Carry On Offending! (Little Britain)

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	Little Britain
Date:	25/10/08 (174 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny bits

Disadvantages: Awful bits

I've always thought that Little Britain is a bit of a BBC cheap trick and David Walliams (why can't he be Williams!) and Matt Lucas are not as a talented as they have been allowed to believe. Yes they do the Carry On style humour well but their version of those saucy postcard jokes arent always non-offensive.
If we- and they-are honest they are the magpies of BBC comedy, stealing shiny pieces and ideas from all that comedy gold and silver that has gone before them on the illustrious channel. The far superior League of Gentleman was doing the surrealist dressing up stuff much better a few years ago now and the originals in The Pythons were doing if decades before, and far funnier. At least the 'League' gleefully own up to stealing some of their ideas from the Pythons and other comedy greats. Wasn't Catherine Tate doing the underclass chav Lauren before Lucas did? You always feel Lucas and Walliams blatantly don't recognize those others in their work and convince themselves they are new and fresh, nobody in their circle likely to disagree. Where as American/Jewish comedy in America is confident and intelligent, here the two North London boys seems rather spiteful, bigoted and arrogant in their comedy... we can do what we want because who is going to stop us type thing, not caring about who they offend, really detracting from their material. Yes they have their funny moments but they are certainly no Fry & Laurie or Smith & Jones. At least when the great Larry David and the brilliant 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' attack minorities and disabilities they subtly apologies in the show with their clever endings. There is no subtly in Little Britain I any way.

The biggest complaint about Little Britain is that insensitivity and its need to offend, stereotyping race, gender and sexuality with little irony, the BCC doing little to stop them. Normally I'm all for that daring but when these two have a crack at risky stiff it always feels seedy and deliberately offensive. One such character is the Women's Institute lady who projectile vomits or exaggeratedly urinates in disgust when she has to meet black or Asian people. Now my old man died of Alzheimer's and pretty much everyone over 40 has a relative in that situation, this sketch carrying all manner of offence. Sure their stuff is aimed at young people but some of their stuff seems a bit much. If you're going to do that then do with craft like the 'League' do.

Some characters are funny and you can't help but chuckle at Lou & Andy, Lou, apparently based on the singer Lou Reed and Andy on the comic Mel Smith. It's a clever skit because it touches on those obsequious do-gooder carers that are rather easily exploited by disabled people who become dependant on them. The assistant gay Prime Minister character (probably based on that ghastly Peter Mandelson); on the other hand, doesn't work and a one joke act. Someone needs to tap them on the back and say that's too puerile and doesn't work anymore. So on that assessment I was hoping the new series from the USA would bring me back into the fold.

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Little Britain: USA
BBC 1 -9:30PM
4 of 6 gone..
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Now that the show doesn't really work in the United Kingdom anymore, due to the guys not coming up with any new characters after running out of groups to offend, the pair have up-sticked to try and break America. Or at least that's the way they see it. The new half-hour in the Friday night prime-time slot is underway and, like the British version, has some hits and some misses, Tom Bakers commentary still the funniest part of the show.

Inevitably some of the old characters have also been given a ticket to fly over with Matt and David, the boys mixing in those new American ones to keep things fresh and their new audiences interested on HBO. The US cable station tune in for something other then the usual US TV dirge.
Of the new characters I particularly like the two locker room guys and their hilarious naked latex body building suits with tiny penises and I also chuckled at astronaut 'Bing' Shavers, the 8th man on the moon, constantly seeking attention to announce that fact, be it a talking with school kids or just boring the tradesman fixing the radiator at his house. I also feel there are legs in the old American granny that sits on the porch, all sweet and innocent, before blurting some really offensive language out of the blue. You can just imagine these ladies in Middle-America right now making shocking comments about Barak Ocala.

To be fair Matt and David have to use their stock characters and regulars in some context to keep the viewers interested, Vicky Pollard turning up in a Utah Brat Camp whilst Marjorie Doors (mother of George), the fat club teacher (clearly stolen from the League of Gentleman's job club woman sketch), is doing 'Fatbusters' in America, racially abusing fat Mexicans at every chance. Emily Howard, the world's only Victorian transvestite, also turns up, but bombs again here as it did in the other series. This show is also introducing a very American thing of having celebrity guest stars on sketch shows. Sting got to serenade Emily with his ridiculous lute and I think I'm not the only one at that moment who wanted to see Emily hit the pretentious pratt over the head with it. It was a one joke sketch back then and it still is now, as are many of the Little Britain characters. 'Computer says no...' woman is another example of that laziness and is also kept in the show, here working for private US healthcare, a joke the Americans will associate more with and so laugh at.

They have tweaked David Williams's gay prime ministers aid, updated to being the preposterous Prime Minister of the U.K., constantly hanging out in the Oval Room with a topically black US President, again a one joke trick and not amusing. You can understand why they put things in to get a camp demographic watching and this is the type of stuff they think does it. But chasing the pink pound is never that simple guys. 'Bubbles' Devere has also been flown over Club Class to Manhattan and is still showing her naked splendor to clear her gambling debts from the worlds roulette tables. At least that sketch has some sort of originality. I'm sure the American audience giggled the first time we saw her grotesque as we did but why keep it in every episode? Again my biggest critic point: these two fail to come up with a genuinely breadth of funny new characters, flogging a dead horse like no others in the business. I sure their creative team meetings are about who can we offend next and get away with it. The only gay in the village is another character not working at all in the new series. One poignant moment is the denial Lou is suffering over the realization that Andy Pipkin can indeed walk, witnessing it on CCTV, but not wanting to break their bond. That, to me, sums up where Little Britain is right now. Matt and David know it's over but keep plugging away as they have nothing else in their lives but each other...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/littlebritain/

Summary: Your no Sid James and Bernard Breslaw guys...