The State of British Comedy

So watch US comedy. Sorted!

Have you ever liked their stuff?

I think you mean " formerly funny", asshole OP.

Well, well, well. Come crawling back, huh?

Brits watch more US television than their own.

British TV is so bad. I used to love Absolurely Fab, OFAH and all that, but now they have nothing but camp upperclass dross.

So who are these great American comedians on this long list of which you speak, OP?

Britain used to be a bastion of free thought and expression, of course people always complained about "offense" but the general attitude was offense is the price you pay for living in a free and open society. This is when the comedy was good. Comedy is generally an excellent indicator for the health of free speech in your society, because the best comedy tends to utilise a method of "speaking the unspeakable" in order to get laughs.

And then, things changed, the culture changed, and "offense" changed to "victimhood". The introduction of Britain's victimhood culture meant that you were no longer merely offended at a joke, but you were the victim of the joke's malevolent insensitivity to your feelings, and this of course would not be tolerated.

The last two comedians on British television who I actually thought took risks, pushed the boundaries, and were hilarious in the process, were Frankie Boyle (on Mock The Week) and Simon Amstell when he hosted Nevermind The Buzzcocks. This was roughly between 2005 and 2010, both on the BBC.

Explains the rise of Russell Brand, ugh, the champagne socialist.

Oh for fuck's sake. PC policing can be taken too far by drama queens looking for something to bitch about. Still, British comedy (and comedy in general) has always been a mix of brilliance and crap just as it is today.

You sound like whinging freeper/tories who miss the good old days of racist/sexist/homophobic "comedy" acts. We don't miss you.

Does Sarah Millican's insufferable voice an affectation, or is there a town in the UK where everyone talks like that?

Sarah Millican and Jane Horrocks should do something together.

[quote]Sarah Millican and Jane Horrocks should do something together.

Only if it involves driving a car off a cliff.

British comedy hasn't gone completely to shit, but I think they started going downhill when "Little Britain" came on the scene; that sort of hackneyed, slapstick sketch shit.

I love British comedy of the "The Office" and "The Thick of it" variety. I know the star of the latter is on "Dr. Who" now which I don't watch, but my God was that guy funny as hell in TTOI. Loved him.

I miss the old Channel 4.

America's "The Office" was a huge hit. Such a hit, that British audiences watched it religiously.

Britain doesn't have a Stephen Colbert, John Stewart, Bill Maher, Tina Fey, Amy Poheler, Kristen Wiig, Larry David, Louis CK, Kathy Griffin, Wanda Sykes, Sarah Silverman, Alex Borstein, Fred Armisen, Kate McKinnon, Taran Killam, Bill Hader, Nasim Pedrad, Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, the list is incredibly long. This is "sort of" where comedy is at "the moment"... and the point is, no matter why kind of comedy you like, no matter what topics you prefer, cutting edge - America has it. You don't see any of this in the UK now. They watch so much American shit, the young'uns want to be American, the UK has lost its identity.

The Alternative Comedy Circuit: the ones still alive sold out, the others are dead, the rest aren't doing it anymore. Until the early 1980s, Britain had no female comedians. Female comedians = Benny Hill girls. In America back in the 50s there were comedians such as... we'll I don't have to list all of them, do I? They weren't sexy either.

Americans have done comedy better overall from the get go. When Brits were good, they were great. The majority of the time they sucked. Maybe we're expecting too much. Britain is back to being unfunny like it originally was.

As an Islamemist country, humor in Britanhistan is forbidden. Therefore, no more wrinkles from laughter or smiles. Is that so hard to get through your bedeviled heads?

R14 is on crack, of course; Little Britain was brilliant.

Mrs. Brown's Boys?? omg funny as shit...and they lead is played by a man in a wig who breaks the fourth wall all the time...

Swinger to Mrs. Brown "just so you know I have a huge cock.."

Mrs. Brown to them "just so you know..so do i"

and this breaks up the actors playing the swingers --and then they carry on the scene...

Miranda Hart is just a posh London version of Victoria Wood. Both are cutesy and unfunny.

I know a lot of people don't like it, but I love Mighty Boosh. Saw them live in LA last year and they were hilarious (imo).

I've just come back to 'The News Quiz' on Radio 4, which is whip-smart about current affairs, and riffs into good anecdotes. Makes me laugh out loud.

Out lesbian Sandi Toksvig (who chairs) recently said that a charity she worked for had a reception at which Princess Anne was guest of honour; Toksvig was asked not to attend, to prevent The Queen's daughter meeting a lesbian.

The TV version 'Have I Got News For You' can be good, but isn't quite as fast and sharp. Stunt guests hold it up.

Stewart Lee is a droll ruminative left-field comic who has built a big following, and I like to catch his live act. Otherwise though, not much appeals.

John Bishop is awful. And Vicious is a despicable piece of shit.

There's nothing on British TV now that comes close to even something like Outnumbered. Gogglebox is huge and that's just people watching TV. Pathetic.

[quote]Mrs. Brown's Boys?? omg funny as shit...and they lead is played by a man in a wig who breaks the fourth wall all the time...

True, and he also goes off-script to joke with the other actors, e.g., "I bet you just about shit yourself when you saw that in the script."

In this clip, he makes Rory (Mrs. Brown's "gentle" son) laugh inappropriately. It's fun for us to see how much fun they have making the series.

Toast of London, IT crowd, dark place. Things are fine

Steve Coogan is about the only funny actor left in Britain.

Channel 4 lost it around the time of Big Brother 3, it then switched from being daring, edgy and smart to courting and pleasing 17 year old moronic, homophobic, sexist chavs. So it's pretty much beyond saving now.

Stephen Merchant is very funny, but "Hello, Ladies" was shit.

R26 I agree things are fine. Toast of London seconded. I also liked the (somewhat twee, but still funny) Detectorists. And we might think Vicious is pretty bad, but y'know. A gay sitcom. Then there's W1A, which probably loses in transatlantic translation. Rev too, which probably loses in translation too. I liked Fried, despite the presence of Will Mellor. Fresh Meat. Inside Number 9.

But a lot of the more biting stuff is on the radio.

I forgot Brian Pern!

fresh meat, bad education, some girls, Friday night dinners

The Inbetweeners was very funny...the movie, not so much.

Sad...

R27, Steve Coogan is now shooting a comedic series...in NY. It's called Happyish and it's for Showtime.

I think Friday Night Dinner is so stupid. I only watch it because I like Mark Heap who is funny as hell on the show. But the rest of it is just stupidness. The two brothers act like they are ten years old.

[quote] Toast of London, IT crowd

IT crowd? What year is this?

Now you know why we retired.

[quote]I miss the old Channel 4.

You must have a long memory. It hasn't been good since about 1990.

But, yes..it was SO good.

I looked at a re-run of 'Coupling' a few days ago. It's just endless crappy jokes about 'shagging'.

I always thought Adam & Joe were going to go on to do great things. I was wrong.

"Mrs. Brown's Boys" is another "Miranda" - recycled jokes, slapstick done badly, forced humor. It's also an Irish show.

"Vicious" is unforgivable. I can't believe how horrible it is, despite it's two iconic stars. How embarrassing.

Steve Coogan is on his last leg. I expect an overdose any day now. How that guy is still breathing, I have no idea. I never got how Allan Patridge was suppose to be funny.

Remember "Extras"? That pretty much summed up the state of British comedy, and that show was done years ago. "Are you havin' a laugh?"

Graham Norton's good, although he really isn't good at standup, he's good as an interviewer. I know his teeth are the main joke, along with his over-the-top campiness, but Alan Carr isn't too bad. Remember his co-host, Justin Lee Collins, the one who was caught harassing his girlfriend in the most barbaric of ways? Then there's Paul O'Grady and his chat show. He isn't funny, but thankfully not annoying about it.

People like Dawn French have moved into dramedy. I hate that. Suddenly, these comics hit a certain age and they only want to do material that's "meaningful."

Keith Lemon is horrible. Peter Kay and Johnny Vegas are total has-beens now. And I have no respect for a country which has actually allowed Rich Hall to have a career.

Graham Norton is my favorite talk show host (I'm American). His program is must-see-tv no matter what guests are on.

Eddie Izzard is my favorite comedian (still) and the funniest person in the world (still).

Steve Coogan, while hilarious, is the sickest fuck to ever sickfuck. If what he's really like ever comes out, he'll have to hide under a rock for the rest of his life.

I think British comedy is tremendous!

I find Miranda Hart somewhat entertaining. Her show was fun for a mindless laugh. It's best in smaller doses but she's hardly the worst.

[quote]It's just endless crappy jokes about 'shagging'.

That's why it's called "The British [italic]Friends[/italic]." Now you know why so many people, myself included, have it in for [italic]Friends[/italic]: its popularity lowered the bar for sitcoms and for comedy in general on both sides of the Atlantic.

I can't stomach Miranda Hart. Now she's becoming a sentimental favorite in North America due to that maudlin Midwife series. People have no idea how untalented she is left to her own devices. She's famous because she's posh and she's allowed to be posh because she's so oogly looking. If she were an attractive posh person, she'd be a newsreader.

The British Comedy Awards were held tonight. Toast of London deservedly won. The rest was a joke, pun intended.

Peep Show

I saw the show Plebs on Hulu recently and it was funny. It seemed like classic British style humor. I had to turn captions on since some of the accents were too thick to understand, but it didn't detract from the comedy.

Tina Fey funny? Really? For about 3 minutes when she did her Palin shtick, and since then everything has been forced.

R8 made a good point. And Amstell is gay. The US still hasn't had out gay male comedian on prime time TV. That's telling.

But yeah. PC is killing it. The list of US comedians R11 provided ALL do safe stuff. Some great, some good, but nothing that pushes boundaries.

Agree about Merchant's show being a loss, but he himself is brilliant.

[quote]IT crowd? What year is this?

So odd that someone in 2014 said this about The IT Crowd which ran until 2013.

I tried to watch MIRANDA because of Tom Ellis, but I could only stomach her for one episode. I turned the second one off after five minutes. She's funny?

Americans aren't anglophiles. Individuals are. Individuals with low standards.

They technically do kids' shows but the team that made "Bill," "Yonderland" and the first five live-action series of "Horrible Histories"--Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond, Jim Howick, Martha Howe-Douglas, Simon Farnaby and Matt Baynton--are funny as HELL.

As far as stand-up goes, there are no consistently funny Brits, but there are a few sorta-amusing-from-time-to-time ones. Without the British love for panel shows most of them would rarely get any television work.

Their sitcoms though are almost always far superior in wit, style, and writing to nearly any American sitcom, with few exceptions.

Funnily enough, it was a fundie TV minister, Joyce Meyers, who warned the a sign of the End Times was people constantly taking offense.

I have to agree about Vicious. I love both McKellen and Jacobi but, despite several attempts, I could not watch more than five minutes of that wretched piece of crap.

I love Will Mellor - he needs more cop shows. He could be the male Nicola Walker.

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or facetious R16? I'm going to go with the idea that you are and that you know that we watched the original British The Office religiously? There's always a possibility with comments like that that the person behind them actually means it.

There have been some hilarious sitcoms over the last few years but no current ones that I can think of. Over the last about ten years - The Inbetweeners, Gavin and Stacey, Peep Show (to be fair, that was running for a long time), The Thick of It, W1A.

To my mind all of the above were very distinctly British and I can't imagine them being made in America. Maybe there is a slight lull right now, but I'm sure it will pick up again as a new generation come through.

The only American comedy I find genuinely funny is Arrested Development, but that's because I think it has a British sensibility about it - unintentionally I'm sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if the writer/s were fans of some British sitcoms,

Grandma's House by Simon Amstell was also very funny. Typical British observational family-based sitcom in a way, but also very sharp.

[quote] The country is too globalized, and as formally funny Jennifer Saunders has said, "It's become too PC."

Yes, if we could get rid of the Mexicans and Muslims, things would be so much better.

I'm not joining in the PC/racism discussion at all R67, but you do realise that America has a lot of Mexicans migrating to the US because of the shared border and geographic proximity, and that the UK doesn't? No British racist would complain about 'the Mexicans', it would be people emigrating from parts of South Asia, and quite likely Polish people and perhaps people from Africa, but never Mexico.

This may sound pedantic but it frustrates me when people from North America try and make a global comment and are constrained by their US-centrism.

[quote]  first five live-action series of "Horrible Histories"--Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond, Jim Howick, Martha Howe-Douglas, Simon Farnaby and Matt Baynton--are funny as HELL.

That team created and stars in the terrific comedy GHOSTS which recently ended its first season and has been commissioned for a second.

Peep Show was quite funny.

That’s all I got.

Dylan Moran (born in London, raised in Ireland, currently living in Scotland) is a fucking legend! Stand up is stellar; "Black Books" is brilliant. No one else around now can touch him. He is a God.... (Well, Steve Coogan is pretty funny too, but.... )

The Two Ronnies are my favourite. They were so funny.

I'm British and can't stand American comedy shows like Colbert or JohnOliver? those hosts are always indulgent and unfunny. I wish the world would go back to good sketchshows with decent money behind them. French and Saunders, The Two Ronnies, Not The Nine O clock news, Carol Burnett, etc. Pc has killed a lot if comedy because comedians are so scared of causing offense, or even being misconstrued.

Little Britain USA was hilarious. Especially the scene with the Chavette ("which, by American standards, makes her practically royalty").

It was ~50 years ago, but let's not forget that Monty Python basically INVENTED modern TV sketch comedy as we know it today. So much so, I'd conservatively guess that if you played "God Save the Queen" and "Liberty Bell March" & asked Americans which one is Britain's national anthem, at least 60% would pick LBM.

The Two Ronnies- phantom raspberry blower of old London town was hilarious. I also love their party sketches.

You're confused OP. Good comedy has nothing to do with the ability to 'tell a joke', in fact that is what's wrong with a lot of American comedy - the characters are trying to be funny. It seems like you don't understand British comedy, which is usually driven by funny situations or characters who are unintentionally funny. I can't think of any British sitcom or sketch show that relies on 'telling jokes'.

Actually a great example of sort-of contemporary British comedy is Gavin and Stacey. It's been off the air for a few years but it is much more recent than Monty Python of The Two Ronnies, and they are making a new Christmas special at the moment. Gavin and Stacey is absolutely hilarious, partly because no-one in it realises how funny they are - it's purely character led. Similar to W1A, they are both laugh-out-loud funny, but the characters in them are very earnest and serious - no 'jokes' at all.

Awesome recent British comedies - Fleabag, Catastrophe, Friday Night Dinner.

I also love anything by Julia Davis - ~Nighty Night, Hunderby, Camping