Dee Vapr:
"I dont think Armando does this sub Chris Morris shock tactics + surrealism gig well at all."
Ooh, I wouldn't call what he does 'sub-Morris'. They both do the 'absurdism + satire' thingy, and Morris' version is certainly more extreme, possibly nastier, but that doesn't necessarily make Iannucci's stuff the feeble copy which 'sub' suggests, because I don't reckon he's going for the same effect (I don't see any attempts at shock for a start). Different flavour. Charlie Brooker (who writes TV Go Home) does a similar thing, and does it differently again. I reckon you can sum up the crucial differences as follows:
Chris Morris = childish/mischeivous (childish in a good way)
Charlie Brooker = angry
Iannucci = disappointed
(Hmm, if you wanted to get reallypretentious about it you could say that there's a nipper/teenager/adult thing going on there....)
I'm pretty sure that Iannucci has been into this sort of thing for at least as long as Morris, possibly longer (I think he started off producing, and I think he was the one responsible for giving Morris, Peter Baynham, Coogan etc a foot up via stints on Radio 4. But that might be bollocks, I dunno).
I love the current series (favourite bit from last prog was the reply from space to the Voyager probe: "C***S"). There were probably more belly laughs with the Armistice but it was much more patchy.
Speaking of Peter Baynham, he's my favourite of the lot, I believe he wrote a lot of the Morris stuff for Brass Eye and that. Anyone know what he's up to these days? |
