The Young Ones (Young Ones, The)

Member Name: polydeuces

Product:	Young Ones, The
Date:	08/08/08 (15 review reads)
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The Young Ones was to television comedy what some of the more outrageous pop artists are to rock'n'roll. The programme was the Eminem of comedy. Loved by a section of society separated from the remainder almost entirely on the grounds of age. While young people loved it, anyone over 35 probably hated it and probably didn't understand it. It was either brilliantly innovative or brilliantly exploitative whichever way you looked at it. Fans can recite huge tracts of the script verbatim, detractors would consider this silly.

It did however mark a new watershed in comedy for it defined that humour was not universal and could be honed to appeal to a narrow section of society. It was both anarchic and yet subtly structured.
It also launched the careers of some of the finest talents in British comedy and it also had Christopher Ryan in it. Rik Mayall had already appeared on TV as Kevin Turvey a hyperactive youth reporter. He appeared as Rik who liked to consider himself in the vanguard of the revolution which was to sweep Thatcher from power. He was unfortunately however as naïve and innocent as he was misguidedly idealistic. Mayall's future partner in the sitcom Bottom, Adrian Edmondsen, appeared as a destructive medical student called Vyvyan. Vyvyan was sadistic and inflicted a considerable amount of pain on the others apparently just to see what it was like.

Nigel Planer played Neil a hippie who would have disliked the actions of the others but was too agreeable to do so. Planer has gone on to become a fine actor, not just in comedy but in serious theatre too. Christopher Ryan played Mike who was easily the weakest of the characters. I think he was supposed to be cool but it just didn't work. Additionally the show did include a tendency for the various parts of the house to come to life like speaking walls.
One feature of The Young ones though was that by having just 2 series they did not allow the characters to become stale. To have continued would have required a new situation, I know some people are perpetual students but they are usually as funny as toothache. The programme was made in the early 1980s so fitted in neatly as a counterpoint to Thatcher's Britain.

The programmes featured many guests including Ben Elton and Fry and Laurie and also helped launch the career of Alexei Sayle who delivered a semi-monologue/rant against the evils of capitalism (usually). Rik also had a fixation about Cliff Richard who he seemed to think was a God. The team later joined Richard on a charity version of the song The Young Ones culminating in Vyvyan knocking him out.
Since The Young ones ended Mayall and Edmondson have worked together a lot on programmes like The Comic Strip presents... and Bottom, Mayall was also played the role of Alan B'Stard as an unscrupulous MP.

The Young Ones was immensely funny but does not appeal to everyone. Some of the humour was crude and cruel. Probably much more risqué material has been shown since and of course once certain taste barriers are breached they are impossible to re-erect. The nearest there has been in similar anarchic humour in recent years has been The League Of Gentlemen but that was nowhere near as funny as The Young Ones.

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