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

miss wonderstarr

23:36 / 18.02.05

Well, I am interested by the way you both see it quite differently to me. If I hadn't seen the show, I would find your opinions persuasive, but as it stands I can understand why you might think that, but it doesn't really connect with my feeling about what I just saw. That isn't any kind of dig at either of you.

10:45 / 19.02.05

In brief;

Was unsure about the first episode of this, but was starting to love last night's one;

Thought Barley was a bit too much of a one-dimensional gurning comedy hate figure at first - from the old TV Go Home stuff I always saw his obnoxiouness as being a tad more subtle, more to do with underlying attitudes than massive, towering obvious annoying-ness, but I loved the way in last night's episode he was starting to develop into a sort of unstoppable malevalent force commanding his followers ike a git-hitler, with all attacks just being absorbed, making him stronger.. frightening stuff.

The Russian tramp-racing stuff was also reassuringly unsettling (that's a bit of a weird contradiction isn't it?) - Morris asserting his rather darker agenda - really quite nasty - homing in on that same "my god, should we be laughing at this? does this really happen?" reaction as Jam.

The receptionist at the magazine is really good - that look of complete disdain, like she's working at a day care centre where all the babies get paid more than her. The cut straight from her expression to Barley's "word up niggas" or whatever was fantastically well done.

The direction and editing generally is superb, as I guess we'd expect from Morris - makes it thoroughly watchable even when the script's less than genius.

I am faintly worried though that there must be loads of people around the country completely missing the point and going "god, this crap is trying so hard to be a trendy youth-type programme it's just stupid.." and turning over - the Morris trick of destroying an aesthetic style by making something of that style can be a bit of a paper-thin distinction when this show is gonna be watched by lots of people who are unfamilier with the creators and their intentions and previous work..

11:19 / 19.02.05

Nina: And did you notice that their lives all revolved around work?

Er, no. I saw people riding toy bicycles, playing computer games and Cock Muff Bumhole in chill-out rooms, and gambling on tramp-racing ("What are you doing?" "Work.") I suppose in terms of promotion we also saw Nathan putting some stickers on people, distributing flyers, and throwing a party, but from my perspective I saw little in the way of work going on.

I wondered whether that might be the focus of the satire (that this is a milieu, according to Morris and Brooker, full of people with little talent and less application), but I'm not so sure. It's a scene I'm not all that familiar with, and maybe I am older and more Protestant than I thought. I found it rather a mess, and like a couple of others here I haven't laughed yet.

16:48 / 19.02.05

>>>Pingu's off his head on coffee, which is funny in a different way to Pingu-getting-bullied (WHERE'STHEICECREAM?). <<<

That wasn't Pingu, that was a new character.

I didn't really like this one. Didn't see any point, didn't laugh.

I'll still give it the benefit of the next 4 episodes, but things aren't looking good.

miss wonderstarr

23:20 / 19.02.05

Thought Barley was a bit too much of a one-dimensional gurning comedy hate figure at first - from the old TV Go Home stuff I always saw his obnoxiouness as being a tad more subtle, more to do with underlying attitudes than massive, towering obvious annoying-ness, but I loved the way in last night's episode he was starting to develop into a sort of unstoppable malevalent force commanding his followers ike a git-hitler, with all attacks just being absorbed, making him stronger.. frightening stuff.

The Russian tramp-racing stuff was also reassuringly unsettling (that's a bit of a weird contradiction isn't it?) - Morris asserting his rather darker agenda - really quite nasty - homing in on that same "my god, should we be laughing at this? does this really happen?" reaction as Jam.

Were you actually frightened or unsettled? Surely "Tramp Racing" is just a five-minute coffee-break filler to anyone who's been online for more than a few years. I'm not being Barlier-than-thou, but honestly I see that kind of thing linked to most days of the week. It's not "dark" or bizarre in terms of the wacko nonsense your colleagues and acquaintances churn out of the internet when they're meant to be working.

I think one of the key weaknesses of this show is that it's too stylised, too coded as comedy. It might be more unsettling if it was shot as documentary, with far less exaggeration.

The other key weakness is that it isn't making people laugh. Yeah, I'm sure a Morris fan could turn that around, that's his genius, he's done a sit-com that you expect to be funny... and it isn't! but... you know. I see it as more of an achievement to make a funny sit-com than one I sit through with an "is that it" expression.

Haus of Mystery

00:05 / 20.02.05

Ending reminded me of American Psycho. THIS IS NOT AN EXIT and all that. It's a strange beast though. Kind of dirgey. We'll see.

Haus of Mystery

11:25 / 20.02.05

Whilst not sleeping last night I developed the 'American Psycho' comparison. It seems that Morris and Booker want to create a vision of Hell, in much the same way that Ellis did with Manhattan yuppie culture of the 80's (and interestingly Ellis' book was released a few years after the yuppy boom). Their Hoxton-via-Dante is a place as bland and hateful as the world of Bateman and his pals, and Dan's gradual submersion into this world feels like the descent of a condemned soul.
The mundanity and meaninglessness of the Barleyverse of course seeps innto the viewer's world. Hence belly-laughs are not the order of the day. But it's weirdly compelling. To their credit Brooker and Morris have created a fantastically detailed vision: posters, T-shirts and accessories all have the requisite ludicrousness, and (as the style mags would have it) the characters are seconded: the Idiots of the office don't seem to exist beyond the surface. But it's not limited to the office. Dan and Claire's home is an equally hip and hateful place, and the outside world is given cursory inclusion.
Similarly to Bateman, Ashcroft can't be heard despite his increasingly explicit outbursts - the more he professes his disgust with his peers the more he is accepted. His inevitable meltdown will presumably be something to behold.
The whole look of the show seems designed to sicken - bad lighting, gaudy neon's and mismatched colours - and the digital look is cheap and nasty. To someone with a refined visual aesthetic like Morris it must be a deliberate move. The show should look as wanky as the world it parodies.
Of course\there are problems. The limited appeal of the characters to anyone who hasn't experienced the horror of 'media nodes' is a hindrance, and Claire's character remains frustratingly one-dimensional. The continuity is also off - characters from last week all but dissappeared, back stories seem muddled. But this aside I'm enjoying it as an exercise in discomfort.

08:38 / 21.02.05

i like the way pingu wasn't around. he fucked off. barley doesn't have friends for long. were any/many of the bit players from sugarape (frinstance the annoying guy from real-life that boyce and others were talking about) still in it? i hope they are deliberately shedding bit-players, plenty more cunts in the woodwork after all.

i didn't really like it, didn't really laugh much, but did find it quite compelling. i thought that after the adverts the party scene was quite a decent sustained effort of migraine tv, and some of the costumes were very funny. the rich backgrounds and occasional sly looks are still drawing me in, but mainly i'm enjoying the fact that i really don't know quite what to make of this show yet.

miss wonderstarr

16:26 / 21.02.05

i like the way pingu wasn't around. he fucked off. barley doesn't have friends for long.

I love the way inconsistent plotting (someone goes inexplicably missing from one week to the next) gets twisted generously around into subtle characterisation (Pingu wasn't there = Barley can't keep friends).

Honestly it does seem that a defender of this show could find any excuse for any of its weaknesses through the "Morris is fucking with us... it's supposed to be like that. Oh, you didn't think it was meant to be 'funny' did you?"

17:25 / 21.02.05

I don't think get this.

I mean, I know what Morris' stuff is like so I knew what to expect but there are elements I just don't understand so assume that I'm either missing something or it's going over my head. Like why didn't, um, the girl tell Vince Noir to turn his godawful music off? Why didn't she take the headphones off instead of sitting there making stupid faces? Is that supposed to be some sort of metatextual thing? So-obvious-it's-crap-so-it's-funny?

17:49 / 21.02.05

I haven't seen this week's episode yet, will be watching it tonight, but to be fair though Kovacs, with regard to Pingu's disappearance, surely Morris wouldn't be *that* sloppy ? I've no direct experience, but I'd have thought the kind of places being got at here have a fairly high staff turnover.

miss wonderstarr

20:18 / 21.02.05

I got the strong impression that Barley and Pingu had a really long-running bait-and-victim relationship, like Tim and Gareth (hope I have names right) from The Office. It really didn't feel that Barley had known Pingu for a week and wasn't expecting to see him again. You don't give someone a nickname like that, and establish practiced ways of tormenting them, if they're just temporary five-day staff.

That was my impression, anyhow.

Brigade du jour

22:05 / 21.02.05

You don't give someone a nickname like that, and establish practiced ways of tormenting them, if they're just temporary five-day staff.

No I wouldn't. I presume you wouldn't either, but Nathan might. It's probably his way of trying to befriend people, bearing in mind of course that he seems to have a wicked case of Asperger's Syndrome.

Whisky Priestess

22:05 / 21.02.05

Glad someone else picked up on the chiaroscuro film-quality - I thought that was great, gave the home-DJ (with the other one out of the Boosh) scene and the nightclub scene both the right sort of Requiem for a Dream nightmarish luridness.

"I'd be amazed if anyone still believed that you're supposed to identify or sympathise with Ashcroft."

Are you meant to ... want ... Ashcroft though? Or should I be punished to the full extent of the law?

Brigade du jour

01:45 / 22.02.05

Go for it. I ... want ... his sister and I don't feel the slightest bit guilty about it. Until she turns into an axe murderer in episode 5, of course.

miss wonderstarr

08:09 / 22.02.05

I bagsied her way up the thread.

Haus of Mystery

09:24 / 22.02.05

well Dan did predict she'd fuck an idiot in the first episode...

09:28 / 22.02.05

Spatula:

"It's necessary, apparently - by now, I'd be amazed if anyone still believed that you're supposed to identify or sympathise with Ashcroft."

Guh! You can't just pummel the truth into my fick brane through repetition. Character *development* is what is required for me to see the light. Ashcroft would have to start acting like a proper arsehole for me to be convinced you're supposed to be going "boo hiss" whenever he appears on screen. Instead he continues to be a chump who is forced by circumstances (partially of his own making) to act in ways contrary to his principles and to humiliate himself in front of others - in other words a text-book sitcom hero! Flawed, but not evil. You don't think he's great, you don't want to be him - that would make him hateful - but you sympathise because he's mostly well-intentioned but a bit of a knob, like you, the viewer. Unless, perhaps, you're of the "ha-ha, what a loser!" generation.

Whisky Priestess:

"Glad someone else picked up on the chiaroscuro film-quality - I thought that was great, gave the home-DJ (with the other one out of the Boosh) scene and the nightclub scene both the right sort of Requiem for a Dream nightmarish luridness."

I really liked the pre-credit bit - I *think* it was pre-credit - at the start of prog 2, with Barley staring into his laptop. He looked like my image of the TVGH Barley (Evil Barley). Satiated and mildy demented.

15:34 / 22.02.05

perhaps i'm being generous kovacs, but you're being a bit chancey in going 'ha! spotted! you forgot to put the character that i remember from last week in!' they probably didn't forget - they probably wrote the character out intentionally. but if the only column your form has is 'sloppy plotting' for observations like that then i guess that's the bit of the paper you're going to have to tick. nathan barley hasn't looked like a standard piece of telly to me so far - not great comedy, but not bad tv, and doesn't deserve criticism just because it isn't plotted in a way that conforms to your expectations.

also, loving your new 'wimmin! don't expect any help from kovacs on a thursday' tone: 'fwoar, look at the arse on that, that's well fit that is' etc. inspired.

miss wonderstarr

15:42 / 22.02.05

Come off it, finding a woman attractive doesn't make you a regular Nuts reader.

they probably didn't forget - they probably wrote the character out intentionally. but if the only column your form has is 'sloppy plotting' for observations like that then i guess that's the bit of the paper you're going to have to tick. nathan barley hasn't looked like a standard piece of telly to me so far - not great comedy, but not bad tv, and doesn't deserve criticism just because it isn't plotted in a way that conforms to your expectations.

Alright, so that's not sloppy plotting but a waste of comedy and character potential. I don't need to add "in my opinion" to everything, surely -- I'm not sitting there with a clipboard judging Barley and deciding, Partridge-style, if it gets a second series, but volunteering an individual take on this programme is, I would have thought, the sort of thing that keeps TV discussion boards alive.

I don't feel that condemnatory about it, or I wouldn't have watched 2 episodes. I will also watch the third. Perhaps you agree it is good fun to debate things.

Haus of Mystery

17:25 / 22.02.05

Gumbitch sounds like he's having fun to me.

miss wonderstarr

17:51 / 22.02.05

Oh I was being soft on him cause I thought Gumbitch was a girl. Sorry!

18:47 / 22.02.05

He's a man. With thick body hair.

A proper man.

Haus of Mystery

19:36 / 22.02.05

He's like this

19:50 / 22.02.05

The one on the right is a woman, but you get the idea.

Brigade du jour

21:41 / 22.02.05

well Dan did predict she'd fuck an idiot in the first episode...

A-boom ...

Oh sorry, my hi-hat's broken.

miss wonderstarr

20:47 / 25.02.05

Okay... it's like the first two weeks were the touchpaper for a comedy bomb. My god I was almost urinating at Nathan's seduction scene:

"soon I'll be showin you my WHOLE face! you drift off, I'll be havin a scoff."

But that was just the final assault on my already-weakened defences: already we'd had the astute almost-real piss-parody, the slow-burn disappointment of Claire realising what the £20k really meant, the naughty joy of the little boy on the bus watching Barley spinning mini-discs, and the incredulous disgust Clare shoots after Barley's line "he was looking at the back of your tits".

Maybe the show is finding its tone, or maybe I'm just hooking into it now, but it seemed the characterisation was finally coming clear. Dan hovers between pitiful and admirable as he swallows his pride, coughs it back up, forces it down again. He seems like a loser when he can't produce the cash for Claire, but he's rejected the money on principle; almost physically unable to write a bumlick piece about a piss-artist.

Barley, too, is finally, finally cast in the right light this episode: again, a kind of uneasily flickering, an alternating between contrasts that endears you to his soft-faced puppydog sweetness one minute, then reveals him as a scheming manipulator the next. In Regime I think we saw the cunt Barley for the first time, truly, and he looked like Alex from Clockwork Orange, which felt precisely correct. And then a moment later with the "Shithead" device you're on his side again, rooting for his energy, apparent innocence and wit -- a gadget-hound, but a gentleman.

Same with the bedroom scene, which I would have to list, already, in my top 20 funniest TV moments of all time. He seems genuine, above-board as he offers his bed and a clean toothbrush; he tiptoes in with his cheeky face on, but that also works -- Claire acts as the touchstone, the norm, and she's about to be persuaded, quite happy to be seduced by his little schemes -- AND THEN!

"soon I'll be showin you my WHOOOLE face."

I don't think I was wrong about episode #2, though watching it again when this series is over might be interesting. I do think they got it so right with episode #3.

01:11 / 26.02.05

almost physically unable to write a bumlick piece about a piss-artist.

Yeah, but I think another point was made this week - Ashcroft's just not a very good writer. What was that rubbish he came out with when he was putting his real opinion down? Unreadable and unintelligent guff, but he seemed genuinely pleased with himself for it.

01:28 / 26.02.05

Haven't seen episode 3 yet (damned download queue) but I watched the trailer for ep. 4. There's a quick shot of a wall plastered with posters, and figuring that some of them might have some funny Morris/Brooker jokes on them, I froze the screen to read them.

There's a poster for a concert by "The Detail-Obsessed DVD-watching Fuckwits" supported by "Pausejabber."

Ho ho.

04:47 / 26.02.05

>>>"soon I'll be showin you my WHOOOLE face."<<<

I think it was more like "I'll be showin you my *OOOUUURGH* face," as in the sound one makes when orgasming. Whole face? What on earth would that mean?

Nice to hear Morris' voiceover at the start, and I laughed at the all-too-brief Eurythmics pisstake, which pleasantly reminded me of "Me Oh Myra" and "Playground Bangaround"....buuuut, I dunno, halfway through the series and it really isn't clicking for me. I'm forced to admit that it's the first of Morris' work that is leaving me decidedly unimpressed.

07:01 / 26.02.05

Yes, it was "my UURGH face".

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

miss wonderstarr

09:08 / 26.02.05

Subtitles at the time said "my WHOOOLE face." How does "my UURGH face" make sense if he's about to go down on her and give her an orgasm?

Of course, I admit
a) subtitles can be wrong
b) WHOLE face also doesn't make sense.

c) Brooker and Morris would want to shit on my head if they could see me debating their show like this.

09:31 / 26.02.05

How does "my UURGH face" make sense if he's about to go down on her and give her an orgasm?

Well, call me nasty old cynic, but I think it's ju-u-ust about possible that Barley was thinking beyond merely pleasuring Claire and, incredibly, seeing cunnilingus as a means to procuring his own orgasm, rather than simply an end in itself. In which case she would be seeing his UURGH face "soon" enough.

miss wonderstarr

11:20 / 26.02.05

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. Barley is more complex, not a one-sided schemer: I can believe he would just enjoy licking a pretty girl for the sake of it. The same kind of pleasure as he gets from messing around with his phone-decks and fooling with gadgets, or making a scene in Regime. Not everything he does is a means to an end. He likes playing.

If he was simply out to get his end away, I don't believe he would be telling Claire next morning that it was useful to get seeing her tits and "the top half" of her muff out of his system -- obviously nixing his chances for next time. And boasting that he went into her brown door, then painted it white on the way out seems lazy, careless wordplay, just to get a reaction.

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

miss wonderstarr

11:24 / 26.02.05

But yes... "URRGH" face, though an odd thing to say, does make more sense on balance than the totally meaningless "WHOLE" face. I agree with that and accept that the C4 subtitler could easily have just heard it wrong.

Page: 1 2(3)4 5 6 7