15 Storeys High and Sean Lock

[shiftwork2]

Thanks everyone for this thread.  I've been spending a dull weekend watching the whole lot for the first time.  How did I miss this brilliant show?

[alan nagsworth]

The best bit in the whole entire run of this show is where Vince is wired on Blue Rat spying on the opposite flat with his binocs, and he observes "See that flat over there, they're all wearing crash helmets" and there's this blurry little shot of a load of people dancing about with crash helmets on. Fucking absurdity at its best, pretty much on par with Morris-level brilliance. No reasoning given whatsoever, it's just a perfect little slice of inexplicable perfection.

[Sam]

There's something funny about every 3 seconds in that episode. Just him leaping over the coffee table in the manic snow globe section is hilarious.

[Utter Shit]

Thanks everyone for this thread.  I've been spending a dull weekend watching the whole lot for the first time.  How did I miss this brilliant show?

The BBC would seemingly be glad to pretend it never existed so I wouldn't feel too embarrassed.

This thread has convinced me to watch it through again, watched the first episode this morning. I love the weirdness of Errol and Vince's relationship right from the off, "are you going to sit there a lot?".

[Dirty Boy]

The best bit in the whole entire run of this show is where Vince is wired on Blue Rat spying on the opposite flat with his binocs, and he observes "See that flat over there, they're all wearing crash helmets" and there's this blurry little shot of a load of people dancing about with crash helmets on. Fucking absurdity at its best, pretty much on par with Morris-level brilliance. No reasoning given whatsoever, it's just a perfect little slice of inexplicable perfection.

He's also spying on the nearly naked old man who fights himself in the mirror.
"Aha... gotcha!......grrrrrr you don't like it do ya?!" *slugs back some Blue Rat*

And also:
"that's a cushion"
"IT'S A FUCKING HORSE!!! ....sorry"

[alan nagsworth]

"What's so crazy about me seeing a horse? You've seen Shrek, little green man with funny ears, oh that's real, that's a DRAWING! I've seen a horse! Ohh I'm doing it again aren't I?"

[chand]

Is it though? The visual style makes it seem like it should be (and apparently the burgers are horrible) but I don't really think of it that way. If anything, I'd say it was quite wacky. The only bit that sticks in my head as being particularly bleak is the pony bloke screaming that he hasn't got a fiver to bribe the RSPCA inspector.

It's almost like a rebuttal to the typical image of tower blocks as urban hellholes.

The tone of most of the comedy is pretty upbeat, and it's full of joyously silly lines. That said, Vince is quite a bleak character. He's an embittered, petty man living in a shitty flat which he really doesn't want to share with another person. It makes him a great comedy character but he does feel like a man defeated by life to some extent. In a way I empathise with, to be honest, but it doesn't make for a very hopeful atmosphere. Which isn't really a criticism for me. When I think of Vince as a character I think of that scene where he makes that woman take the sofa immediately rather than letting her come back in the van, which is a really funny scene but illustrates that he's the kind of petty knobhead that you wouldn't really want to befriend in real life.

[BritishHobo]

I think that's something that stops it being bleak, for me. If he was a bit more sympathetic, it would be a somewhat downbeat sitcom about a bloke in a dead-end flat, but he's so confident in his general curmudgeon that that flat and that life don't seem quite so awful - he's almost happy bumming around and shouting at people from his balcony.

[phantom_power]

There are parts that would be seen as bleak in another show. The fact that everyone at his work things he is a creepy weirdo would be depressing if he wasn't pretty deserving of that assessment. Also, none of it seems to really bother him so it has less effect. He is just as annoyed, or pleased, with the minutiae of life as the the big stuff so nothing is really important enough to be bleak.

[BritishHobo]

Aye, that's what I'm thinking. He doesn't seem to have any kind of ambition or aspiration for the drudgery to really affect him. In that OFAH Comic Relief special last year, it was really grim to check back with the Trotters and find them still in that marketplace, but the idea that if you checked in on Vince now, ten years later, he'd still be in that flat feels far more comforting to me. I think he'd still be happy, or at least not bothered.

[alan nagsworth]

Let's not forget his little patch of being knowingly miserable in the last episode though. It adds a decent slice of gravity to the show as a whole, and it isn't so excessive that it becomes a detractor at all. I love it when shows give you fleeting little glimpses to a more grounded, actual version of the events taking place.

I think it's quite similar to Blackadder in a some respects, the above included. A guy who thinks bizarrely high of himself despite being despised or mocked or just generally a second class citizen to everyone he knows, a total bellend whose closest acquaintance is someone who he's stuck with but whom he treats with obnoxious superiority and disrespect. This also ties in with the aforementioned 15SH's final episode, where it would seem that a large portion of Vince's misery comes from the fact that Errol is having a lot of success with women.

[BPFHAY]

And somehow it's all really comforting. I don't know why. Maybe it's because he's pitiful, but there's still a lot of joy there, which makes you realise that life can still be funny and good even if you hit a low.

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

Let's not forget his little patch of being knowingly miserable in the last episode though. It adds a decent slice of gravity to the show as a whole, and it isn't so excessive that it becomes a detractor at all. I love it when shows give you fleeting little glimpses to a more grounded, actual version of the events taking place.

I think it's quite similar to Blackadder in a some respects, the above included. A guy who thinks bizarrely high of himself despite being despised or mocked or just generally a second class citizen to everyone he knows, a total bellend whose closest acquaintance is someone who he's stuck with but whom he treats with obnoxious superiority and disrespect. This also ties in with the aforementioned 15SH's final episode, where it would seem that a large portion of Vince's misery comes from the fact that Errol is having a lot of success with women.

The final episode also does the classic sitcom trick of introducing a character's parent to help shed light on why they are the way they are.

[Tiny Poster]

I'm not sure if I would call Vince pitiful, as he seems totally content with his lot in life. He has little grievances and irritations but he doesn't have any regrets or a tragic past, anything like that. He's happy enough with what he has.

[alan nagsworth]

His only grievance is that his life is very boring, which he tries to spice up by stealing other peoples' stories. That said, though, he still doesn't live in the past or actively dwell on it at all.

[phantom_power]

There is that great bit in the last episode when he is talking to one of Errol's groupies about some roadkill. The flippant way he tosses off "a squirrel, a badger, whatever you like" and "it lived, it died, whatever" is great

[BPFHAY]

Vince's internal dialogue when trying to impress the icy woman: "Use a big word. Something like Metropolis."
Vince: "Was it very busy out in the..."
*lift breaking down interrupts speech*

[BritishHobo]

There is that great bit in the last episode when he is talking to one of Errol's groupies about some roadkill. The flippant way he tosses off "a squirrel, a badger, whatever you like" and "it lived, it died, whatever" is great

In the same vein, there's the fact that he doesn't really mind shitting a load of money down the toilet by ripping up his plane ticket and missing his holiday, because ultimately he was able to make up a decent enough story about it.

[Serge]

Vince's internal dialogue when trying to impress the icy woman: "Use a big word. Something like Metropolis."
Vince: "Was it very busy out in the..."
*lift breaking down interrupts speech*

I love it that his first idea for a date is the chip shop.

[Bhazor]

Honestly the first time I saw it I thought I'd hate it. It looked like some dreary dark Ken Loach style comedy drama. It wasn't until Vince and Errol were being inaccurately abused for dragging a plough through a London estate that I realised what it was going for.

The radio series torrents seem to have been taken down again. Anyone else got a link. I used to have them myself like four computers ago before that fan site went down. They were completely different to the tv show but I still remember laughing till it hurt.

[Don_Preston]

"Jesus Christ, who made this pile of shit? Hang on Derek, hang on. Oh Jesus Christ, she's got the fish slice stuck in the wrong way round!"

"The rice, it bungs 'em up!"

[sick as a pike]

"Jesus Christ, who made this pile of shit? Hang on Derek, hang on. Oh Jesus Christ, she's got the fish slice stuck in the wrong way round!"

Real life dentist and actor Simon Godley there.
If I went to his practice I would like him to say the bit you quoted, while angrily rooting about in my mouth. I would find this amusing, rather than terrifying and astoundingly unprofessional.

[Bhazor]

Correction, found a functioning torrent for the radio series and 15 Minutes Misery. It also features the greatest summation of Sean Lock's work I've ever heard.

Slobodancovek at 2014-06-30 20:17 CET:

This is a good sitcom, but it doesn't change the fact that Sean Lock is an atheist cunt.

[amnesiac]

Correction, found a functioning torrent for the radio series and 15 Minutes Misery. It also features the greatest summation of Sean Lock's work I've ever heard.

sort me out! can you Dropbox it?

[Bhazor]

15 Storeys Torrent including TV series, radio series and 15 Minutes of Misery.

http://thepiratebay.mine.nu/torrent/9769132/Sean_Lock_-_15_Storeys_High_-_Comedy_-_Xvid_-_MP3_-_Slimoo

[amnesiac]

15 Storeys Torrent including TV series, radio series and 15 Minutes of Misery.

http://thepiratebay.mine.nu/torrent/9769132/Sean_Lock_-_15_Storeys_High_-_Comedy_-_Xvid_-_MP3_-_Slimoo

lol 6GB torrent!

15 Storeys High - S01 - E01 - The Sofa.avi
15 Storeys High - S01 - E02 - The Model.avi
15 Storeys High - S01 - E03 - Blue Rat.avi
15 Storeys High - S01 - E04 - Ice Queen.avi
15 Storeys High - S01 - E05 - Pool Kids.avi
15 Storeys High - S01 - E06 - Dead Swan.avi
15 Storeys High - S02 - E01 - Vince The Shirker.avi
15 Storeys High - S02 - E02 - Car Boot And Pigeon Shit.avi
15 Storeys High - S02 - E03 - The Holiday.avi
15 Storeys High - S02 - E04 - The Plough.avi
15 Storeys High - S02 - E05 - The Baby.avi
15 Storeys High - S02 - E06 - Errol's Women.avi
15 Storeys High - S02 - ESP - Writing 15 Storeys High.avi
Sean Lock - 15 Storeys High - S01 - E01 - The Entry Phone.mp3
Sean Lock - 15 Storeys High - S01 - E02 - The Dead Swan.mp3
Sean Lock - 15 Storeys High - S01 - E03 - Jolly Shopper.mp3
Sean Lock - 15 Storeys High - S01 - E04 - The New Sofa.mp3
Sean Lock - 15 Storeys High - S01 - E05 - The Sticky Patch.mp3
Sean Lock - 15 Storeys High - S02 - E01 - The Stolen Plough.mp3
Sean Lock - 15 Storeys High - S02 - E02 - Billy Two Nans.mp3
Sean Lock - 15 Storeys High - S02 - E03 - The Pigeon Lady.mp3
Sean Lock - 15 Storeys High - S02 - E04 - Decorating The Bathroom.mp3
Sean Lock - 15 Storeys High - S02 - E05 - Errol's Girlfriends.mp3
Sean Lock - Lockipedia.avi
Sean Lock - Purple Van Man.avi
Sean Lock's 15 Minutes Of Misery - S01 - E01.mp3
Sean Lock's 15 Minutes Of Misery - S01 - E02.mp3
Sean Lock's 15 Minutes Of Misery - S01 - E03.mp3
Sean Lock's 15 Minutes Of Misery - S01 - E04.mp3
Sean Lock's 15 Minutes Of Misery - S01 - E05.mp3
Sean Lock's 15 Minutes Of Misery - S01 - E06.mp3

I could d/l just the radio series via Azure but no point in being a tightwad!

[notjosh]

The line "That baker's a maniac!" from 15 Minutes of Misery has been stuck in my head for about ten years.

[Morrison Lard]

"Jesus Christ, who made this pile of shit? Hang on Derek, hang on. Oh Jesus Christ, she's got the fish slice stuck in the wrong way round!"

That's stuck with me for years, not sure I can even say "Jesus Christ" now without doing it in his style.

[Bhazor]

Having listened to the radio version for the first time in 8 years its really bizarre to see two radically different interpretations of the same material. The radio version really is played as a straight radio sitcom completely with wacky voices and audience laughter. Some material actually worked better this way. For example the Goldfinger sequence is a lot funnier on the radio version, whereas in the TV version the exact same scene came off like something you'd see in Blue Velvet. An old seemingly senile woman stripping in a dingily lit spartan bedroom with a young man who clearly just wants to leave.

The old Errol definitely wasn't as good though.

[Guy]

All the non-radio material in that torrent is commercially-available stuff, waving it about on here might not be such a magical idea.