Thanks to iPlayer (possibly the best use of licence fee money since hiring David Attenborough in the 60s) I finally managed to watch the new BBC1 sitcom, The Royal Bodyguard. I'd tried to avoid too much press before seeing it myself, but saw that some people were saying slightly curious things about it, comparing it to Jonny English, as if that were a bad thing. Daft physical comedy is the oldest, most enduring, most globally successful kind of comedy there is (ask multi-millionaire Rowan Atkinson). Some people just don't like that kind of thing. Fair enough.
It's also worth bearing in mind that The Royal Bodyguard is written by Mark Bussell and Justin Sbresni, who wrote the excellent Worst Week of My Life. They have proven that they are decent writers, especially of farce and physically comedy - and are more successful than sitcomgeek. Noted.
Caveats done. So what did you think?
I saw Episode 1 and I'm not into it yet. It's early days, and my concerns with it may well end up being addressed. Here's my main observation. The show is all about the central character. Completely and totally. Other characters in the show are all played very straight - even the wonderfully funny Neil Edmond, and the cartoonish villains. I personally would have made the peripheral characters funny and given them lots of jokes. Geoffrey Whitehead really knows how to nail a joke, so its a pity he didn't have much to get his teeth into.
Now because the writers are good, the star of the show has nothing to prove as a comedy actor, and the production company are the mighty Hatrick, there must be some reason as to why all involved are not being carried shoulder-high through the streets of Shepherd's Bush. It feels like it was a conscious decision to focus the comedy on the central character, so the pressure is all on David Jason as the Royal Bodyguard to do every single one of the show's jokes. To sustain that level of scrutiny, the character needs to be completely watertight. But water is, I fear, seeping in. Or out. (which every is the bad way round).
Who is Hubble?
So who is this Hubble character? My main beef is that after watching him for half an hour, I still don't really know. I'm not after backstory. (Remember, backstory is comedy death) I need to understand what he wants. Is he incompetent, stupid, clumsy, unprofessional, hapless or out of his depth? These all overlap, but they're not the same thing.
First Impressions
And when we meet the character for the first time, we form our initial impression of him. And here is a confusing signal because at the very beginning, the Queen is getting into the coach. He picks up a crisp packet and explodes it in the face of a guard. Really? What an extraordinary thing for even a lowly royal car park attendant. He must be a really prankster. Or a live wire. Like Jim Carrey as Ace Ventura. Or massively unprofessional - in which case he wouldn't try to rescue the Queen. Who is he?
His exchange with the Hotel guy (Neil Edmond) doesn't quite establish him. We don't know whether he realises he's been massively overpromoted or not. It would be useful to clarify that. One way to go would be to make him pompous/Mainwairing-like and think its about time he was in charge, and this will give him the respect her craves. This could explain why he genuinely thinks that female assassin is attracted to him, because at the moment, that bit feels implausible. He would surely realise that he, as head of security, is a prime target for a femme fatale?
He is obviously fairly stupid. But how stupid? It sounds picky, but again, it would be useful to know exactly how stupid or, indeed, why he is so stupid. What desire or life-goal is hampering his judgment to badly? We encounter different types of stupid in the same show and we can tell the difference - think about Kramer, George and Newman in Seinfeld. In Dad's Army, Pike is stupid because he's young. In Allo Allo, the policeman is stupid because he's foreign/English. People often appear stupid ebcause they want something. What is it?
In the hotel room, Hubble seems surprised by someone who is obviously a hotel porter and a maid in the bedroom. Is he really that stupid? It's okay if he is. Very stupid is funny. But then he later, he correctly realises that leg of the assassin was different (and this thought is not triggered by anything). So he's not that stupid? And yet this is the man who didn't realise he was being seduced. And somehow didn't feel his key being taken from out of his sock.
English & Clouseau
Now I couldn't answer any of these questions in the case of Johnny English and/or Inspector Clouseau. And yet it feels like Atkinson/Sellars know in their hearts what their characters are like and what really makes them tick. And when The Royal Bodyguard really shows us who Hubble is, what he wants and why he can't have it, we'll have some serious comedy on our hands.
Showing posts with label Dad's Army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dad's Army. Show all posts
Monday, 2 January 2012
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
The First Two Minutes
I'm not a particularly big fan of Dad's Army. It's a show hugely respect - but not one I especially find myself wanting to watch. (Hi-De-Hi was the rising show as I was growing up and getting into comedy.) But I watched the opening of the episode that was on BBC2 on Saturday (why make new comedy when you could repeat the 70s sitcom about the 40s?). Sadly it's not on iplayer, so I can't link to it. It think it's the Brain vs Brawn episode from Series 5. The first two minutes were very impressive from a writing point of view, and worth stopping to think about for a moment.
The show opens at a Rotary club. Mainwairing is there, receiving a sherry from a waitress, who says he can only have one because of rationing. Wilson arrives, who is there as Mainwairing's guest. Mainwairing points out the President of the Club and encourages Wilson to ingratiate himself with him, but Wilson turns his back to talk to the waitress, complimenting her on a pretty brooch. She is flattered and says she'll try and find him some extra sherry. Then Wilson meets the President - and it turns out he and Wilson were at school together and shared a room for a little while. Mainwairing tries to reassert supremacy by saying that Wilson works for him, but Wilson and the President walk off together, leaving Mainwairing behind - and the president says cheerio to Mainwairing, getting his name wrong. The entirety of Dad's Army is summed up beautifully in that little scene. The two main characters do their thing, and perform a mini-sketch, with nice jokes that sets up the rest of the show.
The opening of any show is, obviously, critical. I'd argue that, as the writer, you have two choices for that opening. Both are about building a relationship with your audience.
Choice One is go down this Dad's Army route, in which we re-establish the key characters leaving the audience in no doubt as to who the show is about and what the show is about. The only drawback with choice one is the sometimes it's a nice opening, and neat and clever, but not barnstormingly hilarious.
If were finding this choice a hard one, it may well be because we don't really know who the show is about, who they are in conflict with and what they are trying to achieve. We can't encapsulate the show in an opening sketch if we don't know what the show is. More work on the treatment, the characters, the outline and the stories for you, I'm afraid.
The thing to bear in mind with this choice also is that you cannot assume your audience know the characters - unless you're on Series 7 of your hit sitcom, in which case, you wouldn't be reading this blog (and if you are, can I have a job, please?) Always re-introduce your characters. Give the audience a hand getting a handle on them. This can slow things down or get in the way, which is why you could plump for:
Choice Two, which is to create a brilliant set-piece scene with a thwacking joke at the end. This might be done at the expense of re-introducing the characters to your audience, but it at least builds confident with the audience that this is going to be a funny show.
If you can pull it off, don't choose. Cheat. Do both. Miranda does this very successfully. She immediately builds rapport with the audience, establishing herself as a character, highlighting the potentially troublesome relationships in the show (with Penny, Gary, Stevie or Tilly) - and cutting to some big strong visual jokes to get the show moving comically.
If you watch the first two minutes of action (post titles) of Episode 1 of Blackadder Goes Forth (here), you learn that Blackadder is cultured (reading a book and listening to music), clever and cynical. You learn that Baldrick is very stupid, and the George is fanatically patriotic - and that Blackadder feels he's above the whole thing. That's the show. Then George produces a service revolver, and the story begins. That's how you start a show.
The show opens at a Rotary club. Mainwairing is there, receiving a sherry from a waitress, who says he can only have one because of rationing. Wilson arrives, who is there as Mainwairing's guest. Mainwairing points out the President of the Club and encourages Wilson to ingratiate himself with him, but Wilson turns his back to talk to the waitress, complimenting her on a pretty brooch. She is flattered and says she'll try and find him some extra sherry. Then Wilson meets the President - and it turns out he and Wilson were at school together and shared a room for a little while. Mainwairing tries to reassert supremacy by saying that Wilson works for him, but Wilson and the President walk off together, leaving Mainwairing behind - and the president says cheerio to Mainwairing, getting his name wrong. The entirety of Dad's Army is summed up beautifully in that little scene. The two main characters do their thing, and perform a mini-sketch, with nice jokes that sets up the rest of the show.
The opening of any show is, obviously, critical. I'd argue that, as the writer, you have two choices for that opening. Both are about building a relationship with your audience.
Choice One is go down this Dad's Army route, in which we re-establish the key characters leaving the audience in no doubt as to who the show is about and what the show is about. The only drawback with choice one is the sometimes it's a nice opening, and neat and clever, but not barnstormingly hilarious.
If were finding this choice a hard one, it may well be because we don't really know who the show is about, who they are in conflict with and what they are trying to achieve. We can't encapsulate the show in an opening sketch if we don't know what the show is. More work on the treatment, the characters, the outline and the stories for you, I'm afraid.
The thing to bear in mind with this choice also is that you cannot assume your audience know the characters - unless you're on Series 7 of your hit sitcom, in which case, you wouldn't be reading this blog (and if you are, can I have a job, please?) Always re-introduce your characters. Give the audience a hand getting a handle on them. This can slow things down or get in the way, which is why you could plump for:
Choice Two, which is to create a brilliant set-piece scene with a thwacking joke at the end. This might be done at the expense of re-introducing the characters to your audience, but it at least builds confident with the audience that this is going to be a funny show.
If you can pull it off, don't choose. Cheat. Do both. Miranda does this very successfully. She immediately builds rapport with the audience, establishing herself as a character, highlighting the potentially troublesome relationships in the show (with Penny, Gary, Stevie or Tilly) - and cutting to some big strong visual jokes to get the show moving comically.
If you watch the first two minutes of action (post titles) of Episode 1 of Blackadder Goes Forth (here), you learn that Blackadder is cultured (reading a book and listening to music), clever and cynical. You learn that Baldrick is very stupid, and the George is fanatically patriotic - and that Blackadder feels he's above the whole thing. That's the show. Then George produces a service revolver, and the story begins. That's how you start a show.
Thursday, 11 February 2010
The Pressure of Perfectly Paced Plotting
BBC Radio 7 has been repeating Series 1 of Cabin Pressure - which I completely missed the first time round. I caught one or two episodes of Series 2, and enjoyed it, but am pleased to have heard almost all of the the first series. It's lovely show with an admirably small number of characters, as the title suggests - pressured relationships in one cabin of one aeroplane.
There's just a 1st Officer we know should be the Captain, but is a bit of a rogue; a Captain who's a bit uptight; the owner who's the headmistress kicking her boys into shape; and her son, the air steward who is breathtakingly dim (played by the show's writer, John Finnemore - who's a fine comedy actor as well as a superb writer. Yes another reason to dislike the thoroughly pleasant man.) There are more details about the show here and here.
In some senses, the central relationship, between first officer and captain functions a little like Wilson and Mainwaring in Dad's Army. I don't know if John Finnemore was, or even is, aware of this. Past shows influence all of us. When devising Hut 33, and created Charles and Archie, I realised I'd created a relationship akin to Glover and Figgis in Only When I Laugh. And pretty much every configuration of every relationship can be found in classic novels or Shakespeare. So this is not a criticism at all.
But it takes more than a central relationship for a show to succeed (unfortunately). In my last post, I wrote that it's important to do proper autopsies on sitcoms that die a painful death. Much can be learned. But one can also learn in an altogether more pleasurable - laughing hard at a decent show, and then thinking about it work so well.
I don't propose to list the virtues of the show. "I cannot find a single flaw in it. So top marks" said the Independent on Sunday. Praise indeed and well deserved. I've mentioned the characters. Oh, and there's the jokes. They're good. Properly funny. But the thing I'd like to praise Cabin Pressure for in particular is boringly technical - but this is a boringly technical blog. And frankly, if the boring mechanics don't work, you have a coughing and spluttering sitcom. After all, an Alfa Romeo may be fun now and then, but it's not got the boring mechanics to get you very far. Boring mechanics are only ever notable by their absence.
So here it is: the show is perfectly paced. There is exactly the right amount of story and plot to give the characters room to bounce off each other to maximum comic effect. There's not too much frantic running around at the end, ploddy bits of exposition or a mad dash to tie up loose ends in the last 90 seconds. That's what I find hardest to do in Hut 33 - but perhaps Mr Finnemore is reaping the benefits of having four regular characters (Hut 33 has six characters - and there is a war on). I'd be interested to know how Mr Finnemore does this - whether he spends a lot of time on the storylines so that they fit the show precisely, and unravel at exactly the right pace. This has the added benefit of increasing plausibility, which adds a health dose of 'this could really happen'. Which makes it funnier.
What are the temptations here, then? Why do some sitcoms often cram story in and become too frantic? It may be lack of confidence in the characters. It may be lack of confidence in one's own ability to write enough jokes. Much easier to blow up a car or lose a set of keys in the story to add extra frustation and 'mayhem'. But it may not make the show funnier. It may just make the show noisier. We can, I'm sure, think of examples in which that is the case. There are warning signs: If you find yourself typing the line "Wait a minute, there just one thing I don't understand" or "So the whole thing was covered by the insurance" or some other nebulous or unsatisfactory line. Plot is like marmite - best thinly spread.
But then, we can also watch an episode of Seinfeld and think 'How did they fit all those stories in 22 minutes?'
Sitcom is a dark art, a conjuring trick with no manual that requires hours of practice, the odd prayer - and even then one runs a serious risk of being pelted with fruit. Still, it beats real work. My dad was a farmer. I know what I'd rather be doing for living.
There's just a 1st Officer we know should be the Captain, but is a bit of a rogue; a Captain who's a bit uptight; the owner who's the headmistress kicking her boys into shape; and her son, the air steward who is breathtakingly dim (played by the show's writer, John Finnemore - who's a fine comedy actor as well as a superb writer. Yes another reason to dislike the thoroughly pleasant man.) There are more details about the show here and here.
In some senses, the central relationship, between first officer and captain functions a little like Wilson and Mainwaring in Dad's Army. I don't know if John Finnemore was, or even is, aware of this. Past shows influence all of us. When devising Hut 33, and created Charles and Archie, I realised I'd created a relationship akin to Glover and Figgis in Only When I Laugh. And pretty much every configuration of every relationship can be found in classic novels or Shakespeare. So this is not a criticism at all.
But it takes more than a central relationship for a show to succeed (unfortunately). In my last post, I wrote that it's important to do proper autopsies on sitcoms that die a painful death. Much can be learned. But one can also learn in an altogether more pleasurable - laughing hard at a decent show, and then thinking about it work so well.
I don't propose to list the virtues of the show. "I cannot find a single flaw in it. So top marks" said the Independent on Sunday. Praise indeed and well deserved. I've mentioned the characters. Oh, and there's the jokes. They're good. Properly funny. But the thing I'd like to praise Cabin Pressure for in particular is boringly technical - but this is a boringly technical blog. And frankly, if the boring mechanics don't work, you have a coughing and spluttering sitcom. After all, an Alfa Romeo may be fun now and then, but it's not got the boring mechanics to get you very far. Boring mechanics are only ever notable by their absence.
So here it is: the show is perfectly paced. There is exactly the right amount of story and plot to give the characters room to bounce off each other to maximum comic effect. There's not too much frantic running around at the end, ploddy bits of exposition or a mad dash to tie up loose ends in the last 90 seconds. That's what I find hardest to do in Hut 33 - but perhaps Mr Finnemore is reaping the benefits of having four regular characters (Hut 33 has six characters - and there is a war on). I'd be interested to know how Mr Finnemore does this - whether he spends a lot of time on the storylines so that they fit the show precisely, and unravel at exactly the right pace. This has the added benefit of increasing plausibility, which adds a health dose of 'this could really happen'. Which makes it funnier.
What are the temptations here, then? Why do some sitcoms often cram story in and become too frantic? It may be lack of confidence in the characters. It may be lack of confidence in one's own ability to write enough jokes. Much easier to blow up a car or lose a set of keys in the story to add extra frustation and 'mayhem'. But it may not make the show funnier. It may just make the show noisier. We can, I'm sure, think of examples in which that is the case. There are warning signs: If you find yourself typing the line "Wait a minute, there just one thing I don't understand" or "So the whole thing was covered by the insurance" or some other nebulous or unsatisfactory line. Plot is like marmite - best thinly spread.
But then, we can also watch an episode of Seinfeld and think 'How did they fit all those stories in 22 minutes?'
Sitcom is a dark art, a conjuring trick with no manual that requires hours of practice, the odd prayer - and even then one runs a serious risk of being pelted with fruit. Still, it beats real work. My dad was a farmer. I know what I'd rather be doing for living.
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Understanding Failure in Comedy
Criticising sitcom, as I have remarked in previous posts, is the easiest thing in the world. Like many things that are easy, it can still be entertaining and fun, but it is ultimately destructive and unhelpful, as least for the purposes of this blog and constructive criticism of sitcom in general.
So passionate am I about situation comedy, that I want to defend every sitcom from attacks on all sides, regardless of whether I even like the comedy in question. At least that is what I felt when I read a recent posting on The Quietus - called Emma Johnston On The World's Worst Sitcoms. which can be found here. I don't mean to pick on her - I'm sure she's delightful - or the website for which she writes at all, but the article is a very typical example of pundits talking about sitcom that makes a number of curious points - and contributes to the overall welter of bizarre punditry surrounding a very specific form of commentary.
The trigger for Ms Johnston's article was undoubtedly The Persuasionists, the latest sitcom to emerge from the trenches before being mowed down by gunfire before it had a chance to fight back. I'm not going to defend The Persuasionists per se. A post-mortem is useful though, which I will come to in a moment. But in one sense, the audience have voted with their fingers. Episode 3 was only watched by 330,000 viewers, I believe. I recall a line in Which Lie Did I Tell? by William Goldman, who explains the failure of his turkey movie The Year of the Comet. When the Box Office numbers came in, they simply said something like 'They don't want to watch your movie, Mr Goldman'.
But I'm minded to defend The Persuasionists as a valliant attempt at big silly comedy, simply because sitcoms are routinely given the most violent of kickings whilst they're on air, and then for many years after - regardless of their success, it seems.
For example, Ms Johnston says picks out The Persuasionists' "stilted dialogue, childish, laboured gags and excruciatingly unlikable, stereotypical characters" as if all of those things are intrinsically bad in comedy. Sometimes stitled dialogue is funny (like Moss in IT Crowd). Childish, laboured gags can work very well, as can excruciatingly unlikable (David Brent), stereotypical (Del Boy) characters. But we really have to do better than just point these things out and say "Why couldn't they have done a grown-up, nuanced, unpredictable comedy with Aaron-Sorkin-esque dialogue, since that would obviously work?" For a start Aaron Sorkin himself tried this on a sitcom called Sportsnight. The show was slick, clever and well-produced, but funny? Not so much. And secondly, big silly comedies are very popular and can work well, Black Books, The IT Crowd and Miranda being recent examples.
Merely describing the premise of a show is also not enough. Picking out Heil Honey, I'm Home as a bad idea for a show - whilst acknowledging the Producers pulled off a similar premise seems odd.
Slagging off shows like Two Pints of Lager (which is not a show to my personal taste) or Are you Being Served? seems bizarre to me - the latter show ran for 13 years, spawned numerous catchphrases and is fondly remember by many. To say "Are You Being Served? managed to deliver two jokes, neither of which were funny" is, at best, disingenuous. Ms Johnston has looked back and judged an 1970s/80s show by the standards of 2010 and, unsurprisingly, found it wanting - even though it delivered much joy at the time and even though David Croft was responsible for hundreds of episodes of sitcom that were gladly received by the British public at large (Dad's Army, Allo Allo, You Rang M'Lord etc)>. It is entirely fair to pick out Come Back, Mrs Noah as a notable flop, but why did it flop? That's what I'm interested in finding out.
What is my point? I'd just like to raise the quality of the debate. Why do some shows work and others not work? What is it about comedy - and audience comedy in particular - that sets it apart from normal criticism?
There are two main reasons that come to mind. The first is that comedy is so personal. It's a wonderful thing to laugh, and when you connect with characters, when you identify with themes, situations and ideas, and when the joke arrives perfectly formed, it's funny and joyous. But when it doesn't, it's unfunny and painful. And the sound of laughter - other people getting a joke that you don't get, or dislike - is irritating. It's like they're all in on a joke and you're not. A number of times, I've read critics write that they simply don't understand why the studio audience were laughing. Myths about canned laughter still circulate. It seems that people seem reluctant to acknowledge that we all laugh at slightly different things.
The difference is particularly marked if there is a moral dimension to this. Are You Being Served is of it's time and broad - when attitudes to woman and homosexuals were very different. There's the jokes about Mrs Slocombe's pussy or John Inman are, to many today, distasteful (perhaps because they haven't been told in a sufficiently ironic way to allow us to laugh at them). In the process, comedy that seems unfunny also seems, to the unamused viewer, morally defective - and then the hackles rise and criticism gets more and more vicious.
The second factor is that comedy is designed to illicit laughter. A comedy which fails to amuse has categorically failed - and can therefore be written off. The fact that it has amused others seems to be of little consequence as the knives are sharpened and people trot out the usual comments like 'That's half an hour I'll never get back', 'Worst sitcom since [insert previous failed sitcom]' or 'How does this stuff even get commissioned? Do the BBC actually hate us?' etc...
To analyse a comedy that fails to amuse, then, is difficult work. It requires empathy, imagination and a serious engagement of critical faculties - in a way that isn't terribly amusing. It's probably more akin to investigating and air-crash or a crime-scene. But that is what I'm interested in - partly because I should be, shouldn't I? I'm a sitcom writer? I have been for about ten years. I should be curious. I'm just surprised that lots of other people involved in the industry are not equally curious, and seem to be satisfied with explanations of failure like "Bad script, stereotypical characters and scenarios that just aren't true to life" - when plenty of shows survive with poor scripts, some of which have stereotypical characters and some extraordinary scenarios.
I started out my comedy career writing a sitcom called Think the Unthinkable. Ryan, splendidly played by Marcus Brigstocke, would say that mistakes are opportunities. Annoying, but true. We learn more by failure than success. Which is just as well because I fail far more often than I success - you see? I just did a typo. I really should learn to be more careful. So we need to work out a way of embracing failure, picking through the wreckage, learning and moving on. That's my plan, anyway.
So passionate am I about situation comedy, that I want to defend every sitcom from attacks on all sides, regardless of whether I even like the comedy in question. At least that is what I felt when I read a recent posting on The Quietus - called Emma Johnston On The World's Worst Sitcoms. which can be found here. I don't mean to pick on her - I'm sure she's delightful - or the website for which she writes at all, but the article is a very typical example of pundits talking about sitcom that makes a number of curious points - and contributes to the overall welter of bizarre punditry surrounding a very specific form of commentary.
The trigger for Ms Johnston's article was undoubtedly The Persuasionists, the latest sitcom to emerge from the trenches before being mowed down by gunfire before it had a chance to fight back. I'm not going to defend The Persuasionists per se. A post-mortem is useful though, which I will come to in a moment. But in one sense, the audience have voted with their fingers. Episode 3 was only watched by 330,000 viewers, I believe. I recall a line in Which Lie Did I Tell? by William Goldman, who explains the failure of his turkey movie The Year of the Comet. When the Box Office numbers came in, they simply said something like 'They don't want to watch your movie, Mr Goldman'.
But I'm minded to defend The Persuasionists as a valliant attempt at big silly comedy, simply because sitcoms are routinely given the most violent of kickings whilst they're on air, and then for many years after - regardless of their success, it seems.
For example, Ms Johnston says picks out The Persuasionists' "stilted dialogue, childish, laboured gags and excruciatingly unlikable, stereotypical characters" as if all of those things are intrinsically bad in comedy. Sometimes stitled dialogue is funny (like Moss in IT Crowd). Childish, laboured gags can work very well, as can excruciatingly unlikable (David Brent), stereotypical (Del Boy) characters. But we really have to do better than just point these things out and say "Why couldn't they have done a grown-up, nuanced, unpredictable comedy with Aaron-Sorkin-esque dialogue, since that would obviously work?" For a start Aaron Sorkin himself tried this on a sitcom called Sportsnight. The show was slick, clever and well-produced, but funny? Not so much. And secondly, big silly comedies are very popular and can work well, Black Books, The IT Crowd and Miranda being recent examples.
Merely describing the premise of a show is also not enough. Picking out Heil Honey, I'm Home as a bad idea for a show - whilst acknowledging the Producers pulled off a similar premise seems odd.
Slagging off shows like Two Pints of Lager (which is not a show to my personal taste) or Are you Being Served? seems bizarre to me - the latter show ran for 13 years, spawned numerous catchphrases and is fondly remember by many. To say "Are You Being Served? managed to deliver two jokes, neither of which were funny" is, at best, disingenuous. Ms Johnston has looked back and judged an 1970s/80s show by the standards of 2010 and, unsurprisingly, found it wanting - even though it delivered much joy at the time and even though David Croft was responsible for hundreds of episodes of sitcom that were gladly received by the British public at large (Dad's Army, Allo Allo, You Rang M'Lord etc)>. It is entirely fair to pick out Come Back, Mrs Noah as a notable flop, but why did it flop? That's what I'm interested in finding out.
What is my point? I'd just like to raise the quality of the debate. Why do some shows work and others not work? What is it about comedy - and audience comedy in particular - that sets it apart from normal criticism?
There are two main reasons that come to mind. The first is that comedy is so personal. It's a wonderful thing to laugh, and when you connect with characters, when you identify with themes, situations and ideas, and when the joke arrives perfectly formed, it's funny and joyous. But when it doesn't, it's unfunny and painful. And the sound of laughter - other people getting a joke that you don't get, or dislike - is irritating. It's like they're all in on a joke and you're not. A number of times, I've read critics write that they simply don't understand why the studio audience were laughing. Myths about canned laughter still circulate. It seems that people seem reluctant to acknowledge that we all laugh at slightly different things.
The difference is particularly marked if there is a moral dimension to this. Are You Being Served is of it's time and broad - when attitudes to woman and homosexuals were very different. There's the jokes about Mrs Slocombe's pussy or John Inman are, to many today, distasteful (perhaps because they haven't been told in a sufficiently ironic way to allow us to laugh at them). In the process, comedy that seems unfunny also seems, to the unamused viewer, morally defective - and then the hackles rise and criticism gets more and more vicious.
The second factor is that comedy is designed to illicit laughter. A comedy which fails to amuse has categorically failed - and can therefore be written off. The fact that it has amused others seems to be of little consequence as the knives are sharpened and people trot out the usual comments like 'That's half an hour I'll never get back', 'Worst sitcom since [insert previous failed sitcom]' or 'How does this stuff even get commissioned? Do the BBC actually hate us?' etc...
To analyse a comedy that fails to amuse, then, is difficult work. It requires empathy, imagination and a serious engagement of critical faculties - in a way that isn't terribly amusing. It's probably more akin to investigating and air-crash or a crime-scene. But that is what I'm interested in - partly because I should be, shouldn't I? I'm a sitcom writer? I have been for about ten years. I should be curious. I'm just surprised that lots of other people involved in the industry are not equally curious, and seem to be satisfied with explanations of failure like "Bad script, stereotypical characters and scenarios that just aren't true to life" - when plenty of shows survive with poor scripts, some of which have stereotypical characters and some extraordinary scenarios.
I started out my comedy career writing a sitcom called Think the Unthinkable. Ryan, splendidly played by Marcus Brigstocke, would say that mistakes are opportunities. Annoying, but true. We learn more by failure than success. Which is just as well because I fail far more often than I success - you see? I just did a typo. I really should learn to be more careful. So we need to work out a way of embracing failure, picking through the wreckage, learning and moving on. That's my plan, anyway.
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