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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Nathan Barley

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I'm Rick Jones, bitch

21:39 / 12.02.05

Pingu's gonna fucking snap big time. I predict he will go all trenchcoat mafia, get darksoul and bust a cap in Nathan's ass with a deuce deuce. Or something. I reckon he's gonna fuck nathan up bad.

Dan's not useless - he strikes me as being ground down and utterly depressed and apathetic. He's a good guy, he's just too sick of it all to do anything about it. Just like brooker started to get angrier and angrier the more Cunt listings he wrote, so shall dan internaly seethe with rage until he shatters Nathan's head like an egg full of Wolf guts.

23:11 / 12.02.05

This largely lived up to my low expectations.
*That*'s not Nathan Barley - that's David Brent: The Shoreditch Years. In fact pretty much all of his mannarisms are lifted directly from Brent.

Maybe I'm alone here, but when I call someone a 'cunt', I mean something very different from when I call someone a 'twat'. This Nathan Barley is just a twat. I don't feel sorry for cunts, I don't snigger at them; I hate them. Nathan Barley in TV GoHome was never a pathetic figure, was he? You've got to really hate Nathan Barley, not just think he's a dick.
Otherwise, I basically agree with everything Spatula said.

23:37 / 12.02.05

Dan's not useless - he strikes me as being ground down and utterly depressed and apathetic. He's a good guy, he's just too sick of it all to do anything about it.

No, he's not necessarily a "good guy", and he's not merely depressed and apathetic; he's complacent. Despite his apparent hatred for the Idiots, he's become used to their adulation of him - which is why it's taken him years to consider moving to another publication, and why he turns up for the meeting at Weekend on Sunday with zippo feature ideas. He may loathe those around him, but it's all too easy for him to make a not-exactly-difficult living from their hero-worship.

Nathan Barley is a black, bleak, despairing show, with no good guys. Everyone is, on one level or another, an Idiot. I think I quite like it, but I'm not yet sure.

23:50 / 12.02.05

I don't know if there's much point in speculating about what's going on until there's at least one more episode done and dusted, but it's worth remembering that some time's passed since TV Go Home, and the writer obviously won't be the same person he was then.

I think it's hard to claim that Ashcroft is a symapthetic figure. The bits with his sister, where he keeps on trying to persuade her that he has read her proposal, even though he knows full well that he hasn't - and, crucially, knows full well that she knows that he hasn't - struck me as a massive sign that he's not. He's just a waster. Everything you've posted there, Dudley, will probably be the excuse he uses himself for his lack of... everything. I don't know anyone like Barley, but I know loads of Ashcrofts. And I think I'd sooner associate with an Idiot than I would an Ashcroft.

There's a good chance that I'm letting my desire for this to be great make me read more into it than there is, but, like Smoothly says, this Barley's vaguely sympathetic, in a very odd, very small way. If that's a deliberate move, then I can see Ashcroft becoming the ultimate figure of hate. Which'd make a strange kind of sense - if he *is* meant to be Brooker (and I can't see how he's not) then the whole series could be a slash and burn exercise, the author pulling down and pissing on the ruins of his past.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

01:08 / 13.02.05

Oh, Barley was absolutely fucking hateful. He just wasn't the focus of the show. How can you not hate:

"All right my nigger?" about 20 fucking times

"I'm a self-facilitating media node"

"Ha Ha! He's got piss stains on his pants!" (plus that bit where he was making pingu say thank you to him, I wanted to fucking bray him for that)

"Freddie Star. He's like the original Bill Hicks"

If they put the focus on Barley (and I hope they do), I'm I'll want to dismember him just like "Cunt" in TV Go Home made me want to dismember him. Dan is flawed, but that makes him human - note he isn't clean shaven as in his old picture, which suggests he's been letting his daily routine slip. I think we're going to see Dan as a more sympathetic figure as the series goes on.

10:43 / 13.02.05

Ganesh, you're wrong: Sasha is the good guy of the show.

BTW, plot point:

When Dan gets back from the Weekend of Sunday interview his boss, Jonatton (what a crap name), says something like "Bottle of Dutch wine??". Did anyone else take this as Jon knowing Dan had been blown back from the interview?

miss wonderstarr

13:06 / 13.02.05

Yes, Triplets -- I thought that was meant to be a kind of final blow of humiliation, for the punchline.

I have been thinking a little about "Cunt" and "Barley", not two concepts that are usually linked in my head.

The Barley in "Cunt" was not an obvious and outlandish wanker. He was a typical, depressingly commonplace type. Barley in the TV show is an extreme, stylised, ludicrous example -- almost Timmy Mallet zaniness, clearly out of the ordinary and breaking social conventions as he carts his mini-scooter around slapping stickers on all his "niggers".

"Cunt"'s Barley wasn't a comical exception but one of thousands. He was a social type. TV's Barley is an individual.

miss wonderstarr

13:11 / 13.02.05

(By which I mean that TV's Barley is satirically less effective, because he's more of an obvious clown.)

14:41 / 13.02.05

Absolutely. This is one of the things I find so terribly disappointing. TV's Nathan is nothing like threatening enough. There was something sinister about the original character; cancerous rather than irritating. He should be about as funny as Patrick Bateman.
Speaking of which, where's the cocaine, the prostitutes, the degeneracy, the 'glamorama'...?

When I first heard that Chris Morris was working on this, it sounded like the perfect collaboration. I thought it could be genuinely disturbing, properly sickening. It should make us widen our eyes not just roll them. I can't believe how soft it is. The thing is, the real-life Nathans are just going to see NB as a try-hard and a wannabe and that that's the joke. The target seems to be failure to be cool, rather than coolness itself.
To be honest, I wish they'd just ditched the Barley character altogether and focused entirely on Dan Ashcroft, whose hubris and delusion strikes me as a much richer and more contemporary satirical seam.

Brigade du jour

22:02 / 13.02.05

When Dan gets back from the Weekend of Sunday interview his boss, Jonatton (what a crap name), says something like "Bottle of Dutch wine??". Did anyone else take this as Jon knowing Dan had been blown back from the interview?

I did. Maybe Jonatton Yeah? is going to turn out to be some kind of omniscient alien or prototype escapee from a scientific experiment gone hellishly awry. In fact, given the somewhat unhinged tone of the show so far, I really hope it takes off in some weird sci-fi direction. Big monsters or something crushing Shoreditch underfoot. Ah, it's just me, isn't it?

22:13 / 13.02.05

I just figured that 'dutch wine' was just Dan and friend's wanky slang for lagar - as Dan flounders in his interview he weakily falls back on this crap joke as he attempts to cover the fact he knows fuck all about wine...

22:21 / 13.02.05

i took the dutch wine thing to show that the world Dan was in and the world that he aspired to were two different things. Just because Dan is the smartist idiot doesnt make him smart.

I liked the show, i didnt laugh out load much, but liked it all the same. I think it will turn out to be more of a attack on the supiority complex most of us harbour.

i think its definatly going to get darker.

22:47 / 13.02.05

Maybe Jonatton Yeah? is going to turn out to be some kind of omniscient alien or prototype escapee from a scientific experiment gone hellishly awry

There's something up with that guy. He knows Ashcroft is his only breadwinner, and means to hang on to him. Look at the bit near the end where there's a knowing look in the pub between the two of them, just before Ashcroft surrenders to being an idiot. There's a link between him and the Weekend guys somewhere, which is how he knows about the wine thing.

Receptionist (forget the name, sorry) is not a heroine. There's something mercenary about her: she's not that smart (didn't get the colon joke, thinks there's nothing odd about the new logo, focuses on the question mark in Yeah?'s name rather than the fact he's called Jonatton-fucking-Yeah) and she seems to care about status more than anyone else (the "take you out on expenses" and sniping at Ashcroft's mate brighten her up). Anyway, too early to tell, I think.

Mind you, Pete Baynham and Stephen Merchant as script consultants has got to be a good thing.

Haus of Mystery

09:19 / 14.02.05

Mmmm. Liked it. I knew someone exactly like Barley about six years ago. Exactly. So I'm gonna keep watching for that reason alone. Time will tell, but it made me giggle plenty.

10:09 / 14.02.05

Yes, I thought this was good. Liked the way that I was less interested in the title character than I was in Ashcroft, whose world-weariness rang very true to my mind.
I’m interested to see where this goes.
Which is the point of a first episode, to my mind.

10:23 / 14.02.05

i liked the funny noises, like the stretchy shouty voice when you ring the suga-rape doorbuzzer. the coldness of the main character's persona until it slowly breaks and he becomes the most enthusiastic cockmuffbumhole player in the pub was good, and a general uneasy blankness, spacelessness. then there's the general visual density - the sets, the backgrounds, the props, all are spot on. barley himself is probably not quite unlikeable enough, the 'pilot' feel here was huge though, and i expect the jokes and situatins to sharpen as we progress.

the type here was first established as macg says some six or seven years ago. despite the signifiers, the streets barley and ashcroft walking on are not utterly recognisable as your father's hoxton square, maybe they've moved to soho and clerkenwell too, or even morris' native brixton. the point i think, and this really strikes me cos i watch a lot of tv, is that barley has grown up now and worked his way into a fixture of the media-working population. he barely noticed the bursting of the dotcom bubble because he'd got a job with an tv company, and now spends his day asking about charles and thinking of unpleasant things to make reality-show contestants do. if you try to imagine the production meetings that result in some of the tv shows we have now, you can only come to the conclusion that people like barley are being allowed to come up with ALL the ideas. he has power now, so an attack on the type is arguably more timely than ever.

10:33 / 14.02.05

"Sidenote, one of the actors that plays one of the Sugarape Idiots, I've worked with him - and he is one of the biggest cocks I have ever met. " - Benny the ball

We must be thinking of the same kiddult guy with the longish brown wavy hair on the trampoline 'cause I've met him a few times too & he is The Enemy. Seeing him there amongst The Idiots was inspired casting, really. Led me to empathise with Ashcroft's fist-biting anger.

Nothing else to add but: good TV, Will watch more.

Haus of Mystery

10:46 / 14.02.05

Ohh yes. We know him of old Boyce....

10:50 / 14.02.05

www.trashbat.co.ck online now

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

11:47 / 14.02.05

I hope we get to see more of DAD WARS - lovely Tv Go Home type concept.

Incidentaly, did anyone see what a crock of shit the Tv Go Home TV show was? Totally bollocked up Daily Mail Island and I think there was an eary attempt at bringing Barley to screen with the Scorch segment. Crushing disapointment, really.

I do pine for the loss of Barley as the everytwat - I used to find something of Barley in quite a lot of people, but now he's a "type" with an actual actor, a lot of the bile has gone.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

15:21 / 16.02.05

Well, I struggled to the end of the episode, God what a pile of toss. I want it replaced by a show called 'At Home With Elbow' which each week revolves around Guy Garvey and next door neighbour Paul Heaton from The Beautiful South trying to make enough money to have their blood supply replaced with lager so they will remain in a state of perpetual drunkeness.

Or alternatively a six week show with the real-time crucifiction of Jimmy Carr who is really starting to piss me off now.

15:56 / 16.02.05

Jimmy Carr really annoys me on the telly, but his sunday morning radio show is quite funny.

20:40 / 16.02.05

jinkies.

Theres no fan, theres no jokr, theres just continual degradation of the human spirit.

I maean this - the year is 2020, the highest rating programme id "Remember noughty '5" - we were laughing at "random bbc2 comedy @TM", we luved ""non politicallyt consequential tv/music", and "nathan barley"2 was making fun of the media industry back then ""!?".

Plus ce change ce meme ce change

13:29 / 17.02.05

I thought the original TVGH Barley was meant to be full of contempt for the lesser beings around him, someone who treated the world around him as a playground and the people in it as toys for his amusement. A decadent, sneery, selfish C--t. One who was born that way and would die unchanged - an inherently evil piece of filth. The new TV version *does* treat the world like a playground but there's not enough of the contempt that comes with imagined superiority. No feeling that he is intrinsically evil. So far, anyway. He's like a dopey adolescent, mucking about the way most adolescents do (the same goes for the rest of the Idiots). Thoughtless and insensitive, yes, but not contemptuous. Maybe that will develop.

There's an annoying piece in the Independent today which seems to highlight the difference between the TV version of Nathan Barley and the original C---. A hack hits the streets of Shoreditch in search of a Real Life Nathan Barley and decides he's come up trumps when he meets a chap who describes himself as an independent film maker (fair enough then) and who likes Shoreditch because it's 'full of creative types'. And that's about it, ie nothing to suggest that he's an obnoxious tosser in need of a kicking, unless you consider dressing 'funny' or taking creative pursuits seriously a heinous crime.

Re: the Dan character, am I the only one who thinks you *are* meant to sympathise with him? By the end of the first episode I thought that if anyone came out looking like a c--t it was Brooker, for writing himself in as a 'serious man surrounded by fools, the unheeded voice' etc.

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:56 / 18.02.05

But surely that's to miss the immense quantity of self-loathing involved? Self-loathing doesn't necessarily make you any more likeable, but I don't think the audience is supposed to go "woah, Ashcroft, he's so cool!" - he's pathetic, and he's intended to be.

09:25 / 18.02.05

Sav: "I thought the original TVGH Barley was meant to be full of contempt for the lesser beings around him, someone who treated the world around him as a playground and the people in it as toys for his amusement. A decadent, sneery, selfish C--t. One who was born that way and would die unchanged - an inherently evil piece of filth."

Dan?

THis show isn't even made to be liked; in what way is finding Suga Rape or otehr people finding the Idiots and Cock Muff Bumhole funny not finding them to be funny because it looks like they're funny because they're rude?

I still come away from the show thinknig that every single thing on set has had "Twat" scratched in it with a compass.

Jack The Bodiless

11:28 / 18.02.05

Can't stand it. Don't find it remotely amusing, and it doesn't seem like it's even trying to be funny. That just leaves interesting/involving - and not knowing any annoying media-types, I don't get the supposed satire. Waste of time.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:17 / 18.02.05

It does occur to me that there's only a limited number of people who would be able to identify the objects of the satire directly - ie the kind of Catch 22 of working in the media that Ashcroft's interview at Weekend on Sunday nails (the style mags are unbearably wanky and don't pay; the broadsheets want to be 'cool' but think that means Paul Weller and Top 5 Wines) rang very true to me but might not to everyone. Then again, generally I tend to believe that people can 'get' satire without direct experience if it's really well-written, so maybe that is a flaw in the execution...

14:08 / 18.02.05

A Permanent Hiatus For Haters:

"I don't think the audience is supposed to go "woah, Ashcroft, he's so cool!" - he's pathetic, and he's intended to be."

Not pathetic enough for my liking, I'm afraid. Just pathetic enough for the viewer to identify with him - ie make him more likeable.

_pin:

"Dan?"

I thought that at first, but changed my mind. TVGH Barley looks at the inferiors around him, slaps his hands together and thinks "great!", whereas Dan thinks (rants, publishes, collects fee) "pah, isn't it disgusting?"

Anyway, have to see how it develops...

Tryphena Absent

15:33 / 18.02.05

I actually liked it... possibly because I don't know anything about TVGH, possibly because the world felt familiar. I thought it was subtle in a way that Chris Morris' work usually isn't and I often don't like his lack of subtlety. I liked how hopeless the characters were... not monstrous, just a bit lame, like actual people whose lives were rubbish because they were behaving like bastards than for any other discernable reason. And did you notice that their lives all revolved around work? I'm looking forward to tonight's episode.

miss wonderstarr

20:39 / 18.02.05

No, it really wasn't good today. In sit-com terms, it didn't make me laugh once, failed to develop its characters and had next to no plot (Dan owes sister £2000 so she insists on him attending a club dressed as a preacher... that's meant to be carrying this whole episode?) and as a "dark alternative" to sit-com, or whatever it reckons it is, its points were just the same as last week. Dan hates the idiots but moves hopelessly, lethargically among them, his attacks on them misinterpreted as celebration. We got that message in episode 1; this can't be the only "twist" for the whole series.

Barley is even more of a Timmy Mallet clown, except that his rapping was actually more impressive than anything we've seen Ashcroft manage. He's like a talented, puppyish kids' telly presenter, the eager doofus on something like Art Attack or The Really Wild Show. He is nothing remotely like the figure in "Cunt".

The freezeframe ending, with echoing loops and distortion, then fade in credits, was embarrassing in its own self-important wannabe radicalism. Jizz, man, you know what'd be really Bashir? We're meant to be doing like a comedy show, but we finish it in this really dark, art-house way, so it's totally disturbing? Goldschlager, man... futures.

"Nathan Barley" is a tale told by an Idiot.

miss wonderstarr

20:45 / 18.02.05

Claire is fit though. I might watch one more episode for that.

Another gripe -- I really thought this show was going to feed off "Attachments", which it often resembles, and have trashbat.co.ck featuring new material every week so viewers could go to the site and follow up on articles, items or plot strands they'd just seen on TV. As it stands, trashbat's website is a terribly wasted opportunity.

21:49 / 18.02.05

Yes, but Attachments was also very embarassingly shit and the website probably did not come cheap (in terms of commissioning David McCandless, Charlie Brooker, and pile of other journos on leave of absence from PC Zone to churn out the content).

I really liked it this week. I really like the fact it's repetitive. Watching it is very masochistic; I just can't bear to watch Dan be such a fucking loser much more. Pingu's off his head on coffee, which is funny in a different way to Pingu-getting-bullied (WHERE'STHEICECREAM?). Claire is a bit of a sap. The junkie with his mandolin - probably my highlight of the show.

Not sure if Barley's crass 9/11 jokes were funny or just gratuitous. I'm erring on the side of funny - "Trashbat is two people falling from the Twin Towers... fucking on the way down". Hmn.

22:02 / 18.02.05

I don't agree with you on the issue of repetition. As a one series, six(?) epsiode sitcom, you're going to have ep 1 introducing characters and situations and ep 2 reinforcing the same. It's necessary, apparently - by now, I'd be amazed if anyone still believed that you're supposed to identify or sympathise with Ashcroft.

Otherwise, I thought this week's was a mess, the biggest problem being that it *failed* to reinforce last week's intro and instead contradicted it in places. In the first, we seem to be being told that Barley isn't the worst idiot around, just one of a number. This week, he's an icon. Wha? There's no sense there - within the space of two shows he's gone from just another dick to Dick Supreme - the one all the others idolise.

It makes no sense in terms of Ashcroft, either. How has he managed to spend all these years working on SugaRape - with Barley's hangers on - without ever actually hearing his name before? The Claire character also presents a barrier to any sort of internal logic. She's a decent, but slightly misguided do-gooder. You simply can't square that with her friendship with Barley - she works in the same room as him, he shows off his website when he wants to impress, there's absolutely no way that he wouldn't have directed her to the teeth pulling contest with a huge, self-satisfied grin on his mug.

Yeah, a mess. The next episode needs to do major work in creating some sort of internal consistency if it's going to work as a proper series. If Ashcroft turns out to be the Cunt at the end of it all, then I could maybe see how these two episodes work together. Otherwise, no.

22:46 / 18.02.05

The above in reply to kovacs' first post.

Forgot to mention that the one thing I did really like about this week's was the way that the pace of the whole thing kept on increasing, without a pause for breath. That's why I also disagree when you say

The freezeframe ending, with echoing loops and distortion, then fade in credits, was embarrassing in its own self-important wannabe radicalism.

because, once you've built up to such a frenzied point, where else can you go? It seemed like the natural way to end the show, given the previous twenty-five or so minutes.

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