either. I like all of them. Even Will Mellor. I thought he was great in Casualty, or Holby City, whichever it was.
By Michael Lacey
August 11, 2006 @ 5:12 pm
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I just find it all a bit...overtly laddish and overcooked. A lot of the cruder stuff CAN be funny, even from these scripts, but it's the wrong show to be playing it as "I'm in a sit-com, me". It doesn't help that I find the lads pretty unappealing, one-note and schtick-ish...
Maybe it's just me, but I think their performance choices are made for a different kind of sitcom. But then, what am I really saying? The writers want real-ish and fail, so the actors go for "Hey, I'm on telly" in an attempt to make it work. Maybe that is the right choice. But then it affects the writing and pretty soon the whole thing's spiralled down the lav.
By Andrew
August 11, 2006 @ 9:24 pm
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That's a new technique.
Anyway, Sheridan Smith: would.
By Jake Monkeyson
August 11, 2006 @ 10:39 pm
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Over Natalie Casey? Nutcase.
By Michael Lacey
August 11, 2006 @ 10:55 pm
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Did anyone see the 'horror' episode that finished the last series of Two Pints? I thought it was pretty interesting, somehow strangely frightening in places (I'm not referring to Ralf Little's acting), especially when Donna's severed lower half was going to fuck Gaz to death!
By performingmonkey
August 12, 2006 @ 1:27 am
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I love My Hero. But then I live in Pinner, NW London where it's filmed and it's full of random jokes about Northolt which is just down the road and deserves everything they say about it. That's an entirely satisfactory reason for me to like it. ...But why is screened in the rest of the country? Does anybody know?
;-)
John (from Pinner, not Northolt)
By Anonymous
September 03, 2006 @ 3:10 am
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