Guardian: Totally Mexico! How the Nathan Barley nightmare came true

[Big Jack McBastard]

I watched it a second time about 3 years back and was pleasantly surprised, I also remember all the shit it got here when it was airing, I only managed to catch a couple of them when they were on so, don't think I got a good enough measure of it then. Might have another look now I think.

[thecuriousorange]

The only people who now like Nathan Barley are the very hipsters it intended to mock.

So the same as Dan Ashcroft's Rise of the Idiots article aaaaahhhh.

[DJ One Record]

Oddly enough, I was reading through some of those old Nathan Barley threads this week, and a lot of the complaints at the time seemed to stem from narrative issues - characters acting inconsistently, characters making contrived decisions, a lack of decent payoffs for ideas, and a general lack of subtlety throughout. With that in mind, I found these parts of the article particularly illuminating:

Rather than scripting a series, they created characters with the actors in seemingly endless workshops, then built stories for six episodes around Nathan, the jaded hack Dan Ashcroft – played by Julian Barratt of The Mighty Boosh — plus his bad-tempered film director sister Claire (Claire Keelan) and the nightmarish editor Jonatton Yeah?, played by Charlie Condou. The work was so piecemeal and unstructured that even the actors didn't know what was really happening.

"I remember asking Richard Ayoade [who played arch-idiot Ned Smanks], Have we got this? Are we actually doing it?" says Condou, who later found more mainstream fame as Coronation Street's Marcus Dent. "He had no idea and nor did I."

Was this process public knowledge at the time? Only it explains a lot. People were theorising that Morris was alien to the requirements of sitcom structure, but it's always struck me that any attempt to forge a sitcom narrative primarily out of actor-generated material is likely to struggle to resolve in a satisfyingly coherent whole, from early-Home Movies to PhoneShop.

[Hollow]

I always thought it was good...couldn't understand the level of vitriol that got heaped on it here, it always struck me as a triumph in so far as it managed to piss a LOT of people off.

[Guy]

Who did it piss off Hollow? Might as well complete the insinuation.

[Hollow]

Media types, Morris fans for not being amazing, Brooker fans for selling the character short...lots.

[Guy]

And that's triumphant is it?

[Mr Banlon]

About 20 years back, I used to do some printing for i-D magazine. They'd do collaborations with various fashion companies and have limited edition i-D/designer shirts done. One of their designs (their own, not a collaboration) was i-D logo on a white t-shirt with an invisible 'blue flash' overlay. The 'blue flash' was invisible to the naked eye, but when you went under UV light (as in a club) it would read 'iDiot' (hilarious) Anyway, unlike most clients, the i-D lot came down on the print-floor and would try and get hands on with the whole process. "Oh I did a bit of screening at uni." Yeah, well you try doing it ten fucking hours a day with gobshite trustafarians looking over your shoulder.
It wasn't so much them sticking their noses into what was going on, it was when they were talking amongst themselves about stuff in the background. Fuck me, the inane bollocks they'd talk about. And the name-dropping was off the chart.
Nathan Barley hasn't come true really. There were people just as unbearable as the Sugar Ape crowd at least ten years before it aired.

[Hollow]

And that's triumphant is it?

Maybe it is...maybe not...lol.

It was a good series with something to say about a very banal, empty group of people...prescient.

[13 schoolyards]

Oddly enough, I was reading through some of those old Nathan Barley threads this week, and a lot of the complaints at the time seemed to stem from narrative issues - characters acting inconsistently, characters making contrived decisions, a lack of decent payoffs for ideas, and a general lack of subtlety throughout. With that in mind, I found these parts of the article particularly illuminating:

Was this process public knowledge at the time? Only it explains a lot. People were theorising that Morris was alien to the requirements of sitcom structure, but it's always struck me that any attempt to forge a sitcom narrative primarily out of actor-generated material is likely to struggle to resolve in a satisfyingly coherent whole, from early-Home Movies to PhoneShop.

The 40 minute pilot on the DVD collection avoids pretty much all of the narrative / character problems and works really well as a stand-alone piece. And then it was chopped up to make parts of various episodes (Dan's haircut was one of the segments re-used in a different context), none of which worked quite as well.

It felt in some ways like making the pilot was Morris' main interest, then they just threw in various odds and ends to stretch it out into a series.

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

For Nathan Barley, Morris seems most focussed on, and interested in world building.  There's tons of material and ideas that could have easily been presented in the documentary/news style we were more familiar with, but instead were presented as a canvas for the stories.  He stumbles with the characters and narrative, which become somewhat lost in the labyrinth of his densely packed satire of pop culture.

[thraxx]

I enjoyed it at the time and think it gets better at repeat viewing - in the same way that something like The Thick of It does - some many of lines are superb and easily missed:  "Fat arms", "I had this fitted by Gavin Plemmy... Is something brilliant happening?"  "I easily rated that as the best thing I ever read...".   

Some of the set pieces are fantastic:  The TV Pitch, The Interview for the Sunday Supplement, Straight on Straight Builders, Doug Rocket and whoever said that they managed to condense years of media experience into one or two lines said by a character is spot on.  Then you have all the media stuff that surrounds it.  Sugar Ape, Banksy, Tory Party Conference, Doug Rocket's videos, 15Peter Twenty's art and so on...  It's hard to think of a sitcom that has a richer universe.

On the other hand a lot of the acting is a bit ropey:  I liked the characters, but felt Condou and Pete20 could have made a fist than they did.  Looking back some of the other set pieces just seem plain bad and too long:  The Preacher Man (When I watch it I still wonder why they dew it out so long), The Bikes Screening and the club bit at the beginning of the same episode.

Something I thought at the time is that it wasn't helped The Office, because it isn't as good as that and I always thought that Brent and Barley are quite similar characters in terms of their status and attitude, and their mannerisms and speech are so similar.  I'm sure that Burns lifted a lot from Brent.

Living in London at the time, I totally got what it was about and at times felt that it was a programme specifically written about my life some of the shoreditch twats that I knew.

As for 'it's a Morris tinged' production - I'd never even heard of Brooker at the time and watched it only because of Morris' involvement.  I wouldn't have watched it otherwise, and I was so pleased to have that introduction to Brookers who from about 2003-2008 was in his peak period.

[Noodle Lizard]

=
Something I thought at the time is that it wasn't helped The Office, because it isn't as good as that and I always thought that Brent and Barley are quite similar characters in terms of their status and attitude, and their mannerisms and speech are so similar.  I'm sure that Burns lifted a lot from Brent.

I don't see the resemblance personally.  Despite being a twat, Barley is popular and does always win, whereas Brent is unpopular and deep down he knows it.  I don't really see any similarities in their mannerisms either, at least none that jumped out at me.  I see more of a similarity between Dan Ashcroft and Tim, but even then that's just a fairly archetypical "straight man amongst the madness" role (see also Michael Bluth).

Wasn't Stephen Merchant a script consultant on Nathan Barley though?  There are definitely a few things with the Dan Ashcroft character especially that feel a bit Merchanty (the job interview in the first episode, for instance).

[stranger]

I've recently re-watched this, like many others evidently, and found myself enjoying it more than I remember when it first aired. It's not perfect by any means, but it's certainly not a write-off.

Thraxx has covered most of the highlights, although personally I enjoyed the club scene in the Preacher Man episode, at least the start of it anyway. The "meet Thomas, my drug dealer" line, the dancer in full scuba diving gear and the one dressed as a beekeeper tickled me perhaps more than they should have.

The Andrew Marr / Labour Party Conference game in the final episode was inspired too.

I don't see the resemblance personally.  Despite being a twat, Barley is popular and does always win, whereas Brent is unpopular and deep down he knows it.  I don't really see any similarities in their mannerisms either, at least none that jumped out at me. 

I picked up a few Brentisms (eurgh, apologies) in Nathan's character when I watched it, before I saw this thread. This exchange between Nathan and Pingu in particular is pure Brent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06AS8SiY3rw&t=6m59s

[Noodle Lizard]

I picked up a few Brentisms (eurgh, apologies) in Nathan's character when I watched it, before I saw this thread. This exchange between Nathan and Pingu in particular is pure Brent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06AS8SiY3rw&t=6m59s

What song is that?!  I've been meaning to find out ever since I first watched it.

EDIT: Never mind, finally found it.  It's this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3D8w_YCbbc

[great_badir]

I gave up after the first episode when it originally aired.  I had another go recently as 4OD had the whole series on there.  I got about 10 minutes into episode 3 and had to bail again.

My problem with it is that the characters are SO well observed and written, that they are all totally annoying and unlikable.  But not in a "hahaha - they're such idiots" way.  I mean PROPERLY annoying and unlikable, to the point where I just can't watch it.

[Ambient Sheep]

That was one of my main problems with it too.