Getting Arrested

Since the show started, I've always been a big fan of Lee Mack's BBC1 sitcom, Not Going Out. In fact, I was so keen that I pestered them to allow me to write for it. It never quite happened, although I ended up writing a storyline that they used in Series 3 called 'Speech', for which I am bizarrely credited as 'Additional Material'. If we definite a story is 'additional', we have some problems.

I pitched that story in particular because I wanted to give Lucy a strong story in which she could be really funny - a speech for a business awards-type thing would be a big deal for her charcter and something she would take very seriously. And therefore Lee would have take it seriously too in order to stand a chance with her. I'm not sure how successful I was in that, but since I merely submitted the storyline rather than wrote the episode - I wasn't even 'in the room' - I'm not sure what the other writers thought the story represented.

I remain a big fan of the show and I watched the show again the other night, catching up on the first episode - and laughed out loud, very loud, several times. But I was wondering why I still didn't love the show. In some ways, the show isn't dissimilar from Miranda, being big, brassy and silly. The show is also told from one character's point of view in which the character's name is the actor's name. Despite the similarities, Miranda seems to have invoked an affection that Not Going Out hasn't yet managed - although Not Going Out, being a BBC1 show, has the larger audience.

The missing ingredient is, I think, pathos. Dave Cohen has written an excellent piece on Chortle on this subject here. He is kinder to Not Going Out than me saying that Lee's "character’s attempts to win his flatmate evoke sympathy as well as laughs". That is right. But for me, this relationship and quest for Lee is never quite consistent enough. In the first episode of this latest series, Lucy is away for the whole episode, which removes that strand of pathos - and it became a farcical (in a good way) caper between Lee and Tim.

Lee and Tim are a really strong duo. They play off each other really well. But perhaps the drugs story might have had more resonance if Tim, playing very prudish and respectable, had a particular reason not to be caught in possession of drugs. Daisy's disapproval was funny and provided some character-based context for the story - and silly cartoon-ish ending involving a nail gun.

Getting Arrested
The 'getting caught' story crops up in many sitcoms, but for some reason getting caught by the police doesn't have enough comic punch. Being arrested isn't funny in itself. Being arrested by a child is funny. Or an ex-wife. Or a policeman who's arrested you nine times before is funny. There always has to be a reason why this particular arrest is funny. Or perhaps our character doesn't want to be arrested because his Uncle Tom is a magistrate. Or it means our hero will be asked to leave the golf club that he has finally been allowed to join. You get the idea.

Cue Music
But let's just end with more pathos for a moment. It can, and should, start with the opening music. Not Going Out has a brassy, upbeat opening theme, very much in keeping with the upbeat, gag-heavy nature of the show. Miranda has a lovely, cheerful theme too, by the splendid Alex Eckford - but Miranda has pictures of her growing up and we begin the theme of family embarrassment and we're already beginning to invest in her emotionally.

Some sitcoms, especially in the 1980s, ladelled on pathos with opening titles. So let's finish with a few of real humdingers, where pathos is positively gushing out of the television.
Here's Ever Decreasing Circles. Yes, this bizarre, complex piano solo really is the opening music for a mainstream, BBC1 comedy show.

How about this one? Hospital comedy, Only When I Laugh (can you imagine ITV1 commissioning this show, let alone allowing this opening sequence?):

And finally watch a man's life fall apart in the opening titles of the extraordinary Dear John:

Give 'Em What They Want: Sitcom

So, lots of media pundits are reacting, or being paid to react, to the news that BBC1 would like a 'blue-collar' sitcom. It isn't clear exactly when, where and how Danny Cohen said this, although he's made no secret of this desire over the last few weeks. But rather than fly reporters to North Africa and report on armed uprising, our media has decided to talk about situation comedy.

Why wouldn't Danny Cohen want a down-to-earth working class sitcom? Another Only Fools and Horses, Bread or Royle Family. Let us not forget that at its peak, Bread pulled in about 22 million viewers. Let us also not forget that To The Manor Born pulled in 24 million viewers. Was it the same 20-odd million watching both programmes. Probably. I used to watch both of them. I didn't care. They were both brilliant.

And this is point that rings loud and clear from all the media chats and discussion: as long as its funny, no-one much cares where the comedy is set, and how rich our characters are. So far so predictable.

Moreover, Danny Cohen isn't proposing to jettison middle-class settings for comedies too. He's not going to commission a factory canteen sitcom by Harry Northerer and not commissioned a boutique hotel sitcom by Harald South-by-South-East. But here's the thing. There's so little situation comedy on television that he may have to chose between.

I find this whole area very hard to understand. The audiences love sitcoms. They adore them. It's interesting that Miranda won the King/Queen of Comedy award at the comedy - against Harry Hill, stadium-filling Michael McIntyre and ever cheeky Ant & Dec. And David Mitchell is probably more associated with being a panellist and all-round good egg than Mark in Peep Show. But from almost a standing start Miranda Hart went and won.

Sitcoms sell DVDs - and decent ones continue to sell years after transmission. People are still buying Blackadder, Yes Minister and Porridge. They are not buying '1994 Compilation Have I Got News for You', or 'Call My Bluff: The Arthur Marshall Years - Uncut and Uncorked'.

And yet, the TV channels seemed determined not to make scripted narrative comedy - even though there are endless other scripted narrative things like soaps, hospital 'dramas', detective shows and those things that aren't really anything (I'm thinking Hotel Babylon?).

Let's look at the evidence. BBC1 tonight showed no comedy at all. None. Or last night. On Sunday night, there was a repeat of Gavin and Stacey at 10.30 (how many repeats, now?). And repeat of My Family at 4.25pm. On Saturday night, Come Fly With Me - a repeat from Thursday. On Friday night, a panel game and a chat show. On Thursday, Not Going Out. That's not a lot of comedy - and I wouldn't be able to tell you when I could regularly tune in to a sitcom. It used to be Friday night at 8.30. Not now. So when?

Over the same time period, BBC2 have finally repeated the wonderful The Great Outdoors from BBC4, and launched a new panel/improv game and shown a new series - Episodes. And that's it. And Buzzcocks on Wednesday.

So, between BBC1 and BBC2, in the last week, new episodes narrative comedies are: Episodes and Not Going Out. And Come Fly With Me (which is more of a sketch show in one setting)

Come on, BBC. More sitcom, please. I love cooking shows as much as the next man, but I'm pretty sure that everyone who wants to learn to cook has learnt by now. Can we have some funnies now?

Maybe I'm just being overly biased in favour of narrative comedy and want everyone to like what I like. But let's not forget that on Saturday night, after a repeat of Dad's Army, BBC2 also repeat a retrospective of Allo Allo - for an hour and three quarters. Now, I love Allo Allo. All 80-odd episodes of it. But I continue to be staggered at the sheer number of documentaries, re-enactments and pickings overs the bones of old sitcoms like Allo Allo. It reinforces my point about sitcoms being what people really want, since they are so powerful and memorable.

So my plea is not for more working class comedy, or middle class comedy - but more comedy. It really is what the viewers want. It's why they made Miranda their comedy Queen. And why they'd rather talk about Del Boy and Steptoe than uprisings in Tunisia.