Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Nathan Barley

Page: 1 2 3(4)5 6 7

11:28 / 26.02.05

You're barking up the wrong tree with this one, dude. 888 subtitles are notorious for getting things wrong and I think you're missing the point that "whole face" makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

"I've seen your tits now, and your muff." That was an attempt to persuade her into continuing a sexual relationship with him, nothing more. "Hey, I've seen what you've got to offer already, so we might as well just fuck." Complete unawareness that sex could be about anything more than the physical.

11:29 / 26.02.05

Cross-post, sorry.

14:10 / 26.02.05

i havent seen the episode yet but the 'youll be seeing my whole/ uurghh face' is sounding very reminiscent of "ill be showin' her my 'o' face- OH! OH! OH!" from office space. but like i said i havent seen the episode so i dont know if its a direct and deliberate reference, or just coincidence.

apologies for the accidental rhyming in this post, by the way.

15:46 / 26.02.05

Barley does not seem to be motivated by sex, or not by selfish sex.

So... Claire's pleasure was paramount and the prospect of having an orgasm himself was far from Barley's mind? Perhaps, then, when he spoke of his "WHOLE face" he was alluding, emphatically, to the fact that, as yet, Claire had only seen parts of the real Nathan Barley; he had yet to allow her access to the more tender, emotional aspects of his psychic "face" - but, as their relationship grew more trusting, she would see him in his entirety?

Or perhaps you're talking shite.

miss wonderstarr

16:10 / 26.02.05

So... Claire's pleasure was paramount and the prospect of having an orgasm himself was far from Barley's mind? Perhaps, then, when he spoke of his "WHOLE face" he was alluding, emphatically, to the fact that, as yet, Claire had only seen parts of the real Nathan Barley; he had yet to allow her access to the more tender, emotional aspects of his psychic "face" - but, as their relationship grew more trusting, she would see him in his entirety?

Or perhaps you're talking shite.

Ganesh -- it's a comedy TV show, and we quibbled about a subtitle (about which I subsequently accepted my probable mistake, based on an 888 staff-error). What does it say about you that this triggers you into bitch-mode? I think you're going well beyond what's appropriate or reasonable here. Surely people can debate the nature of Nathan Barley's character without treating it as some kind of sniping battle.

Whisky Priestess

16:30 / 26.02.05

Sorry, but I too heard it as "UURGH" (orgasm) face. Still a brilliantly funny scene.

Barley's casual claim that he's got (at least part of) what he wants out of Claire from their brief encounter is an attempt at face-saving, effectively saying: "Didn't want to shag you that much anyway ... and I still got to see your tits (which were distracting me from the far more important business of being a self-facilitating media knob)."

I reckon.

miss wonderstarr

18:10 / 26.02.05

Seriously, I don't mind being wrong about this. If I just wanted to keep my own ideas intact and never be convinced by anyone else's views, I wouldn't post on discussion boards. I don't think taking a sneering pleasure in trying to prove someone wrong when you're just weighing up different takes on a fictional character is necessary, though.

Anyway my lesson's learned: no subtitles next week.

18:16 / 26.02.05

I learned that lesson after deciding to watch the Eurovision Song Contest with them on, having heard that they translated the lyrics into English, and being informed that what the pretty young thing from Sweden was actually singing was

Love is the best feeling in the world
Ooh ooh ooh
I want a cucumber
Ooh ooh yeah

Regrettable Juvenilia

00:07 / 27.02.05

Did anyone else notice Guy Secretan as the gonzo porn star?

01:43 / 27.02.05

bin fucking go, i knew i knew that face and its been annoying me that i couldnt place it.

07:39 / 27.02.05

Fly: oh yes. Noticed that.

I really, really liked this episode - far stronger than 2. Nathan almost seemed pleasant at points, and then I realised he was trying to rod Claire.

Also, I was a bit pissed when I watched it, and so initially interpreted Claire's "Nathan, can you not rap?" as surprise at his inability to rhyme, rather than a request not to.

Toby won the "cunt of the episode" award, I feel. Also, +5 point for the silly mini-CD in the 15Peter20 press pack. Stupid fucking press packs.

10:32 / 27.02.05

Kovacs, if you persistently push a frankly stupid point ("whole face") then yes, I'll tell you it's frankly stupid. How else will you learn?

(Look at ourselves, why can't we just get along, etc., etc.)

Haus of Mystery

11:52 / 27.02.05

Watch out or he'll show you his whole face.

Saw this episode a bit pished, but found it satisfyingly dank. It really isn't belly laughs, but it's just so compelling. Where to place one's emotional investment? Everyone's so fucking loathsome..

But the real cunt for me: jonatton Yeah? He actually had me physically clenching with anger this time. So very, very punchable.

12:52 / 27.02.05

Wasn't that former cabaret artiste extraordinaire, The Divine David, playing the "ape hour" bloke handing out the grants?

I hoped someone else would spot him! Ah, The Divine David. How I loved your late night comedy strangeness. Who could forget your impassioned plea on behalf of shop assistants?

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:45 / 27.02.05

Sounds plausible except that Barley was encouraging Claire to drift off to sleep so he could continue "having a scoff". I think you are simplifying his motives -- I believe he really does have some kind of innocent, eager, endearingly boyish side rather than it just being a front for constant selfish cynicism.

I don't think this is quite right... it's more that Barley is a child. He has never had to take responsibility for any of his actions, so he doesn't act as an ethical or moral agent. So, him calling Claire and telling her about the award would have been nice - if he hadn't been cockblocking his equally unprepossessing chum. Him taking her out to get her drunk would have been a sweet gesture - if he hadn't been planning to get her pissed and fuck her, a fate from which she was saved only by his total failure to understand the sheer awfulness of his seduction technique. His offering her his bed would have been sweet - if he had not been planning to come in later and fuck her. He says that he had sex with her in order to gain a bit of status, without really imagining that there might be any consequence to that action. He isn't cynical, per se - he#s amoral and totally self-absorbed.

20:32 / 27.02.05

>>>Wasn't that former cabaret artiste extraordinaire, The Divine David, playing the "ape hour" bloke handing out the grants? <<<

He was AWFUL as Doug Rocket. He had some funny lines -
"Now then, what are you for?" and "The homeless, what's that all about?" but they were delivered SO terribly flat.

20:41 / 04.03.05

"It's called a... Geek... Pie"

Jesus. Barley really is the protagonist of this heap, inne? He gets what we think is going to be an ego-destroying comeuppance only to turn it into a transatlantic media jackpot. ("Peace and Fucking: Berief!")Validation by total cocking accident.

But Dan's no better. Where Barley seems to grate against everyone he meets, Dan just infects the room with despair and loathing. He's the anti-Barley but he's nothing to be taken positively. The interview: he doesn't turn the hair into a joke or explain himself, he welcomes defeat. As soon as she starts to say no he practically jumps off the chair "yup, yep, sorry to bother you, i'm a twat, i'll show myself out? stupid stupid stupid".

Next Week: Fucked on Cake.

Aside: Bridget Neilsen is Amazonian gor-juss-nuss.

13:10 / 05.03.05

I'm disappointed in the character Dan Ashcroft. After the first episode I thought he was going to have an active role. Now he just seems like a victim.

16:32 / 05.03.05

No to belabor this, and not having seen the show I haven't actually heard him say it, but: am I to assume that the slang term "O-Face" has not made it across the Atlantic—otr if it has, it's not gotten any further than Hoxton?

17:33 / 05.03.05

I've not 'eard round dese parts.

Brigade du jour

22:34 / 05.03.05

I think I may have heard Jay (as in Jay and Silent Bob) use it somewhere. Or was it Stifler in the American Pie movies ... ?

Brigade du jour

22:35 / 05.03.05

Oh by the way, I loved the scissors-in-cat's-head gag. Yes I am a sick fuck.

All Acting Regiment

23:29 / 05.03.05

Who else thought the "Dan Ashcroft Falls Asleep In Paint, All The Idiots Think Its A Cool New Hairstyle And Instantly Go And Get It Done" thing was just fucking spot on?

miss wonderstarr

09:45 / 06.03.05

I thought it was a bit Zoolander, actually: cretins so worried that they're missing a new trend or level of irony that they'll anxiously double-bluff and frantically bluff back, chasing their tails in circles.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

13:07 / 06.03.05

Cat, scissors, gurgling noise...shot of Dan walking down street as howls of anguish ensue from off shot...I too, am a sick fuck. First real belly laugh of the whole show.

Also liked the whole bag scenario...particularly the comments aat the private screening thingy.

I find this is getting better and better.

17:58 / 06.03.05

I don't know. I'm starting to wonder where they're going with all this, or if more than halfway through they're really going anywhere. For all the talk in the preview hype about this being a relationship-based sitcom ( as opposed to Morris' usual material, ) the characters don't seem to have moved on at all for a while now - Dan's fuck-up at the bank was essentially the same scene as the job interview in episode one, and there's yet to be any hint as to 'why' he's like that, while Barley remains a bit too harmless to be all that bothered about one way or the other. To the extent that he ever gets his comeupance he he fails to get his leg over, but then seeing as no one else in this series appears to be having much sex either, in what's presumably meant to be this adult playground of media nodes, that really doesn't seem like much of a punishment. At the moment it mainly reminds of The New Statesman with Rik Mayall ( who if he was fifteen years younger might have been good in this, ) insofar you have the bete du jour ( Tory MP then, media type now, )strutting about the place being 'appalling' before apparently facing humiliation towards the end of the episode, only to save face somehow at the last minute. The trouble with both shows being, as has been said above, that for this kind of thing to work well as satire the lead has to genuinely act despicably, otherwise it may as well be Terry And June.

Also, considering what else Channel 4's showing these days in the way of late night TV, it's hard not to feel that Morris et al should have cut out the middleman and shot a docu-soap about the production staff of say The Friday Night Project instead. If nothing else, it would have been a bit darker.

Basically unless something actually happens in the next two episodes ( Barley goes psycho with Chechnyan horse hos, terrorists from the Cook Islands bomb Hoseditch, that type of thing, unless it turns out that this has all been leading up to some kind of punchline, ) and as much as I'll inclined to blame Charlie Brooker, it's going to look dangerously like Morris has put his cock up his arsehole here, I fear.

11:41 / 08.03.05

You nobbers could all write for Sugarape.

The most Nathan Barley thing in the world is to talk about Nathan Barley.

And that's why it's so good.

Wankers will eat themselves and absolutely love it.

Futures Bummers.

13:04 / 08.03.05

No, the most Nathan Barley thing in the world is to talk about people talking about Nathan Barley, and to use the word 'nobbers' while doing it.

And that's why you're a nobber.

13:28 / 08.03.05

Exactly. Nobber.

Now cunt off.

Jack The Bodiless

11:56 / 09.03.05

Watched last week's episode through sheer boredom the other day (I've actually managed to watch all of them to date through sheer boredom. What the fuck does that say about my life?), and oh my god it's turned into a sitcom. A really bad sitcom. I mean, the hair thing with Barley was cliched shite. It's been done so often... and it went on so much longer than it needed to. Faced with reversal of 'look' triumph, Barley runs! He sees date! He runs into shop to hide! She follows! He hides head in bag! She misinterprets and thinks this is his 'look'! He attempts to buy bag to save face! Vendor attempts to block the save! Barley legs it! They go on date! Bag is eventually removed! Hair is ridiculed! Barley leaves, despondent! Funny silly silly Japanese media types love his hair! Barley Ascendant! Just shit. Really badly paced as farce, defies all internal logic as satire (if Barley thinks the hair is cool, why do all of the other idiots think it's so laughably shit?).

If, as it appears, Barley is being set up and set apart as a peculiar, amoral, tasteless little child-man, then it's a kind of Fawlty Towers/The Office style show about an odd little man and the cringe-making shit he gets up to. Which, if it's your thing, if fine - but Fawlty Towers was a build-up to a massive crescendo of farce every week, and Basil was an pitiable monster who you genuinely wanted to win, just for once in his life. David Brent, the same way. Barley's always on top - even when he loses, he ends up winning in the end. In the strata on the industry/scene he's in, he seems to be practically a high flier, and not just in his own head. Ashcroft's more of the kind of sad sack figure you usually root for to rise up and get out of the hole he's in - except he's a talentless dickhead. He's not a great writer caught up in hackwork he despises, he's a hack who hates his life. He's too ordinary to be tragic.

The more I watch this, the more I think this is a show about repulsive, misogynist morons, Barley is actually the hero of said show, and Brooker/Morris are these days as vacantly talentless as Ashcroft.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

12:38 / 09.03.05

See, I've always assumed the post-pub Friday night and even later Saturday night scheduling is not an arbitrary decision. Have a few. Smoke some. Watch with a takeaway from the Bengal Lancer. Satisfaction all round.

Not so sure video and Tuesday afternoon with a pad and pencil and a copy of Derrida's complete works is the intent. I could be wrong though. I suppose it is being described as a 'satire'...Is it supposed to deep and penetrating? Was Brasseye (deep)?

13:17 / 09.03.05

Regardless of how you see brasseye in terms of penetrative depth, at least it has some balls attached. What surprises me most about Nathan Barley is how bland and inoffensive it is. My arse has more bite. And although it now appears that any relationship is the TVGH character is purely coincidental, and comparisons are possibly unfair, Nathan Barley just is a low-grade David Brent rip-off. The more I see of it, the more indistinguishable they become. I find it almost impossible to believe that Morris or Brooker has anything to do with this. If I had to guess, I'd have said Iain Lee wrote it.
I had a glimmer of hope during episode three (the seduction of Claire) where I began to think that this was Nathan Barley the teenage years - a prequel to Brooker's original Barley. But that little theory was shot down in flames with ep 4. I think Jack covers that nicely. It was like a GCSE drama project. And one that would augur re-sits for all.
God it's depressing.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

13:32 / 09.03.05

Lots of people seem to hate it. Interestingly enought, Broadcast mag has little article about how many viewers Channel 4 have shed since it started...figures down to about 700K on the lst ep from a start of 1.3 million, so lots of people agree - its not up to scratch.

I think the biggest problem with it is its just not very funny.

13:46 / 09.03.05

scissors in cat's head was funny though.

13:48 / 09.03.05

Yeah, I saw that. It started off pulling in half the number of viewers expected for that slot, and has since shed half of those. To be honest, I'm surprised they haven't pulled it, or at least pushed it to past midnight.

Page: 1 2 3(4)5 6 7