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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

That Mitchell and Webb look

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08:31 / 15.09.06

See it?

The down-and-out singing the Dick Barton music in his head stands out, no?

08:53 / 15.09.06

Stands out for being shit, unfunny and slightly offensive?

Yea it did a bit. Plenty more crap comedy durng the half half hour though. Although i quite liked the God and BMX bandit bits.

All Acting Regiment

08:58 / 15.09.06

Yeah, I'm finding a lot of, for want of a better word, smug middle-class comedy with "hilarious" offensive jokes rather too smug and middle class for my liking...

lord nuneaton savage

09:28 / 15.09.06

Does anyone else think that Mitchell and Webb are really reactionary? It's not something I've thought about too much, more a feeling I get whenever I see 'em.

Anyone?

09:42 / 15.09.06

They are unashamedly aspirationally middle class, in Peep show I don't think this was necessarily a bad thing because well...the joke was on them really, wasn't it. It was their exaggerated middle class insecurity that drove things. Now that insecurity has been transformed into a cockiness about them that makes them think they're the new Fry and Laurie - forgetting ofcourse that Fry and Laurie were ridiculously upper class and sent themselves up in that environment and the environment itself.

Mitchell and Webb think that having 'migrated south' (their words) along with their accents, they truly are a bit better and more deserving of their success. Although I should qualify that with a huge Perhaps, cos the show might get better y'know...

Our Lady Has Left the Building

09:45 / 15.09.06

I didn't think it was wonderful but I did like it, although I think they'd be best advised to pretend the tramps thing was a one off sketch and never have them again because that was crap. The Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit was probably my favourite, even though the whole "... Or I could summon an army of angels" thing was obvious from miles off.

Maybe I'll give Peep Show a go. I didn't care for the clips I'd seen.

09:54 / 15.09.06

Some of it was funny, I liked the name Raymond Terrific for instance and the God/BMX sketches made me laugh. But a lot of it I thought was just a bit wrong really, like the whole Burkha sketch and all the gay references. You watch that and then you watch Ricky Gervais' Extras with Keith Chegwin playing an absolute bigot, which was suberbly done, and you can see who has been succesful in their comedy attempt.

Brigade du jour

12:54 / 15.09.06

My hopes weren't too high for this show, and so it didn't really disappoint. I shall probably stick with it, but I did actually close my eyes at one point and pretended I was listening to the radio show. I'm not being a radio snob, I promise, it's just that I didn't see that they'd done much more than put images to the sounds. Did anyone else get this impression?

Ooh, one particular gripe - what happened to the homoeroticism in the snooker commentators' sketch? They drained it of exactly what made it so funny!

Jawsus-son Starship

16:25 / 15.09.06

The snooker commentaters were only sometimes homoerotic. Other times they were violence obsessed, or drunk, or envious.

Sorry, where was the bigotry?

And the chicken-caeser guy was plain genius. Also, the Nazis. Loving the Nazis, if only for the line "and if there's one thing the last 1000 miles of retreat has taught us it's that Russian agricultre is in dire need of mechinisation..."

17:50 / 15.09.06

Does anyone else think that Mitchell and Webb are really reactionary? It's not something I've thought about too much, more a feeling I get whenever I see 'em.

One of 'em, the taller, better looking one, when asked what he hated by the Guardian responded with "apologists for suicide bombers", so yeah, quite possibly.
I suppose he could've been "joking" but there was nothing to suggest he was other than his status as a rully rully funny guy.

Wasn't too keen on the burka and blacking-up sketch meself, definitely an example of privileged white folk playing on the borders of racism, if you ask me.

17:52 / 15.09.06

Liked the BMX Bandit and wotsit sketch lots.

17:53 / 15.09.06

where was the bigotry

In Extras.

.

20:43 / 15.09.06

OK, so Peep Show is one of the funniest comedy shows this decade. Sharp scripts, nicely biting satire, and two great leads.

And then The Mitchell and Webb Look... Well, I so wanted to like it. The chemistry between the two of them on Peep Show is fantastic, and they're just effortlessly funny. So why did The Mitchell and Webb Look feel so much like hard work, so tired?

23:13 / 15.09.06

Maybe because it wasn't written by them?

Peep Show had a very clever and funny idea behind it. And was written by people who could write funny. The two are pretty good actors and were very well suited to the show though and as a result Peep Show can be pretty good.

Mitchell and Webb (and who ever else wrote for the show) however are shit at writing comedy sketches but what they are trying to do is really hard.

I'm reminded of 2000ADs policy of not letting a writer loose on more than a 5 page Thargs Future Shock before they get onto the big guns.

It may be about the format in a way. Sketches need to punch you in the face with a great funny in order to work. A funny is a funny. An easy way out is the catchphrase comedy that i think is so lazy and shit ( bit of a bugbear of mine!!) Something, for me, is not funny because you are expecting it. (Think Fast Show, Little Britain etc etc)

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:21 / 15.09.06

I quite liked some of the radio show. The "set the mad bears free" appeal was absolute genius. And I liked what I saw of Peep Show. Ooh. This thread's not giving me good feelings about the TV show, though.

23:22 / 15.09.06

What i mean is that Peep Show wasn't written by David Mitchell and Robert Webb.

And that is maybe why it was ok. But the Mitchetll and Webb Look was. And that is why it was shit.

And it was shit because they want it to be the new Little Britain or Fast Show.

And that is just not funny.

ONLY NICE THINGS

01:20 / 16.09.06

I liked the radio show enormously - however, a good radio show is not necessarily a good TV show. I'll watch the repeat - my PVR messed up the recording - with a degree of trepidation.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

09:20 / 16.09.06

Watching it through again I felt it oddly reminiscent of 'A Bit of Fry and Laurie', not as funny but not trying to pretend to be for the lowest common denominator, except for the tramps sketch which is possibly why I didn't like it.

And frankly, anyone doing comedy that doesn't have a catchphrase is going to get my interest.

Jawsus-son Starship

17:06 / 16.09.06

By trying to be the new fast show or little britain, do you mean that it's a sketch show? Because there seems to be a wide gap between those two shows, let alone this one.

19:07 / 16.09.06

What i mean is that both the Fast Show and Little Britain rely on a type of comedy that is based on repetition and familiarity. The laugh comes from seeing the same character in different situations and knowing what that character will say or do. It's a type of comedy i don't care for much as i think it's lazy. Not all sketch shows do this, of course, and i do like a lot of shows such as Big Train, Monty Python etc.

I was probably a bit unfair to say that Mitchell and Webb are doing that though as i've only seen the first episode which i didn't like mainly because i just didn't find it funny.

Whisky Priestess

15:13 / 17.09.06

Olulabelle - AFAIK (and I do) Rob Mitchell is bisexual if not actually gay, and may have written the gay stuff from a "privileged" POV - cf also Matt Lucas and Daffyd the Only Gay in the Village from Little Britain, Jewish comedians telling Jewish jokes, the comedy of Reginald D. Hunter etc.

But, to be fair, none of the above info excuses unfunny comedy (have to reserve judgement as I haven't seen the new show). In fact, nothing does.

15:40 / 18.09.06

Wasn't too keen on the burka and blacking-up sketch meself, definitely an example of privileged white folk playing on the borders of racism, if you ask me.

Not that I spend every waking momment thinking about the political orienations of sketch shows, but that sketch did seem slightly creepy. While imo its not racist, it is pretty darn rightwing, suggesting that white middle class people imitating other cultures are daft. which is fair enough but:

I'm probably reading to much into this, but the idea in that sketch that ethnicity is linked to what culture its OK to align yerself to, combined with Mitchells hitlerhair is a bit dodgy somehow.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

19:43 / 18.09.06

It might have worked better if Mitchell was done up like one of the Black and White Minstrels instead. But following the whole thing of Little Britain where you had Walliams as Desiree and Lucas as Ping-Pong I hope we're not going to see a reclaiming of 'blacking up' for comic effect by comedy writers of the next few years.

17:28 / 19.09.06

I thought the blacking up thing was a good send up of the image that David Mitchell has built up with shows like "Peep Show" and that channel 4 topical comedy show from last year that had the Kaiser Chiefs for theme music, that said image being one of a slighty right-wing, "I'm not racist but..."(not sure about this bit but I've met a lot of people that act like his public persona and have come out with that line when I have got to know them better), reader of the daily mail who graduated from Oxbridge.

18:15 / 19.09.06

John, in what way was it a send-up? I think you need to say a little bit more about that because I'm not sure it's immediately apparent. Also, even if it is, I'm not sure that makes it okay.

Also, I should point out that Peep Show has been mentioned more than once on this thread. The fact that you described the series suggests that you haven't been reading peoples' posts very carefully.

21:11 / 19.09.06

Ok, the blacking up thing isn't a send-up persay but I can't [note I forgot to add "can't" on the writing of this paragraph & nearly didn't catch it, see next sentence] think of the proper term I want to call it. This probably due to me being an Aspie so sorry, if I remember the word I will re-edit this post.

As for the description of the show, I was describing that daily topical comedy show which I've managed to find the name of and it is called "FAQ U" which was a fore-runner to the short lived "The Last Word" which was on More 4 for a while, not Peep Show, I only mentioned it again for clarity [edit: but I see your point, which is my description of David Mitchell's character in "Peep Show".

I should of said this my original post but my favourite sketch was "NumberWang" because it reminds me of pointless gameshows on Regional Early Evening & National Daytime TV.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:12 / 21.09.06

You watch that and then you watch Ricky Gervais' Extras with Keith Chegwin playing an absolute bigot, which was suberbly done, and you can see who has been succesful in their comedy attempt.

You see, I'd question this. Extras is often very amusing but it's also incredibly easy. Phone up a showbiz mate. Get them to appear. Write a script for them in which they are given such grotesque characteristics that them-on-Extras is always kept safe and distinct from them-actually. So, Orlando Bloom gets to distance himself from the perception of him as a dim, self-obsessed prettyboy by playing a vain, self-obsessed pretty boy. Cheggers sends up his bland, family-friendly image by playing himself as a hateful bigot. It's funny, but it's light entertainment

Anyway, back ontopic. My PVR hates me, so I missed bits of this, and other bits were broken and choppy, but it seems to be unashamedly light entertainment. There isn't, at least so far, the sort of darkness in Peep Show - but there also isn't the sort of darkness in That Mitchell and Webb Sound. The best sketches - Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit, the semiological Nazis, the very lazy TV writers, Numberwang - were lifted from the radio scripts with a few visual gags thrown in. In other places, the move to TV seemed to hurt the sketch - the snooker commentators didn't get the slow burn that made them funny, and the chaps discussing whether to invite James Bond were too rooted - the visual information nailed the scene down too much. Although I'd still like to see them do June Sarpong, even if I doout it would get on television, just for the observation that it seems (in the case of John Leslie) that not actually having been found guilty of rape was not in itself enough to guarantee a place in the hearts of the British people. The burka sketch I didn't get any audio on, and the tramps gag was mean-spirited and pointless - it had two good lines, but for the closer of an opening episode was overlong, flabby and lacked resonance.

All right but disappointing for me, so far. Radio isn't just a place to put sketches until you can get a TV deal, and recycling the material like this is unwise. Hopefully once they've burned through the back catalogue it will perk up.

16:52 / 21.09.06

I've just watched last week's "The Best Of The Worst" & decided to take back my defence of David Mitchell's blacking up, he obviously a racist after hearing him say that all Scots are drunks, basically. That's the same as me saying that all English people are wankers [if you don't get the reference watch the scene from Trainspotting where the main characters go for a walk in the hills].

BTW I have many English friends & I'm half English as well as half Scottish so I'm not personally saying that all English people are wankers.

miss wonderstarr

21:57 / 21.09.06

I really didn't laugh once during tonight's show, though the Captain Pugwash sketch was head and shoulders above the rest for me, and raised perhaps an appreciative twitch of the mouth. Much of it seemed awfully drawn-out: Numberwang has one joke, and so doesn't need three rounds of the game show to repeat that joke. The Sherlock Holmes set-up again had a single, mildly OK joke, but again was stretched into an entire sequence, not just a sketch.

Another problem for me was the acting ~ the forgery sketch wasn't just limply scripted and almost entirely devoid of any worthwhile ideas (again, really just one joke ~ the forgeries are very bad ~ worked through three times with notes, Van Gogh and credit cards) but the performances were really of the standard you expect from a gamely willing guest star on Ant and Dec, not the two regulars who're meant to be holding it together. Mitchell and Webb never transcend, or even attempt to move beyond, their own personae as two middle-class mates.

07:33 / 22.09.06

Thats numberwang!

Tabitha Tickletooth

08:19 / 22.09.06

I enjoyed the radio series, but I caught the end of the tv version last night and was very disappointed. It feels as though things have been exaggerated, maybe, for tv - now that there are visuals, everything has to 'go further' than it did on radio.

For example, the snooker commentators on radio, I thought, were very good. A slow burning joke that seemed very affectionate towards the characters and events it was lampooning. The tv version last night just seemed to descend into tastelessness rather than humour. The commentators were made to seem grotesque and disgusting, eating while they commentated, ejaculating in their pants.

Of course, maybe it is just that the mental image I formed of the characters while listening to them was wide of the writers' mark - my problem, not the writers'. Maybe they just aren't very good at adding a visual dimension to their gags. Either way, I would suggest to those that have only seen, and been less than impressed by, the tv programme that the radio show might still be worth a listen (although with the script lifted so literally, from what I saw last night, it might be worth waiting to see if there is another series).

Another entertaining radio comedy spirited away to television and suffering in the transition. Sigh.

10:02 / 22.09.06

I think the visual dimension does kill the gags. Numebrwang, for example, was a great idea for the radio, and it was quick, snappy and took only a minute or so. On the TV they're using it EVERY bloody episode and milking it with sight gags and gurning, almost as if they don't get what made it funny in the first place.
I think there is a bit of a Tory slant to proceedings, as well, which I hadn't noticed before. An upcoming sketch which takes a pop at Jesus and his parables is mildly funny, but I've got a niggling feeling that they're really using it to have a go at "the PC brigade". I don't think it's a conscious thing, but it is there, especially in the Dick Barton-tramp bits.
Still, there are some great ideas in there. I love the quickfire property and hospital shows, for example.

08:29 / 25.09.06

Does a 'Tory slant' count as a criticism? If someone dismissed a TV show for having 'a Liberal slant', you'd think they were an idiot. I think it's OK for shows to hold different political/ social viewpoints to (some of) the viewers?

11:44 / 25.09.06

Does a 'Tory slant' count as a criticism?

Im not pedantic BUT, criticism can be both positive and negative. so technically yas.

If someone dismissed a TV show for having 'a Liberal slant', you'd think they were an idiot.

They wouldn't be an idiot, they would probably be right wing. Whether they were an idiot or not is up to interpretation surely?

I think it's OK for shows to hold different political/ social viewpoints to (some of) the viewers?

It is also OK for people not to have the political/social viewpoints of the show and criticise them.

16:40 / 25.09.06

Does a 'Tory slant' count as a criticism?
For me, yes, for others who agree with right-wing politics, no. It's description of the political outlook and messages behind the comedy which I hadn't noticed before.

If someone dismissed a TV show for having 'a Liberal slant', you'd think they were an idiot.
Yes, I probably would, but if they said "there's a left-wing/communist/anarchist/liberal/fascist slant I hadn't noticed before", you could take it either way depending on your world view. That's a totally different thing to dismissing it because of that. I rather take exception to the implication that I'm an idiot.

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