The Britcompilation: Day 31- Bad Education

So, it's finally over. This month long voyage into the world of the British sitcom has finally concluded. I've really loved gushing over these series, because let's face it, all I need is an excuse to talk about how much I love comedy. It's been beyond fun to discuss how they've evolved over time, and it's been fun to revisit a lot of these shows. But the thing is, I hadn't actually seen all of the shows I've discussed this month before I started. See, I decided that if I was going to do this, I'd do it right, and check out some series that I hadn't seen before. Most of these ones were ones that I'd seen before, and knew I'd talk about, but I thought it'd be interesting to talk about some shows that I was unfamiliar with. Till Death Do Us Part, On the Buses and Extras were all ones that I hadn't seen before this, but safe to say that these discoveries paid off (mostly). And the other show that I checked out for this event was Bad Education.

Jack Whitehall is okay. In terms of comics that I like, he's one that I find funny, and I always like him in things. Like Fresh Meat, which I decided not to count because it's more of a comedy drama than anything else. But then there's Bad Education, an out and out comedy series, about a really terrible teacher in an equally questionable school. And the show is actually okay. Jack Whitehall is a pretty decent lead, and he sells the awkardness that this show kind of runs on. I think that everything in this show is quite hit or miss, so I'll just talk about what does and doesn't work.

First of all, let's talk about what's not good here. Some of the jokes are just in poor taste. And some of the crude jokes do work, but when a joke fails here, it just falls flat. What's especially bad is that the bad jokes are unnecessarily long, and become drawn out and painful over time. The plots themselves usually aren't too clever, and tend to be a little predictable. The flaws here are way too noticeable to ignore, and really drag the show down. There's a nastiness to this show that makes everything a little awkward, and not always in a good way. These issues really get in the way of this show, and never go away as the show progresses.

But, in fairness, there's good stuff here too. The principal is the standout here, and is the absolute saving grace of the show. He's legitimately hilarious, and he singlehandedly makes up for the shows shortcomings. The supporting cast is okay too. All of the students are essentially just jokes as characters, but they work okay. But the best thing in this show isn't a character, or an episode, it's a moment. The last episode is mainly just decent, but the scene where Jack Whitehall watches the video alone in the room at the end of the year is legitimately fantastic. There's no dialogue, no big joke, nothing stupid. The show just lets it sit, and it's genuinely great. I was expecting the show to ruin it some way, but it actually pulled a moment like that off fantastically. I was legitimately surprised by this, and I think that it almost makes up for the show's failings.

So do I recommend Bad Education? Maybe? It's fine. It has it's ups and downs, but I'd be lying if I said it was bad. I don't love it, but there is good stuff here, enough to reward curiosity at least. It has it's moments for sure, but it does have several issues holding it back. It isn't a bad show, and I'm actually glad that I checked it out. Though I definitely regret watching the movie. More on that another time, though

So, where is British comedy? Is it in good hands? You know what? I think we're at a great point. Okay yeah, so the current crop aren't like the classics, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Shows like Fleabag and Game Face prove that a fresh perspective makes a difference, while stuff like Catastrophe and Fresh Meat exhibit how much drama can enhance comedy. Derry Girls and The Young Offenders both debuted only this year, but have been so bold and fresh that they feel like revelations. And who knows? Maybe in years to come, stuff like Chewing Gum and Crashing will be held in the same regard as classics like Only Fools and Horses and Fawlty Towers. It's hard to tell how things will pan out, but I think that we're in an interesting time for British comedy. Only time can tell what will happen next, but I'm definitely up for seeing where we go next.

The Britcompilation: Day 30- Mrs Browne's Boys

And now for one that splits opinions. Some love it, some hate it, but everyone has an opinion on it. And I quite like it. Brendan O'Carroll plays Agnes Browne, the crass matriarch of an Irish family. Look, it isn't a particularly clever premise, it tends to rely on crass humour a bit too much, and by this point it's become beyond repetitive, but I actually have a soft spot for this one.

What I think it is for me is that it makes up for all of its shortcomings in very simple ways. It's not a clever premise, or an especially complicated one, but it compensates for that with how strong the characters are. Even if they are all played for laughs, the performances actually work like they're supposed to, and that really makes up for the simplicity of the whole thing. Yeah it uses a lot of crude humour, but it never feels nasty or mean spirited. Even when it falls flat, I always feel that it's heart's in the right place. Everything seems to be done with good intentions here, and there is a twisted warmth to the show that helps me forgive it when it puts a foot wrong. And if it ever feels repetitive (and it seriously does by this point), I'm willing to overlook that, because the cast do have a really interesting, believable chemistry (not surprising, considering that many of them are actually related)

Though this show's hallmark is that if someone messes up, they leave it in. Something like that could get annoying if handled poorly, but it's so ingrained into the ethos of this show that it rarely becomes annoying to me. Look, I get that not everyone is going to like this one, and I get why some people hate it, because it is love it or hate it. So yeah, I'm not going to say that this one is perfect, or that everyone is going to like it, but it is one that I do genuinely enjoy. Imperfect, but thoroughly enjoyable. I absolutely understand if you don't like it, because it is one of those shows, but I do enjoy this one.

But the movie is godawful. The chat show is okay though.

The Britcompilation: Day 29- The Inbetweeners

One thing that I find quite interesting about discussing comedy is that the more you do it, the more you start to see how it's evolved over time. That was one of my aims with the Britcompilation, to kind of give a general sense of where British comedy was, how it has changed, and maybe even get a sense of where it's going. The shows that I picked, for the most part, are ones that I think affected the landscape of comedy in a significant way. And I think that The Inbetweeners is a very good example of a show that shows how the Britcom evolved over time.

It isn't family entertainment, and it isn't general viewing, but I think that it does give a sense of how far things have come. Just like how Steptoe defined the kitchen sink realism of the 60s, and The Young Ones defined the anti establishment mindset of the 80s, I think that the laddish humour of The Inbetweeners will make it one of the standout Britcoms of the 2000s. Because it does make good use of this very crass humour, and it isn't afraid to be awkward, which I think is fitting for a coming of age series. It captures the general experience of being an awkward teenager very well. The four main characters are actually really realistic, and the performances are fairly believable.

Unfortunately, it's not one that I really enjoy all too much. Yes, it's a good coming of age show, and yeah, I think that it'll be a key sitcom of it's time, and one that probably will be looked back on as a landmark series, but I just don't enjoy watching it. I think that it's unnecessaryily crude. I don't have an issue with crass comedy, or cringe comedy (I love it when it's done well), but I personally I think that The Inbetweeners takes it further than it needs to. I think that it's cruder than it often needs to be. Like it has a legitimately funny situation, but then it'll make a joke that just feels like it's in bad taste, at least for me.

Yeah, I get the appeal, but I think that the jokes here are a little poorly timed, and a fair few of them feel like they're too much. For me, it feels like it doesn't know when to stop. Because the thing about cringe comedy is that the further you take it, the more you need to be able to handle it. And I think that this show just doesn't hit the mark for me. And while I do think that the performances are really good and authentic, I don't actually find any of the characters too likeable. I never find myself wanting to follow these guys, or being that invested in their adventures. Again, I think that it is a good show for defining the modern Britcom, but it just isn't one that appeals to me. It's not bad, I definitely get why everyone loves it, but I just don't care for it that much. Don't think I have too much more to say about it, except Greg Davies is pretty great in it. Yeah, that's kind of all I have to say about this one.

The Britcompilation: Day 28- The I.T. Crowd

And now for my favourite show by Graham Linehan, and one that I've actually talked at length about before. In case you don't know, I ranked every episode of The I.T. Crowd, so I'll just give a brief description of the show and my thoughts on it here. Check out my ranking for more details.

So essentially it's about the I.T. department at Reynholm Industries, a company that makes... something. In the basement, there's Roy the slacker, Jen the overly ambitious relationship manager, and Moss, who is just.... well, he's just Moss. Together with their boss Denyholm, and later his son Douglas, they go on some crazy adventures. What I love about this show is how much of the comedy comes from the characters. And you could say that about a lot of shows, because it isn't something unique to The I.T. Crowd, but it's something that I think this show really excels at, and so is one of the best examples of it. The situations here come from each of these characters ineptitudes. Again, it's not like this show invented this, but I think that it's something that really defines the show as a whole and makes it work as a result. When you factor in Linehan's knack for incredible awkwardness, you've got something pretty great. Like maybe Roy will want to get out of a situation because he's lazy. But his attempts to avoid doing anything will trigger incredibly uncomfortable things to happen. Like that disabled bathroom scene. Or maybe Jen will act on her aspirations, only for the world to remind her that she'll probably never get out of the basement. Lest we forget that it's just not for her.

And yet it's not a pessimistic show. Unlike something like The Office, which had a fairly bleak sense of humour, The I.T. Crowd is a show that feels very playful. Like as awkward as it's situations get, the show always maintains this gleefully silly tone that keeps it funny. It does contain some comically unfortunate setpieces, but it's willingness to acknowledge it's own ridiculousness makes it so awesome. As much as I love the acidity and cynicism of Black Books, I always find myself coming back to the generally more upbeat I.T. Crowd. It isn't afraid to use mean spirited humour, but it makes it fit in with the general silliness of the setups and situations.

This is a show that I absolutely adore. Yes, I'm not crazy about it's ending, but that doesn't affect its place in my favourites list. This is a show that I just love. It's got one of the best casts I've seen in a comedy show, the situations are usually clever and always funny, and it actually gets better the more I watch it. The quotes and jokes are burned into my memory. And holy shit, does this show have good jokes. The Internet, Moss on Countdown, Friendface, Jen speaking Italian, Aunt Irma, Gay! A Gay Musical, Spaceology, Dungeons and Dragons, the bomb disposal robot, a fire at a Seaparks, I could go on all day. I absolutely love this show. If you want to hear me gush about this show even more, check out my rankings of the show's episodes. But for now, just know that this show is phenomenal. If you've not seen it, correct that immediately.

The Britcompilation: Day 27- Extras

So, as I've said before, I really love The Office. And Ricky Gervais as a whole actually. And he followed up The Office with Extras, which is a generally more conventional sitcom, dropping the mockumentary style in favour of a standard approach to the sitcom. But Extras has a gimmick, and one that I find is quite interesting. Each episode features a celebrity guest, usually quite a prominent actor. This is actually pretty cool, because let's face it, how many times do you get to say "I watched a Britcom last night and Robert de Niro was in it". It's a fairly interesting idea, with the celebrity guest usually playing a warped version of themselves. Like Kate Winslet being an desperate Oscar chaser. Or David Bowie being an expert insult comic.

That Bowie episode is excellent, and a great example of why Extras works so damn well. It's not just Ricky Gervais being like "oh look who I know, amn't I great". It's a show about how weird showbusiness is, and uses real people to give an impression of realism, and to give an edge to it's satire. Like how The Office lampoons the tedium of its workplace through a mockumentary style, Extras satirises the film industry by portraying the real people within it as a load of weirdos who are nothing like how you'd expect them to be. It's obvious that these people are nothing like how they're portrayed, but the effectiveness of Extras comes from how it uses its exaggerated portraits to deliver real observations on the entertainment industry. The Bowie episode works so well because it's unexpected. It was an unpredictable move for Bowie to belt out a (fantastic) number on how Gervais' character has sold out, and do it in a way that's so insulting and so surprising. This is how you do observational comedy. The result of the observation should be unexpected, and it should be a little bit strange. Through its use of caricature and exaggeration, it delivers some pretty great insights into the acting world, and dissects issues such as recognition, fame, image and artistic integrity in ways that feel unique and fairly refreshing. And because it's Gervais, it isn't without it's moments of dark humour either. It's the exact kind of sharp satire you'd expect from him (and Steven Merchant, who co created both this and The Office).

Extras might not be top of anyone's all time greatest Britcom list, but I do think that in terms of great modern comedy shows, it stands out. Okay yeah, it might not be as widely discussed today as The Office, but I definitely think that Extras is a brave, bold Britcom, and one that I do think will stand the test of time. Just like other observational comedies, it taps into ideas and topics that I think will remain recognisable for a while to come. Or I'd like to think so anyway. It's one that I don't think gets enough credit, and I'd even put it on par with The Office in terms of Gervais' best stuff. By allowing big Hollywood actors to laugh at themselves, Gervais had allowed everyone who watches this show to laugh at showbusiness itself. And that's just really great.

The Britcompilation: Day 26- The Mighty Boosh

Surrealism isn't rare in British comedy. In fact, it's one of it's hallmarks. Weird shit is fairly commonplace, and the Britcom is no exception. I've talked about shows that do this well before, but The Mighty Boosh takes the cake. This show, man. It's awesome. It's weird. It makes no sense. I love it. Essentially, it's about a zoo/flat/second hand shop. Except it isn't. It's about whatever the hell it wants to be about. Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett play zookeepers/flatmates/second hand shopkeepers who keep finding themselves in crazy, nonsensical situations. It's hard to talk about why it works, because it taps into this beautiful, odd and even sometimes disturbing surrealism that's fairly hard to describe. When you're watching this show, you're essentially taking a voyage into the bizarre, where the humour comes from how strange everything is. It's not the only sitcom to do weird comedy, but I don't think any series does it this well.

This is a show that begins with a fight between a man and and a monster kangaroo (sorry, Killeroo) and ends with the exploits of an alcoholic crab. Yep. Throw in some musical numbers and you've got.... something. The beauty of The Mighty Boosh is that it isn't necessarily supposed to be understood. It gets how to do surrealism without feeling overly random or in your face about anything. It always feels like part of the show, and it never feels like they're trying too hard to be weird. The weirdness is organic. It's insane, but in its own way, it makes sense. There's a gorilla, because of course there is. Same goes for Naboo the shaman. These are characters that don't need context, because it just makes sense that they're there. Once the show establishes that the rules are that there aren't any rules, everything starts to work. Everything is in the context of surrealism. Everything makes sense because it actually doesn't make sense. That may sound like an oxymoron, but the show never sets parameters for what might happen, so you come to expect anything to happen, however nonsensical. It's not mindless weirdness either. The show is good at knowing what lengths it can take a particular joke or story beat, and it never feels gratuitous or stupid. This show is fantastic, because it's the epitome of surreal comedy. It just wants to show you shit you wouldn't find anywhere else, and for that reason, it's awesome. It may not be for everyone, but it is a definite favourite of mine.

The Britcompilation: Day 25- The Office

Oh how I love Ricky Gervais. This guy is awesome, and The Office is awesome too. It's another show that's just made by the presence of a single character, and in this case, it's David. Goddamn. Brent. Oh my god, what can you even say about this guy? He's not just a comic goldmine, he's what really makes this show work. See, The Office hinges on this great comic pessimism, and uses terribly cringe inducing and awkward humour to deliver it's jokes, and nothing embodies that idea as much as Brent. He makes already awkward situations nearly unbearable to watch. The Office is a show that has fun with its cringe worthy moments. It's bleak, but it makes that funny.

It uses its mockumentary style to heighten it's comic realism. As I said, this show makes great use of awkward humour, and because it's shot like it's real, it has this wonderfully natural feel to it. Everything feels real in The Office. When a situation is hard to watch, it's hard to watch because it feels like it's actually happening. You believe the situations in this show, because they feel like real people being real people, which is to say awkward, weird and occasionally unlikeable. Gervais' Brent works because he's recognisable. He's somebody that everyone has come across at some point, and that makes the show all the funnier. Everyone in the show feels familiar to be honest. This is a show that mines it's humour from the mundanity and tedium of its real situation. They emulate the documentary style perfectly, and it feels like you are watching a documentary on the most dysfunctional workplace ever. It feels like a realistic worst case scenario, and it's just incredible.

The Office is a true cult classic, and it stands apart from most other Britcoms because it has this really distinct flavour. It's not like anything else. And it takes this powerful uniqueness and runs with it. Every episode harnesses that wonderful awkardness. And better yet, it invites the viewer to do the same. It's a bleak show, and is fairly pessimistic, but the comedy comes from the sheer strength of its bleakness. With its style and weird charisma, it's a truly fantastic show. It's hilariously painful to watch, and it's gone down in legend because of that. What can you say? Its The Office. Everyone loves it, and for damn good reason.