Calm down calm down (Goodness Gracious Me)

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Goodness Gracious Me
Date:	13/03/04 (409 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: It's just not funny

First of all, the good news - http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/g/goodn essgracious_66601650.shtml is the address where you can find the customary helpful BBC background info and news about Goodness Gracious Me, and the web page is as good as you would expect from the wonderful people at the Beeb (I don't subscribe to any of the nonsense put out as part of the Hutton Report about the media institution - these guys remain the very best at everything televisual and demand our support).

Here you can find out all you possibly could desire to know about this Asian comedy series, including the listing of cast and crew:
Cast
Sanjeev Bhaskar
Kulvinder Ghir
Meera Syal
Nina Wadia
Dave Lamb

Crew
Sanjeev Bhaskar
Kulvinder Ghir
Meera Syal
Nina Wadia
Dave Lamb
Sharat Sardana
Richard Pinto
Anil Gupta
Nick Wood
Jon Plowman

You also get the normal decent background notes as follows:

Created for television, Asian sketch show Goodness Gracious Me appeared first on the radio. When producer Anil Gupta took the idea to BBC television the executive producer Jon Plowman suggested the team first assemble a radio pilot, a cheap way of demonstrating the potential of an untried idea. This pilot led to a full radio series, which quickly won a prestigious Sony Award. Impressed by its aural successes, Plowman decided the time was right to switch the show to television. (For details of the radio version, see footnote.)
The budget for the first series was minuscule by terrestrial TV standards but Anil Gupta spent cannily, providing at least one glossy, lavish-looking sketch in each show, a
nd saving cash elsewhere by simplifying pieces that didn't call for elaboration. The style of the show was similar to that of The Fast Show, recurring characters providing vital continuity. These included Smeeta Smitten, Showbiz Kitten (Syal), a Bollywood gossip columnist; the nouveau riche Kapoor family, who were desperate to be fully English and insisted their name was pronounced Cooper; Mr 'Everything Comes From India' ('The royal family? Indian! Have arranged marriages, live in the same house and all work for the family business. Indian!'); the Indian mother who could 'make it at home for nothing'; Bollywood superstar Chunky La Funga; the tactless suitor whose verbal gaffes always leave him asking for the 'cheque please'; Asian street kids the Bhangra Muffins; charlatan His Serene Calmness the Guru Maharishi Yogi; and the alcoholic marsupial 'Skipinder, The Punjabi Kangaroo'.

Now unfortunately, that is the sum total of all the positive things which I can tell you about this dire little programme ... it's made almost entirely by Indian performers who seek to poke fun at the stereotypes popularised about their race and in so doing trying to take a very different approach to the subject of comedy about Asians, after all, it's not racism when we seek to poke fun at ourselves, is it? Unfortunately, the acid test of comedy is a little too trying for Goodness Gracious Comedy. You see the key thing about comedy programmes is that they should be, if nothing else, just that bit vaguely amusing. Goodness Gracious Me may indeed be very many things, but sadly one of them is not amusing ... this is a hugely embarrassing comedy series which has nothing funny to say whatsoever, and spends all its time trying
to show how right on and clever-clever it is, and failing dismally ... it's just inept, clumsy, mannered, limited and hugely unamusing - it is just the most dire thing I have seen in an awfully long time.

However, the fact that the show is made by Indians and catches them poking fun at their own race has somehow meant that many people allow it far too much leeway ... it doesn't have to be funny, old chap, because these guys are obviously very wicked and whimsical and it's extremely important that we encourage them with their ground breaking comedy routines ------ NOT!!!!

Embarrasing is what it is, extremely embarrassing, and I struggle to sit quietly through more than about five minutes of it at a stretch - even the thought of it makes me feel very excitable and annoyed ... it isn't cool, it isn't clever, it isn't even the slightest tad wry, and don't try to convince me that it is, because you're on a very sticky wicket.

However, Goodness Gracious Me IS undoubtedly hugely unpopular with its BBC2 audience and somehow has managed to tweak a very minute funny bone amongst the PC middle classes, who would not dream of missing a show, along with they very small brained who believe that it may be a documentary series.

There were three series and two special shows between 1998 and 2001 and happily Goodness Gracious Me is now a thing of the dim and distant past, and the main brains behind the show have gone on to bigger and better things.

I think my almost unmentionally large hatred of this show is down to the smug complacency of its main players, and particularly Meera Syal, who may be a very clever and talented lady, but is just so convinced of her own talent that she rubs me up the wrong way whenever I see her. She's made a very good career for herself in the British media
, but just grates terribly with me with her self satisfied conviction that she is the funniest, cleverest, most talented and gifted performer around ... well, let me assure her that she is not and has just made herself a laughing stock with this one.

Of course, I have been known to go a little over the top with rants such as this one in the past, but in this particular case I believe this is merited ... Goodness Gracious Me is one abysmal show which does not remotely justify the generic term 'comedy'.

However, I do seem to be one on me own in this respect and most reviews I have read about GGM slaver over its cleverness and its hilarity ... the show won a Sony award and generated a huge following...

Factually speaking, Goodness Gracious Me is a quick paced low budget comedy sketch show in the line of such predecessors as Not the Nine O'Clock News and The Two Ronnies, with the twist of being mainly about Asians. Unfortunately, it is irritating, foolish and misguided.

You may disagree, it wouldn't be the first time....

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