Let us begin with a few caveats. The first is that SitcomGeek is in awe of Robert Popper, the writer of Friday Night Dinner. The man was, in no small part, responsible for Look Around You, the first series of which is possibly the funniest television in many years. I always describe it as 'unnecessarily funny'. In one, sense this makes me biased towards him, but also increased my expectations.
Given this, the second caveat is that Mr Popper probably knows exactly what he's doing and, frankly, whatever I say he already knows but he's gone his own way anyway. Fair enough.
The third caveat is to mention that the show really is very similar in set-up to Grandma's House, but that this doesn't really make any difference to anything. They were probably commissioned at about the same time, and it's an unfortunate coincidence, but so what? I'm not sure which I prefer. Given I didn't really buy Simon Amstell's performance in Grandma's House, even though he was playing himself, I would probably veer towards Friday Night Dinner, which has no weak links in the cast. They are all fab to a man. And woman. But I don't have to prefer one or the other. And I don't think the audience cares. They'll make up their own minds whether to watch, one, the other or both. Given the tiny amount of new comedy narrative on TV generally, they'll probably want to watch whatever is put in front of them as long as its half decent.
The four caveat is that there's not all that much point judging a sitcom, and it's success, appeal and longevity, on the basis of one episode.
Therefore, I'm just going to focus on the boring mechanics of that one show and examine why, for me, the show never quite got going, and therefore didn't quite do it for me, even though I'll be back for more.
I liked the nice quirkness of a dad being hot and stripped to the waist - and that no-one bats an eyelid at this. I liked the pace of the show and the dialogue - and the fact that it felt real. The brotherly bickering and banter was believable, although it never quite gave me a chance to get a handle on either character.
But, if I were handed the script asked to comment on it with a 'script/story editor' hat on (wow, you should see that hat in real life. It's quite something) I'd say that I don't really feel I know any of the characters. But most ofall, I don't feel the consequences of the stories quite deliver or escalate enough in this episode.
The New Scientist Magazine storyline was a nice one - and rang true - but where did it end? The Dad was caught out trying to horde them with his son, whilst buying more. Mum tuts and despairs. And that was that. I didn't really backfire on the dad in any satisfying way. I rather liked the implication at one point that the magazines were pornographic. Exploiting that with the sofa-buyer could have been fruitful.
The sofa-bed got stuck, but why? In sitcoms, things need to go wrong for a reason - ideally a character-based reason. None of them were being stubborn or causing the problem, so it just got stuck and it didn't seem to be anyone's fault. (Funny bit when they kept saying "slowly") And then it got stuck for no good reason – and then the consequences weren’t very funny. They climbed out via ladder. A bit of groping by the neighbour. Then back inside and sofa falls and breaks the banister. Is that so bad? Obviously it's annoying to have your bannister wrecked, but what's at stake for the characters?
Finally, the sofa-bed buyer, Chris Parker, presented good opportunities. Gotta love Matt Holness. The fact that he needed the loo and that there was uncertainty was very funny, but it didn't really escalate. It was just an awkward situation. The dad had confused the dates he was coming - but why had he? And then Holness's discovery that his dad had died was good timing, but the fact he no longer needed the bed was quite funny. Should the dad not have kept trying to 'sell the bed' while the man was grieving? Putting a positive spin on it? And then the presence of salt in two drinks was an odd way to go in pushing him over the edge.
It feels like all the ingredients are there, and things are being set-up but not paid off. If I can use a cricketing metaphor, it's like getting to 250 off 40 overs, and then ending up with 295 off 50, rather than going on and getting 325+. I'm sure that's made everything crystal clear.
This show also highlights one other thing. People, critics especially, are very sniffy about mainstream BBC1 comedy, and like to fawn over Channel 4 stuff because it's different, edgy and young. But this is a very mainstream comedy. It's about a white nuclear family - and the storylines were dad hoarding stuff, mum wants to watch the Masterchef final, prankster brothers, a wacky neighbour needing the toilet, and a sofa gets stuck. That could be My Family. I don't say that's a bad thing at all. But it is a thing.
Showing posts with label Grandma's House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grandma's House. Show all posts
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Whites
Last night I got round to watching another episode of Whites. I watched the first episode a while ago. Then downloaded another on iPlayer which expired before I got a chance to see it. Then last night I watched Episode 4.
What I like about Whites is that I believe it. It feels like a real kitchen and that the characters really are who they say they are - even though they are all very familiar faces. One could argue they are too familiar. But then who wouldn't want Alan Davies, Darren Boyd and Katherine Parkinson in their sitcom? They are fine comedy actors - as are the others. But let's be honest: it's a non-audience show, shot on location, so there's no excuse for it not being believable, although it does happen occasionally.
If you read the last post on this blog, it wouldn't surprise you to learn that overall, I didn't really go for Whites. It didn't make my wife laugh at all, although I chuckled on a number of occasions. But Whites is part of this enormous raft of non-audience comedy programmes that have been broadcast recently - Rev, Him and Her, Grandma's House, Roger and Val and now Whites. All of these shows are all good in their way, although not all to my taste.
But the fact that they are non-audience seems to provide some kind of safety net. Because they are well-shot and directed, filmed on locations and played out like dramas, with jokes in them at various intervals (you be the judge of how often), they don't make one cringe in a way that an audience comedy can. If one took the last five audience comedies and compared them, the failure rate would be much higher, certainly in the opinion of our beloved critics. But the hits would also register higher too, I think.
The believability issue is crucial. Sometimes audience comedies shot in studios with contructed sets just aren't believable, parodied rather brutally (and unfairly) in When the Whistle Blows (why does Gervais do this? Anyone?) But, as I often point out, if the jokes are there and done in the right way by the right character, the audience don't care. They know that the IT department in the IT Crowd isn't real. But they don't care because they love Moss and Roy and Jen. When they do believe the situation and premise and you have great characters and jokes like in the Office, you have the makings of a real hit on your hands. When the jokes misfire and we don't take the characters to our hearts, it's like watching a car crash. Strangely, it's hard to spot this in the studio, where there is a closeness and a bonhomie that gives you little indication of whether you have a hit on your hands or not. It's only when you sit down at home, and the show starts up and you watch your work that you have any indication of whether the show will be a success.
The fact that the show was non-audience meant they could get away with the fact that Episode 4 was the 'Health and Safety Inspector' episode. It's surprising that given the characters and calibre of actor that the Inspector Card needs to be played quite so early in the game. I have to admit I was disappointed by this - even though cleanliness is obviously a critical facet of the kitchen's operation. But in this instance, there was a decent pay-off, in someone pretending to have Parkinson's in front of someone who's dad has actually Parkinson's is pleasingly morbidly funny.
My final comment is on the creative choice of the show at the start with the central character. Kitchens are famously hot and angry places. Celebrity chefs are famously monstrous. I understand why Whites has decided to subvert this in order to be creatively more interesting and surprising. But it may have been funnier to have had a total monster since they are funnier and can be very interesting. (See also Gordon Ramsay, Gregory House MD and Brian Clough...)
I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of others on this show.
What I like about Whites is that I believe it. It feels like a real kitchen and that the characters really are who they say they are - even though they are all very familiar faces. One could argue they are too familiar. But then who wouldn't want Alan Davies, Darren Boyd and Katherine Parkinson in their sitcom? They are fine comedy actors - as are the others. But let's be honest: it's a non-audience show, shot on location, so there's no excuse for it not being believable, although it does happen occasionally.
If you read the last post on this blog, it wouldn't surprise you to learn that overall, I didn't really go for Whites. It didn't make my wife laugh at all, although I chuckled on a number of occasions. But Whites is part of this enormous raft of non-audience comedy programmes that have been broadcast recently - Rev, Him and Her, Grandma's House, Roger and Val and now Whites. All of these shows are all good in their way, although not all to my taste.
But the fact that they are non-audience seems to provide some kind of safety net. Because they are well-shot and directed, filmed on locations and played out like dramas, with jokes in them at various intervals (you be the judge of how often), they don't make one cringe in a way that an audience comedy can. If one took the last five audience comedies and compared them, the failure rate would be much higher, certainly in the opinion of our beloved critics. But the hits would also register higher too, I think.
The believability issue is crucial. Sometimes audience comedies shot in studios with contructed sets just aren't believable, parodied rather brutally (and unfairly) in When the Whistle Blows (why does Gervais do this? Anyone?) But, as I often point out, if the jokes are there and done in the right way by the right character, the audience don't care. They know that the IT department in the IT Crowd isn't real. But they don't care because they love Moss and Roy and Jen. When they do believe the situation and premise and you have great characters and jokes like in the Office, you have the makings of a real hit on your hands. When the jokes misfire and we don't take the characters to our hearts, it's like watching a car crash. Strangely, it's hard to spot this in the studio, where there is a closeness and a bonhomie that gives you little indication of whether you have a hit on your hands or not. It's only when you sit down at home, and the show starts up and you watch your work that you have any indication of whether the show will be a success.
The fact that the show was non-audience meant they could get away with the fact that Episode 4 was the 'Health and Safety Inspector' episode. It's surprising that given the characters and calibre of actor that the Inspector Card needs to be played quite so early in the game. I have to admit I was disappointed by this - even though cleanliness is obviously a critical facet of the kitchen's operation. But in this instance, there was a decent pay-off, in someone pretending to have Parkinson's in front of someone who's dad has actually Parkinson's is pleasingly morbidly funny.
My final comment is on the creative choice of the show at the start with the central character. Kitchens are famously hot and angry places. Celebrity chefs are famously monstrous. I understand why Whites has decided to subvert this in order to be creatively more interesting and surprising. But it may have been funnier to have had a total monster since they are funnier and can be very interesting. (See also Gordon Ramsay, Gregory House MD and Brian Clough...)
I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of others on this show.
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
Do People Really Talk Like That?
It's a question worth asking yourself all the time as you write. Do people really talk like that? There are plenty of moments where, if you're honest with yourself, someone has only really said something in a certain way in order to provide the set-up for a joke.
A stand-out example of this for me was the much un-loved Frank Skinner sit-com Shane. I watched an episode a year or so ago and rather enjoyed it. The only bit that diminished my enjoyment was that Frank Skinner had almost all of the jokes and that everyone else had feed-lines. On top of this, the feed lines didn't always sound right or natural, which telegraphed the fact that a joke was on the way and therefore spoiled the joke (and also made one aware that the whole programme is a conceit, which is not something you want to remind your audience of). Sometimes it's hard to avoid a clunky set-up line, especially when the joke you have in mind is a real cracker. But the skill of the writer is to make the dialogue sound real, or natural, or at least real enough.
When The Office came out, the critics and the industry went wild. Here was 'real' dialogue. This is true. The dialogue did sound real (although let's not forget that the character add times spoke directly to camera, in a documentary, and the they played fairly fast and loose with the docu-format).
The Office was truly brilliant as a non-audience show. (Critics then, bless them, returned to studio sitcoms and slammed them for being contrived or fake or silly, when, as I often say on this blog, the audience do realise it's a contrivance and they're okay with that). The Office, though, had an effect though on other writers, who wanted to write dialogue like the dialogue in The Office, and number of other shows, mostly forgotten, came and went that focussed on awkward silences and ennui. Spaced was another groundbreaking show that inspired another generation of writers, and created 'a way of talking'. Let's not forget Peep Show and The Thick of It.
Likewise, monstrously successful shows like Friends, Frasier and Seinfeld have almost created a 'way of talking' that really trips of the tongue and gives a show a feeling of pace. This is fine - if you're an American writer and writing for American audiences. But sometimes this kind of wise-cracking talking finds it way into British comedy.
The reason I mention this is because one or two shows recently - and the odd movie - have felt very unreal to me because of the dialogue and 'way of talking'. It's as if the writers were writing a show that were designed to sound like other shows. It's impossible to tell whether this is intentional - either because the writer in question is writing that way because he/she thinks the audience will like it, or because he/they likes it and it sounds good, or because he/we don't realise we're doing it.
The example that made me shout at my television the most was a movie on TV called Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel - directed by a good comedy director and had funny actors in it. But it felt like the script was half-way between Hitchhikers and Hot Fuzz. That sounds like a good place to be - but it was just that and only that. It was only influences. I didn't believe any of the characters, or the set-up - and this was highlighted by the fact that people in real life just don't talk like that. What's more, the Hot Fuzz area is dangerous because it is a movie heavily influenced by other movies.
Screenwriters need to know how real people talk and write concise and characterful dialogue in that style. If you spend your life watching movies and TV, and TV influenced by movies, and movies influenced by TV, you'll end up trapped in an unreal life that doesn't connect with reality. Decent writing is about truth. If there's no ring of truth - in situation, character or dialogue - it's just someone talking cliche's or secondhand speech. If you're doing that, stop writing now and get a part-time job, get married and have a child, go into politics or just do something that isn't about TV.
Grandma's House, Roger and Val Have Just Got In, The Great Outdoors, - three brand new BBC comedies inexplicably premiered over July/August - do not fall into this trap, I'm pleased to say. Nor did Rev earlier this summer. In all those programmes, the characters feel real - like they are based on truth, not based on something based on truth. And truth, not wisecracks or contrived 'sexual chemistry', ultimately, is what keeps people watching.
A stand-out example of this for me was the much un-loved Frank Skinner sit-com Shane. I watched an episode a year or so ago and rather enjoyed it. The only bit that diminished my enjoyment was that Frank Skinner had almost all of the jokes and that everyone else had feed-lines. On top of this, the feed lines didn't always sound right or natural, which telegraphed the fact that a joke was on the way and therefore spoiled the joke (and also made one aware that the whole programme is a conceit, which is not something you want to remind your audience of). Sometimes it's hard to avoid a clunky set-up line, especially when the joke you have in mind is a real cracker. But the skill of the writer is to make the dialogue sound real, or natural, or at least real enough.
When The Office came out, the critics and the industry went wild. Here was 'real' dialogue. This is true. The dialogue did sound real (although let's not forget that the character add times spoke directly to camera, in a documentary, and the they played fairly fast and loose with the docu-format).
The Office was truly brilliant as a non-audience show. (Critics then, bless them, returned to studio sitcoms and slammed them for being contrived or fake or silly, when, as I often say on this blog, the audience do realise it's a contrivance and they're okay with that). The Office, though, had an effect though on other writers, who wanted to write dialogue like the dialogue in The Office, and number of other shows, mostly forgotten, came and went that focussed on awkward silences and ennui. Spaced was another groundbreaking show that inspired another generation of writers, and created 'a way of talking'. Let's not forget Peep Show and The Thick of It.
Likewise, monstrously successful shows like Friends, Frasier and Seinfeld have almost created a 'way of talking' that really trips of the tongue and gives a show a feeling of pace. This is fine - if you're an American writer and writing for American audiences. But sometimes this kind of wise-cracking talking finds it way into British comedy.
The reason I mention this is because one or two shows recently - and the odd movie - have felt very unreal to me because of the dialogue and 'way of talking'. It's as if the writers were writing a show that were designed to sound like other shows. It's impossible to tell whether this is intentional - either because the writer in question is writing that way because he/she thinks the audience will like it, or because he/they likes it and it sounds good, or because he/we don't realise we're doing it.
The example that made me shout at my television the most was a movie on TV called Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel - directed by a good comedy director and had funny actors in it. But it felt like the script was half-way between Hitchhikers and Hot Fuzz. That sounds like a good place to be - but it was just that and only that. It was only influences. I didn't believe any of the characters, or the set-up - and this was highlighted by the fact that people in real life just don't talk like that. What's more, the Hot Fuzz area is dangerous because it is a movie heavily influenced by other movies.
Screenwriters need to know how real people talk and write concise and characterful dialogue in that style. If you spend your life watching movies and TV, and TV influenced by movies, and movies influenced by TV, you'll end up trapped in an unreal life that doesn't connect with reality. Decent writing is about truth. If there's no ring of truth - in situation, character or dialogue - it's just someone talking cliche's or secondhand speech. If you're doing that, stop writing now and get a part-time job, get married and have a child, go into politics or just do something that isn't about TV.
Grandma's House, Roger and Val Have Just Got In, The Great Outdoors, - three brand new BBC comedies inexplicably premiered over July/August - do not fall into this trap, I'm pleased to say. Nor did Rev earlier this summer. In all those programmes, the characters feel real - like they are based on truth, not based on something based on truth. And truth, not wisecracks or contrived 'sexual chemistry', ultimately, is what keeps people watching.
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