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March 28, 2024, 10:54:42 PM

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Bah, Sigh: Nathan Barley - Series 2

Started by Neil, January 20, 2007, 10:04:30 AM

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Neil

Oof, we've heard (from people who wish not to be named, but who we're very grateful to for the info) that Nathan Barley series 2 looks like it is almost certainly going ahead.  So I guess that pretty much confirms what we were told about Will Adamsdale working on it (check the update down there that was posted on the 1st of December for a bit more info).  Any more details out there?  Any ideas about the suicide bombers movie/show?  waynecarr@gmail.com please.

And y'know, I apologise in advance for moaning about Barley yet again, I'm sure that's really quite annoying.  And the fan who can no longer abide the artists work can be a thunderously irritating thing, no doubt about it, and let's not pretend that there's no flip side to sycophancy... but you have to trust that I'm thoroughly uninterested in inhabiting either position, and am actually only interested in trying to figure out the problems with Morris' work, and in being honest on here about my analysis of it.  The point is, it's not actually about pissed-off 'why doesn't he remake TDT instead' whining.  In fact, next to none of that actually goes on among Morris fans, yet it's a constant gripe from a lot of those who seek to defend his later work, meanly casting the disillusionsed long-term fans as the ones who haven't progressed.  It's odd, though, because an updated version of TDT is a potentiality that I desperately don't want to occur.  As far as I'm concerned, Morris is well into his solo Alex Chilton years, and the last thing we need is for him and Iannucci to grab some younger vaguely-talented fanboys who've made a poor attempt to approximate their style (which reminds me, I'll get back to Barley in a second, and wasn't Time Trumpet a desperate load of old wank?) and then trot out a load of legacy-pissing nonsense which would effectively be their "In Space."  

One of the things I love about Victor Lewis-Smith is that I sense he knew he was starting to run out of things to say with his comedy, and decided to just knock it on the head, rather than trot out continually worsening material - TV Offal had some faults (thank goodness he didn't make that Gay Daleks spin-off series!), but on the whole it sent him out on a high.  And now he seems content to make some bloody great documentaries - and some bloody awful ones too, admittedly;  Keith Allen really is a useless self-satisifed prick who should just smug off, there can be no argument over this point, surely.  Anyway, I'm still thrilled that a whole section of the Radiophonic Workshop programme was given over to the late, great Delia Derbyshire, although it's a shame White Noise weren't so much as touched on.  And VLS has been a total god-send to us Jake Thackray fans over the last few years, helping to reignite and foster new interest in this mans wonderful music, by producing lovingly crafted radio and telly shows about him.  It's just a shame that these programmes  - and the precious archive footage that he dug out and broadcast - have been relegated to BBC4 instead of the first two channels.  

Anyway, Nathan Barley then, I hope it's infinitely better, obviously.  Sitcom was always something I desperately wanted to see Morris tackle, and I figured it would never happen, so I really do hope that the second series shows a huge improvement.  I think Barley did have some interesting ideas and concepts - particularly the catchphrases that you weren't actually meant to quote, you MySpace/IMDB eejits - but in general it showed a lack of understanding of sitcom as a format, or perhaps an inability to fully engage with it due to inexperience.  Also, Morris' parodies have, in recent years, become increasingly dependent on recognition.  In other words, they're no longer funny unless you know what's being referenced, and that was never true in the past...with Brass Eye in particular.  Morris' work used to be so densely-packed with gags that there were references and jokes you were only spotting for the first time years later.

This dependence on recognition, though, is something that's carved right through Barley like words through a stick of rock - I've become convinced that it's actually the shows main failing, I simply can't identify with Barleys - despite Morris and Brooker's panicky pre-broadcast assertions in the newspaper that 'Barley's exist everywhere.'  This makes the most common jibe lobbed at people who didn't like the show - namely 'bit too close to home, eh?/essentially you ARE Nathan Barley' very odd indeed.  In fact, to be honest, I think people who use derivations of that phrase to counter negative critism of Nathan Barley are actually revealing that they're very worried about the exact same accusation being levelled at them.  They're desperate to be in on the joke, fittingly enough given some of the themes in the show - this was exemplified by Kwame Kwei-Armah on Newsnight Review a week or two before the broadcast of the first episode (paraphrased):

Mark fucking Lawson: So, Kwame off of Casualty, did you get it?  
Kwame off of Casualty: I GOT IT!!!!!

So anyway, get in touch at waynecarr@gmail.com if you've got any more info.  Hopefully some craven bullying bitch from the show won't be trying to intimidate me in really nasty ways into not revealing massively spoileriffic stuff this time round like, gosh, the fact that the mirror in the hairdressers was actually a webcam and plasma screen!!  God knows that was a major plot point that justified the stressful threats, eh?  Heh, and another thing I'm admittedly still a tad bitter about is the amount of turds who accused me of not understanding the "cock/muff/bumhole" nonsense in the first episode.  Yes, it's designed to show how crass and banal The Idiots are, but you can't tell me that Morris and Brooker (chiefly the latter, I suspect, as his material denotes an obsession with bodily functions - particularly ejaculation - that approaches Russell Brand levels) weren't also playing it for laughs with the rotten "guff up my muff" nonsense.  Again, though, this seems to have been included almost solely to make catchphrase quoters look like tools.  That aside, you have to look at the actual material as well, rather than just the intention.  

It's weird, in fact, that people are so quick to take things at ironic value these days, if that makes sense.  This is something that's helping to keep Ricky Gervais afloat, despite him being the absolute textbook example of a one-hit wonder.  He's always had a fondness for easy (and frankly distasteful and unamusing) playground-level bully-boy humour, but in The Office he managed to largely suppress and disguise this predeliction behind decent characterisation, so it seemed like he was actually trying to make a point with it.  From then on, though, he's barely been arsed to disguise the fact that he's probably got a shelf full of Bernard Manning videos.  Just look at Extras, it's a different minority wheeled in every week, solely for the purpose of making cheap gags at the expense of that which defines them as a minority.  It's just tedious, really.  Boring, formulaic, suspiciously one-note (particularly in terms of the amount of homophobia present, and that very much goes for his oeuvre in general) and tedious.  People continue to defend it though, chiefly with a phrase that was generally limited to the twattiest type of student a few years ago, when they were forced to explain why they were wearing a Bagpuss backpack despite being 17 years old..."It's clearly IRONIC!"  This - along with hateful pricks like Lucas and Walliams - is sadly dragging British comedy, and British culture in general along with it - into a post-PC era.  And because of this thin smear of irony acting as a shield, don't expect to see the newspapers getting as annoyed at Lucas' "Ting Tong Macadangdang" or Walliams' "Ching Chong Chinaman" shit as they are at "Shilpa poppadom" any time soon.  The clever thing about the irony defence is that it allows the person using it to feel smarter than the person they're shrieking it at.  It brings to mind Derren Brown, he's brilliant at hinting at his tricks being based round NLP as a form of misdirection, and this works largely because it flatters those who fall for it.  They get to feel clever by loudly spluttering the term "Neuro-linguistic programming", but meanwhile they're missing how the trick actually works.  It's the same with the likes of Gervais and Lucas and Walliams...sometimes a racial slur/stereotype isn't satirical or ironic in intent at all.  Sometimes it's just cheap and nasty playground shit.

And if - in this post-PC era - the new alternative is supposed to be comprised of the likes of The Boosh, or Russell Brand, or John Oliver, or Richard Ayoade, or Matt Holness, then, well, if you don't know how to use Bit Torrent, you'd better figure it out toot-sweet.

Back to Morris though, he, like British comedy itself, also lacks true anger these days, the sense of him thumping his desk and resolving to fucking well do something about it, whatever it is, has been lost, along with the joyful silliness he used to mix it with.  Instead, a vein of despair and depression runs through his work now, most obviously in Blue Jam where it set the whole tone.  But it doesn't just colour his work, it's consuming it.  Where - to use an admittedly irritating Comedy Chat cliche - are the jokes?  This navel-gazing mopey middle-aged angst is beyond tiresome now, and a poor substitute for the old anger/passion-driven material mixed with extreme silliness that he rightfully built his reputation on... the same reputation that obscures the true merits of his work for some now, journalists in particular.  Blue Jam was the point where he started the belly-flop into deep, deep averageness, the first two series' being wonderfully constructed and vital pieces of work, and the third rapidly becoming largely predictable and formulaic.  It was also the first time he comprehensively ripped the arse out of a concept, spreading it over every format imagineable, stopping just short of adapting his increasingly po-faced comedy to zoetropes and baby mobiles.

So yes, it bears repeating, even though those of you it's aimed at will just ignore it when the show hits the air anyway:  Hope it's a really bloody funny and enjoyable sitcom, and that lessons have been learnt from the first series (and the pilot, which is actually much, much better, albeit still laugh-deficient.)  Fingers crossed, eh?

Right, enough of this aimless caffeine-fuelled ranting for now, would love to hear your opinions as usual...back soon with more downloady bits.

Slaaaaabs

Brilliant stuff. Most of it is spot on, though I do find myself chuckling at Russell Brand occasionally (when he isn't being so self aware and catchphrasey) and Time Trumpet wasn't THAT bad.

Ching-chong chinaman? Is this something from Little Britain abroad? I don't recognise it.

Slaaaaabs

Quote from: "Chris Chopping"Ching-chong chinaman? Is this something from Little Britain abroad? I don't recognise it.

It was the hilarious university secretary who would call the lecturer to find out if they were free to talk to a lesbian/fat bloke/midget/chinese person.

Neil

Yeah, and I mean, with stuff like that you just can't state that it's actually ironic or satirical, particularlly given the surrounding material.  It's not as if they're aiming for high-concept sketches when in series 2 they have a woman who vomits, and then in series 3 they make a whole new innovative character by turning the vomit jet 90 degrees and filling it with piss instead.

Egyptian Feast

Great post, Neil. I must admit, I liked Nathan Barley (though it is by far the least interesting thing Morris has ever done), but I really don't think it warranted a second series. Re-watching the first series recently was a bit of a chore, whereas I could watch TDT, Brass Eye or even Jam endless amounts of times. By the final episode, the only character I wanted to see any more of was Jonatton Yeah?, and there's not very much more you could do with a character like that. One of the keys to a successful sitcom is that, despite their flaws and twattish behaviour, you actually like the main characters enough to want to see them again and again (the perfect example being Seinfeld). I was happy to see the back of Nathan, Dan and Claire at the end of series one, and I don't look forward to seeing them again. I imagine they'll have to make a number casting changes anyway, so continuity will be fucked. Somehow, I can't see Ben Wishaw returning to such a thankless role after his success with Perfume, but why would anyone else in the cast want to revisit these characters?

I can't see this working. If it is going ahead, hopefully it will be much better, but I can't imagine what else can be done with the characters. Morris and Brooker have made their point, they should move on to something else. Not a retread of TDT, Brass Eye or Jam, just something else.

Pinball

I'd have preferred a second series of IT Crowd. Is that happening? As Ayoade is remaking IT Crowd in the US, presumably it wouldn't happen for some time.

As for Barley S2, well yes this is bad news. I just hope it's funnier, because, well, call me old-fashioned, but funny is what I want out of comedy. You'd think that in the current era there were enough targets for satire without needing Barley-type shite, particularly given how little satire there is now (in the UK at least). I'd also like to see Morris acting a bit more. At the least, couldn't he do some radio specials, or even just a podcast? I can just see the MP3 uploading frenzy now :-)

Derek Trucks

Bollocks, did I miss a documentary about the Radiophonic Workshop?  I just got WN's An Electric Storm and am stuggling to work out where I've heard 'Here Come the Fleas' before.

TJ

Quote from: "Derek Trucks"Bollocks, did I miss a documentary about the Radiophonic Workshop?  I just got WN's An Electric Storm and am stuggling to work out where I've heard 'Here Come the Fleas' before.

If you've ever heard any old Kenny Everett radio shows, he uses it for jingles and the like quite a lot.

IT Crowd series 2 is definitely happening, as is a new run of Screen Wipe, and I'm looking forward to both of them much more than I am Barley (although I really, really do want that to surprise me by being great).

Neil

What I've seen of Screen Wipe has been enjoyable, which is surprising as his print/internet work has never done anything for me at all.  Actually, I've been downloading The Wire off Emule all week as he went on about it  being so good.  Have to try and make more of an effort with TV and comedy this year, but there's always soooo much music to listen to.

Derek, you were in my CD Tree ring, weren't you?!  I think I had it on my disc...I know I definitely put The United States Of America's "I Won't Leave My Wooden Wife For You, Sugar" on there, which is one of my all-time favourite songs - and I would tend to bundle it on there with it.  I definitely put it on one of my latest CD Tree discs anyway, as part of a 3 or 4 song insect suite.  It's WONDERFUL.

Derek Trucks

Funnily enough I've found out it was on Phil A's disc, no surprise really as it's perfect for 2 mins. on a CD mix.

Brutus Beefcake

To be honest I've never really had a problem with the "ching chong chinaman" line as the joke of the sketch was clearly how nasty and insensitive the woman was.  The same can't be said for their later stuff unfortunately.

Glebe

Nathan Barley kind of felt like a one off thing to me, not that I couldn't imagine any more series!

thugler

I liked the last episode, I thought it was just finding it's feet when it ended, so maybe this new series will get better.

Artemis

Excellent, articulate article, Neil. It pretty much sums up where I'm at with a lot of Nathan Barley. I did find the first series intermittently funny but in a way that didn't require my attention, if that makes sense. It was lazy comedy you could enjoy at the end of the day without thinking 'I'm going to have to watch this again when I'm more awake - I can tell I'm missing out on the best of this' like you could with most of Morris' previous works.

I'm always a bit bemused that champions of Barley can't see that the "You don't get it" argument equates to a far more linear assessment of the show then long-term Morris fans usually give. It's not that I don't get 'cock/muff/bumhole' is a tool to show the vacuous nature of The Idiots, it's that I understand that and still think it's crass, obvious material Morris is, or certainly was, capable of transcending.

There seems to be a negative correlation between shows about which people say "You don't get it" and poor comedy. Any literate, well-adjusted adult understands full well the Ricky Gervais 'exploration of uncomfortable situations' and 'it ironically points the finger at the racist' arguments, but to disagree that this is what he's doing (either consciously or subconsciously in the example of RG) seems to play into the hands of his fans, who'll thoughtlessly trot out the "You don't get it" line once more, refusing to progress the argument while simultaneously accusing the rest of us of doing the same thing. It's infuriating.

Egyptian Feast

Quote from: "Artemis"I did find the first series intermittently funny but in a way that didn't require my attention, if that makes sense. It was lazy comedy you could enjoy at the end of the day without thinking 'I'm going to have to watch this again when I'm more awake - I can tell I'm missing out on the best of this' like you could with most of Morris' previous works.

Exactly. The Day Today and Brass Eye demand repeated viewings, as there's so much going on, it's easy to miss a lot the first time when there are tears in your eyes. Nathan Barley, if anything, gets worse with repeated viewing. I liked it when I watched it initially, but there's not enough there to demand even a second viewing. I thought the criticism of the programme on here was a little extreme when I first watched it, but now I agree with a lot of it. I don't think it's a bad programme, but it's a depressingly slight work for Morris. I really don't understand why he would want to revisit it, unless he's just being contrary.

As a previous poster said, I hope this is a smokescreen for something really innovative he's working on. Sadly, I doubt it.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Maybe this news itself is a smokescreen for something genuinely newsworthy.

Neil

Just to expand briefly on the Big Star/Chilton parallel I'm drawing with Morris...you do have this situation where an artist will eventually become established - and older.  And then a bunch of young people who've been influenced by this aging artist will come through.

The problem I have is when the influenced artists meet the person who has influenced them.  More than that, it's when they start working with them.   Even worse is when they start working with them before they've had a chance to develop a voice of their own.

The most obvious example here is probably Richard Ayoade.  Him and Holness have been massively influenced by the mid-90's British comedy we all love so much - and hell, you can't hold that against them.  The problem, though, is that they've singularily failed to do anything of worth with this influence.  Ayoade's one over-riding career goal seems to have been to work with Morris, which he now does in a couple of sitcoms.  If you look at his actual comedy output, though, it's still completely and utterly in the shadow of mid'90's comedy - specifically Partridge.  Holness and Ayoade are extremely regressive and safe, they've used their influences as a crutch rather than a spring-board.

I know I'm bordering on some particularly horrible fan sentiments here, ones I'd usually keep well away from as it can understandably seem self-serving, but it is a very real problem.  Chllton showed the heights he could scale with some brief help from Roger McGuinn and a love of The Byrds:  The Ballad Of El Goodo, god damn it!  The Posies have been made the next link in that influence chain, though, and they have failed to earn the place they've been given in the band they loved so much.  And now, they've dragged that band down with them.  The Fannies had a much better grasp on why Big Star were so fucking good, but any collaboration between them and Chilton has been fleeting - maybe for the best, as they're really getting into old man art territory now, much like Morris and Iannucci (does Iannucci really think Justin Lee Collins is a worthwhile target?  Really?  Do him and Morris sit around in cafe's moaning about Justin Lee Collins and Vernon Kay?  Fucking hell.)

I'm simultaneously nervous and hopeful about Will Adamsdale because of this kind of thing.  Perhaps - unlike with Stephen Merchant - Morris and Brooker have met someone with a truly original artistic vision that they can use to heighten and refresh their own.  I really bloody hope so.

You could  - and should - shoult "Why Bother?" at me here, but Morris absolutely earned the right to share studio time with his hero.  His interview with the late lamented Publish & Bedazzled also showed a deep appreciation and understanding of Cook's talents.  All of these factors contribute towards making Why Bother? such a success.


EDIT:  Robyn Hitchcock, there's a perfect example of someone who understood the essence of what made the object of his fandom great - and his work is shot through with that influence, but he took the essence and used it to progress his own art, and came up with stuff that you couldn't simply write off as 'sub-Syd'.

Beagle 2

Whether you think you "got" the point of Nathan Barley or not, whether you thought it was a point that was made well or one worth making at all, surely it's been made now. I really can't see what else they could do with the limitations of the narrow subject matter, unless of course there's going to be big changes in the focus of the show. Just six more of the same would seem to be a supremely pointless venture, especially as much of the criticism of the first show stemmed from the fact that they seemed to have difficulty stretching the concept over three hours of television.

Sadness

Really good read Neil but for me you shoot yourself in the "perfection" foot by resorting to silly personal attacks on individuals.

Why? Why ruin an extremely articulate piece of writing with "Keith Allen really is a useless self-satisifed prick who should just smug off" and "This - along with hateful pricks like Lucas and Walliams...."

Leave that kind of rhetoric to us, when we're pissed.

Otherwise a B+.....

Lonsvbes1

Sorry for this post.

[TONS OF SPAM REMOVED]

Thanks. Sorry.

Neil

Fucking spamming cunts.  I installed image verification for this part of the forum so I could turn on guest posting again, but these spam bots are even getting past that.  More research and dicking about required, I suppose.

Jo

I disagree with about 90% of your article (I very much so agree with being the bit slagging off Lucas and Walliams...wastes of space).  I won't bother going into my reasons for liking Nathan Barley (as I'm sure they will be disregarded) but I felt at least 1 person should defend the show.  I think comedy shouldn't be taken too seriously. They're jokes.

P.S. Comparing Charlie Brooker to Russell Brand is like comparing flowers to dog shit.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuoteI think comedy shouldn't be taken too seriously. They're jokes.

Unless they don't work, and then your attitude gets spread over the whole industry resulting in shows one after the other with jokes that don't work. Then it's something that worth rallying against.

rudi

QuoteI think comedy shouldn't be taken too seriously. They're jokes.

Yeah, I feel that way about art. It's only paint, innit?

Jo

Quote from: "rudi"
QuoteI think comedy shouldn't be taken too seriously. They're jokes.

Yeah, I feel that way about art. It's only paint, innit?

:)  that was funny. well done.

I will add - what I mean is, can't NB be appreciated on a different level to his ealier work? Sort of a sliding scale of comedy?  I mean, compared to most "comedy" on tv lately it's still much more interesting.

I suppose if you don't find it funny that won't change so I am wasting my time! Possibly that's why there were no other pro-NB comments on here. People have tried and given up!

Pah.

Norman

Hi Jo, I also found Nathan Barley funny...

Examples?

- Bad To Have A Bad Uncle
- 15 Peter 20.
- Jonnaton Yeah?
- Scissors In The cat's head / Kevin Eldon's performance.
- Terrorists Are Gay
- Projecting shithead on the forehead
- Tramp betting
- Junkie Choir
- Pingu's Andrew Marr computer game
- Heterosexual toilet trading.
- Nathan's seduction rap.

All of these moments and plenty more made me giggle and still do. I personally cannot wait to see a second series of NB.

Yes, there were average moments in the show, as there were in Brass Eye / Jam etc.

Being from the north of England / working class background, the whole trendy Hoxton 'send up' also meant nothing to me, but it didn't stop me laughing out loud.

Also, I champion Morris / Brooker for writing a brother-sister relationship, a totally underexplored dynamic in comedy/drama, other than the sitcom 'Nearest And Dearest' or the film 'You Can Count On Me', I cannot think of many other examples of this.

rudi

QuotePossibly that's why there were no other pro-NB comments on here. People have tried and given up!

Or possibly they registered and posted in the Comedy Chat forum instead...?

Although, if you do think

Quotecomedy shouldn't be taken too seriously.

it might not be the forum for you!

There's a smashing General Forum in there though.

Come on in, the water's lovely (I've just weed in it).

No name given. Nada.

Oh come on, did you really just spend all that time typing that out because you didn't like a TV show?

Maybe you weren't the target audience. Maybe Morris and Brooker wanted to go for a different audience to their normal ones. Testing themselves. Seeing if they can bridge that gap.

I like how you've decided to try and nullify the comment "Maybe you didn't get it" by calling it out in your own text. Great.

Well, maybe you didn't get it? Could be why you're so damn upset about it. You think you know Morris and Brooker better than they know themselves.

The show itself wasn't perfect but it was a damn good comment on today's society and the people in it.

Milo

Quote from: "No name given. Nada."The show itself wasn't perfect but it was a damn good comment on today's society and the people in it.

What did it say about today's society and the people in it? I only ask because the show didn't appear to have the slightest connection to society as I experience it or people I've met.