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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Little Britain

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Our Lady of The Two Towers

19:36 / 16.09.03

I thought it was going to be crap and the sketch they were using to advertise it was the weakest in the show but it was brilliant, with Sir Thomas of Baker and Tony Head as well! Anyone else see it?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

08:42 / 18.09.03

No-one else? In places it was like 'League of Gentlemen', though just sticking to the laughs rather than going for that grotesques thing that 'LoG' try to aim for, more with the surreal humour of 'Father Ted'. I dare say it'll be on BBC2 in a few weeks...

11:12 / 18.09.03

I was considering watching it, but wasn't too impressed with the pilot. Might give it a shot next week.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:26 / 03.12.03

Bumped as it's now getting shown BBC2, 10:00 pm, Monday nights.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

14:29 / 03.12.03

EH! EH! EEEEEEEEEaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeh!

EH! EH! EEEEEEEEEaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

lol

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:42 / 03.12.03

I have fallen in love with this show.

Favourite characters:

Lucas as the guy in the wheelchair who's always saying he wants something he doesn't really want, with Walliams as his long-suffering, painfully good-natured and yet credulous friend and helper. It's all about Lucas' hair and Walliams' teeth/NHS specs, plus the awful, awful contrast between the surliness of one and the open, indulgent sympathy of the other - it's also such a well-observed and annoying human trait: "Want that one!" "Are you sure, you don't like that one, remember?" "Want that one!"

The "only gay in the village" - rather than being homophobic, as I've seen at least one person suggest, this works because Lucas is writing and playing social observation as a gay man himself. Also "Occupation?" "Gay." = genius.

And best of all, and great because it's just so random and unhinged from reality - the Scottish guest house owner who talks in "riddles" which are either obvious or meaningless - or both! "Have ye heard the legend of the tomato?" The bit where he played some of the theme from 'Countdown' on his little flute thing will stay with me for a long time...

15:39 / 03.12.03

Yeah, this is a great show. It's directed by Steve Benderlack and co-written by Mark Gatiss, IIRC, hence the echoes of Royston Vasey.
But my favourite character is without a doubt the indignant, motor-mouthed teenager. Yeahbutnobutyeah... etc. Genius.

15:53 / 03.12.03

I like it. Best bits are Tom Bakers voice-overs, which make wild statements about britian. Fab.

And I didn't know Matt Lucas was gay.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

18:53 / 03.12.03

Seriously??

Like, never even suspected?

22:41 / 03.12.03

And don't call me shirley........

but......, the execution of the swimming pool joke alone down to the timing was hilarious, regardless of context.

10:58 / 04.12.03

Personally I quite like the series, but do on occasion think that it's at the very least not always particularly GOOD for gay people, whether or not it's intentionally homophobic.

11:05 / 04.12.03

Should it be?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

11:48 / 04.12.03

Daffyd is not a crap gay man, he's a gay man who is crap. Where it gets more dodgy is in sketches later on in the series when every gay man that Daffyd comes across is a big limp-wristed nancy who wears blouses, has big moustaches and calls everyone 'pet'. But the important thing for me is that the butt of the joke isn't that he's gay, it's something else that developes because of him being gay. Means not end.

Good bile!

Whisky Priestess

21:57 / 04.12.03

The Prime Minister's flouncy flunky Sebastian is a bit of a camp cliche, but then again who wouldn't come over all unnecessary around Anthony Head?

Gay Daffyd is a fantastic sulky dog-in-a-manger character and the mock-disabled guy is brilliant too ... just the way he's taking his poor do-gooding carer bloke for a complete ride.

I Love Little Britain!

Plus I know the actress who plays the fanciable nan.

06:42 / 05.12.03

but yeah, but no, but yeah, right, I watched it but I didn't really cos Shanice right, she was going out with Darren, yeah, and it's just soo wrong because her brother's doctor met some bloke when he went out in the car and whatever, so she just ate all of it and she ain't got such good legs anyway.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

10:13 / 05.12.03

SHUTUP!

stephen_seagull

13:52 / 05.12.03

I like. Very much.

Jack The Bodiless

11:16 / 17.12.03

What about the crap transvestite? That was hilarious. Especially when Lucas, as the prospective tenant, mentions that he's a female impersonator, and the Lady drops her posh, coquettish high voice and just goes "Wot?" in a deep, aggressive, sahf lahndon accent...

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

11:39 / 17.12.03

I've seen so many people like the crap tranny! I think that's what makes this show, for me - just how true to life the chracters are.

eg. Last time I was at the doctors - the receptionist calls out "Mr -----". Up steps a guy - clearly male - in awful heels, cardigan, long skirt. It's so similar you wouldn't believe. I've seen this person around quite a lot, and seeing them recently, and then the show, was just uncanny! They've got the clothes just right. I could have written this show, I swear! Ok, that bit, maybe. But around my way, there's a lot of chracters who are just like the ones here, and it's great.

12:28 / 18.12.03

I love this programme it makes me crease myself, Sharon Kappa has got to be the funniest. I like their humour and I like how they actually satire how Britain (I hate that term!) is, if you viewed it through an nth position! The granny loving teenager is awseomely sick but well fucking original. Top marks. I like Avid Merrion's show as well though his christmass song stinks - loved his Marilyn Manson impression, do you think he's seen it?

Regrettable Juvenilia

23:39 / 05.01.04

The one that's on BBC 3 at the moment - whole new levels of absurd brilliance. Seveal new characters like the former teacher and pupil who are now a couple but can't stop behaving as if they were still at school (he gives a report to her parents and when the door rings says "the bell is for me, not you"), or the village tour guide who describes his sexual history on various park benches etc. Meanwhile Andy's friend paints his room red on request and reaches new levels of frustration on hearing the inevitable "I don't like red".

But best of all was the guy who goes into the shop and asks for "pirate memory games", only to be less than happy with the one they've got: "I'm looking for something a bit less... piratey."

Our Lady of The Two Towers

05:17 / 06.01.04

WRT the teacher and pupil, I did prefer the first one they're in when she takes her clothes off expecting them to go to bed and he just looks at her and goes "is it mufti day already?"

11:43 / 06.01.04

I have watched a few of these now and I think I have worked out that it is Matt Lucas' stuff that I am finding generally funny, with the young slapper being particularly brilliant. The rest, to be charitable, is mixed, and it seems that I am alone in finding the crap transvestite desperately unfunny. Still, one man's meat and all that.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

15:23 / 06.01.04

Although I find Walliams stuff funny as well, I agree that the tranny is a rather overused character, the thing last night at the seaside was completely pointless, he's a very bad female impersonator, we get it! Mind you, The Fast Show was reusing the same gags for years so I think LB can be forgiven.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

19:41 / 19.10.04

Series 2 started forty minutes ago on BBC3. Hmmm. Not sure about whether they should have got rid of a few more characters and made up a few new ones, the Vicky Pollard sketch being the worst of the batch. Let's wait and see...

Our Lady Has Left the Building

21:16 / 05.12.04

Anyone watching it now it's on BBC1? Because it really has gone all to shit...

06:21 / 06.12.04

I did find the woman at the bank checking the computer funny, but that was about it. I've always found Lucas to be so much better than Walliams in the show - it seems like he is far more observed and subtle (save for the only gaaayy in the vil-age). The prime minister is crap, the scottish guy is terrible. I liked the first few pianist scetches in the first series. Sicking women wasn't that funny to drag out. But yeah, 'the computer says no' was funny.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:10 / 06.12.04

The rest, to be charitable, is mixed, and it seems that I am alone in finding the crap transvestite desperately unfunny.

No, you're not. It's a one-gag setup - crap tranny experiences some form of social humiliation due to inability to pass as biofem. Some of Little Britain I really enjoy, but its quality control is dodgy, and the way it seems to lionise and seek to reform a specific Dick Emery style of comedy leaves me a bit cold. The Fast Show seems in many ways a very good comparison, and it gives me the same fear that the same setups will just be repeated endlessly, with a sudden variation every five iterations or so to give the viewers a bit of a thrill. Mind you, I haven't seen the new series, so I could be worrying over nothing.

11:08 / 06.12.04

Anyone watching it now it's on BBC1? Because it really has gone all to shit...

DON'T Watch it on BBC1!! It's the watered down version!

They actually re-shot some scenes because it was felt that the regular BBC1 audience wouldn't approve of the original content. (Such as the scenes with Daffyd's parents. Doesn't his Mother mention getting fisted and rimmed? I believe that whole scene had to be re-shot for the delicate sensibilites of Auntie Beeb's regulars.)

But over-all Series 2 just isn't as good as the first one.

"Bitty" is just disturbing and grotesque.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:15 / 06.12.04

Season one used repitition but more in the ideas behind a sketch, you know that if Lou turns his back for a minute Andy will stand up, you know that Marjory will say something hurtful to her fatfighters club. And while it does get repititious it's new.

Season two has more of the catchphrases, people like awful rascist Denver Mills or the schoolteacher who don't have catchphrases are out. So it's a lot more about that Fast Show feeling of 'lets get to the catchphrase and then on to the next sketch'. And the characters aren't new any more. The Tiny Dennis Waterman sketches is especially bad, he comes in carrying something big, his agent offers him a job, he sings a song about it and the agent says "I'll tell them you're busy." When you've established that Daffyd really isn't the only gay in the village, the joke is dead. All they really do in the second series is turn him into a massive homophobe. And by getting rid of the little mini-sketches between the main sketches (which they said in the s.1 commentary they found the most difficult things to write) it makes the show seem a lot emptier.

My favourite sketch from the season is the one with the drug addicts in rehab which is also new.

It's a shame really. I wonder if it was pressures from the BBC to have a new sketch show to replace The Fast Show or whether they did it themselves.

08:15 / 07.12.04

the best bit is still the commentary and sketches between sketches. the old lady who wrapped up the dogshit all neat and careful in a placcybag, then just chucked it into another old dear's shopping basket as she's going past - much giggling in my front room from that.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

09:05 / 16.11.05

So, season three starts up this week and, %oh joy%, more blacking up! Don't expect to get any polish at Clarkes folks, the make-up department's bought the whole lot. We're on that dodgy ground of the 'free pass' aren't we? Did Lucas' sexuality allow them to make jokes about 'big fat lesbians' and 'Chin-Chin-Chinamen'? Does Walliams campness allow him to be made up as a huge black woman? Gah...

12:33 / 16.11.05

Saw a rerun of The Fifty Best Comedy Sketches EVAH recently on E4, and was confirmed in my skin-crawling dislike of Little Britain when the Lou/Andy swimming-pool sketch (which came top) was described by one commentator as brilliant "because it expresses those fears we all have, that some of those people are putting it on a bit."

I'd agree with him that Little Britain addresses a "we" (an "us?") who fear that some of "those people" are "putting it on". It's not a "we" I feel addressed by.

My dislike was highlighted, as well, by watching Walliams and Lucas' smugness and contempt for their characters ("People write to us saying I'm the Vicky Pollard of my school! That's really not something to be proud of"), contrasted with the way the League of Gentlemen force us into real compassion for their characters - as well as the way that Walliams & Lucas genuinely think that simply dressing up as women is inherently funny, whereas the League of Gentlemen's characters (while still grotesque) are actually female characters played by men. (Why female characters played by men are so much more successful in British comedy than female characters played by women is a whole nother question.)

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:11 / 16.11.05

There are also characters in Little Britain who are women played by men. I seem to think Walliams talked in the season one comentary about the difficulty of a show where you are playing a man trying to act like a woman (he loses points for not admitting that Emily Howard is trying badly to act up to a stereotype in his own head of what makes a woman) and where you are playing a woman. I personally don't believe that LoG is any better or worse in this regard, as their thing is largely to plunder old Hammer horror films and throw in a bit more filth. I'd be interested to know who that commentator was, as it's not something I've ever been aware of.

18:03 / 16.11.05

There are also characters in Little Britain who are women played by men.

Which ones are you thinking of? I haven't seen much of Little Britain, but I'd say a good deal of the humour of Vicky Pollard (the only female character I've seen enough of to judge) is derived from the audience's awareness that Matt Lucas is a man, in a way which (for me) just doesn't go for, say, Pauline in LoG.

Possibly I'm projecting my dislike of Walliams/Lucas's dislike of their characters into gender terms (they are men playing women they dislike, therefore they dislike women) which is unfair, I admit. I never really like comedy where the actor and the audience are colluding against the characters, and where (for example) actor is, and audience are assumed to be, able-bodied and the character is disabled, a level of political discomfort is added to that. Not that I think everyone who does find Andy/Lou funny does so for the reasons the cringe-making E4 commentator (sorry, have no memory of who he was) adduced - it's just that for me those reasons are hovering too close to the surface for me to enjoy the comedy.

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