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October 01, 2023, 07:58:56 PM

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Call Jonathan Pie - Centrist Dad Feel Good Comedy

Posted in Comedy Chat
September 22, 2023, 07:17:27 PM
Written by Consignia
Views: 4764
It's been slim pickings for radio 4 comedy at the moment, so I've had scrape the bottom of the BBC sounds barrel for things to listen during my runs. And the gunk coming into my eats is Call Jonathan Pie. Extending the YouTube character to a radio show.

The set up is a bit like Down The Line, except they don't have material to do something like that, so we get the bits of the behind scenes so we hear Pie talking to his crew during the travel etc. It's broadly topical; I think it's running on Radio 4 at the moment, but was fully released a couple of months ago on BBC Sounds. So the topics are broadbrush.

I think what makes it so nauesting to listen to, is that the whole set up is set with Pie being right everything. His centrist views, that both sides of the political divide are as bad as each other, that middle is the one true way, are constantly affirmed. All the callers are strawmen who exist purely to galvanise his points. His assistants also play into this. Pie is occasionally humilated, but only because he's ultimately right. There's no playful characters like Down the Line. And the swearing becomes a tad juvenile at times. It's not completely without laughs, but it's threadbare.

Anyone else listened to this? I feel it may be deliberatly poorly promoted, so I wouldn't be surprised.

68 Comments

Is Stand-Up in the English-Speaking World Increasingly Conservative?

Posted in Comedy Chat
September 18, 2023, 07:03:48 PM
Written by tribalfusion
Views: 3003
This idea, which would have seemed odd not all that long ago, has gained more currency in recent years in the United States, in particular, but also more than one might imagine in the rest of the English-speaking world.

There are many ways to interpret 'conservative' certainly, so feel free to discuss that. In any case, it's a question that I find intriguing and disturbing as well.

Some of you may recall a thread I started a while back about left-wing comedians as well. It was noteworthy that virtually all the suggestions for left-wing comedians were of veterans that had been around for quite some time. Almost no one mentioned any avowedly left-wing comedians who had emerged in the past 5 or even 10 years.

Among other things, in the UK, I think the tepid political characteristics (I'm being generous) of the comedy scene, were highlighted by the various responses (and lack thereof in many cases) to the Corbyn slander campaign, with very few noteworthy exceptions like Alexei Sayle and Josie Long. Even CAB favorite James Acaster said some rather obtuse things politically during that period of time, to say nothing of some of the other liberal stalwarts.

More generally, people like Russell Brand, Louis CK and Dave Chappelle have become various shades of putrid, and they are not alone of course.

Of course, many comedians are 'socially liberal', as the saying goes, however that's very thin gruel and I wonder about some general tendencies in the stand-up world moving forward.








37 Comments

'Mystery' C4 Dispatches special [merged]

Posted in Comedy Chat
September 15, 2023, 04:30:40 PM
Written by jazzy_sabotage
Views: 108033
Channel 4 have scheduled a 90 min long Dispatches special with no announced subject yet for Saturday night. Rumour mill's been turning a bit about this over the past day or so.

Could be related to a "big story" that the Sunday Times are also supposedly dropping, could be an apparent exposé of many prominent late 80s/90s/00s comedy types for Me Too-adjacent sleaze and other wrongness.

Or it could just be an overdue final death knell for Dan Wootton by the mainstream. Who knows?

1918 Comments

Chris Morris interviews Gigerenzer about AI

Posted in Chris Morris
July 13, 2023, 03:09:27 AM
Written by muddybug
Views: 3628
A digital event hosted by World Ethical Data Forum

"Staying smart In A Smart World: How Do We Think About This Computerised World We Live In?"

From October of 2022

https://vimeo.com/773358982/1c95287c88

8 Comments

White Woman's Instagram

Posted in Comedy Chat
May 30, 2023, 11:31:51 PM
Written by Barry Admin
Views: 19804
Jesus Christ, it's really fucking brilliant, isn't it?


It just struck me a few weeks ago how insanely good it was, and I had an urge to watch it again now. Lots of stuff I'd never fully appreciated before or which just flew past me like "may contain wine", "Beyonce is my spirit animal", a bobblehead of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

"Latte foam art... tiny pumpkins... fuzzy, comfy socks"

It's just so on the nose, I adore it.

118 Comments

CM gives opening address at medical conference - May 2023

Posted in Chris Morris
May 18, 2023, 02:58:53 PM
Written by Bad Ambassador
Views: 17903
https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/special/lmcs-conferences/chris-morris-100-of-patients-would-rather-see-their-gp-than-therese-coffey/

Spoiler alert
I'm just here to sort of fill in at the start of the day to pad the day out, because there's not much going on. Steve Barclay seems to have sorted out the crisis in general practice by deciding that you can't have a crisis in general practice if general practice doesn't exist.

He also seems to realise that you can tell patients anything because he's not going to be here in 18 months to carry the can. In fact, Wes Streeting is going to have to do that. He's going to have to answer to the service, which will at that time be carried out by Superdrug and children with stethoscopes.

Katie phoned me up and she said, 'Hello, I'm Katie Bramall-Stainer [UK LMCs Conference chair], and I think that Matt Hancock should have his eyes pulled out through Andrew Lansley's arse'. She said, 'I'm chairing the LMC conference and you will be saying a few words at the start.'

And I said, 'Okay, but really, what can I usefully say to a room full of doctors? I don't know anything that they don't know. I can't do that. I'm like a Harley Street GP, I'm not properly qualified.'

She said to say something about being a patient from a patient's point of view. And I said, 'Well, okay, I still consider myself quite lucky because I hardly ever go to the doctor. I don't really feel like a patient.' Which was true at the start of the call.

Three hours later, I had ruptured eardrums. A nosebleed. I felt dizzy. I felt faint. I had stabbing chest pains. Breathlessness. It was very much like the time I phoned Babylon and they diagnosed trigger thumb.

Actually, I should say I'm worse than under-qualified to speak to you, because both of my parents were GPs. So my idea of your job is that all you have to do is say, 'Leave it alone, and it'll get better.'

I grew up in a rural practice in the early 1960s. The surgery was in the house, the practice phone rang in the kitchen. It was 24/7 care. At that point, it was a stressful life. My parents' standing orders – what they were paying out – was greater than their combined income, and across the country practices were dropping like flies. It was before The Family Doctor Charter of 1965. Of course, I understood very little about the stress of general practice at that stage, I was two. So one day, on a Sunday, everyone in church got some idea, because when the communion bell rang, I shouted out, 'Bloody phone!'.

So why am I
...

Read More

13 Comments

Paul Garner interview (video)

Posted in Chris Morris
February 21, 2023, 11:16:41 AM
Written by Mobbd
Views: 6098
Sorry if this has already been posted but I couldn't see it.

Paul Garner interview from two months ago:


He talks about writing for CM and the airport Tannoy pranks, etc.

(Ginger Beard Mark does a nice interview, actually. He's done other favourites like Stewart Lee, Kunt and the Gang, Paul Putner et al)

4 Comments

Current US Mainstream TV Comedy

Posted in Comedy Chat
December 09, 2022, 12:10:35 PM
Written by dissolute ocelot
Views: 17624
I was wondering what were the big comedies in the USA just now and whether any have made it to British TV. In the past the UK has seen a lot of big American shows from the 80s and 90s such as Friends, Cheers, Roseanne, and Frasier. More recently, Big Bang Theory is inescapable on E4 and Modern Family was a hit on Sky and is now on some part of the C4 network. Other shows like The Office, and Everybody Loves Raymond are at least known here, even if they've not had the same Channel 4, 9 pm, Friday Night prominence.

But what are Americans watching now? I found a Variety most-watched broadcast TV comedy list from earlier this year:

1 Young Sheldon (CBS)
2 Ghosts (CBS)
3 The Neighborhood (CBS)
4 Bob Hearts Abishola (CBS)
5 United States of Al (CBS)
6 B Positive (CBS)
7 Young Sheldon - repeats (CBS)
8 The Conners (ABC)
9 Abbott Elementary (ABC)
10 The Neighborhood - repeats (CBS)

Hmmm.

I've a soft spot for Young Sheldon which is on E4 in the UK; it's not hilarious but it's well-made, inventive, sometimes touching, sometimes pleasantly off-beat.

You may know Ghosts (the remake) and The Conners (Roseanne Without The Racist). I've never seen The Neighbourhood, a fish-out-of-water sitcom where Max "New Girl" Greenfield and Beth "2 Broke Girls" Behrs move next door to Cedric the Entertainer; it's apparently on E4 too. Bob Hearts Abishola is a Chuck "every comedy you hate" Lorre show about a businessman who falls in love with a Nigerian immigrant nurse. United States of Al is about an Afghan immigrant. B Positive is another Chuck Lorre show and apparently has something to do with a kidney transplant but the Wikipedia synopsis makes no sense.

I notice a lot of these shows are about race, which is interesting. And Chuck Lorre (still only a youthful 70) is still king.

So. What is the current state of American network TV comedy? Are any of these shows worth watching? What do they tell us about America? Is all American comedy fishes-out-of-water? Is Chuck Lorre a misunderstood genius?

36 Comments
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