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Frankie Boyle's New World Order

Started by Jockice, May 20, 2018, 02:42:06 PM

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biggytitbo

Quote from: Dr Rock on May 22, 2018, 10:27:49 AM
I can't remember, did he do any jokes about the Tories - you know, the ones who are actually in power?

Maybe, but the BBC probably 'cut them out', like everything else.

In 2010, Boyle wrote an angry letter to the BBC complaining that they'd cut two small jokes about Palestine out of something he was in on the radio. Here, on his own prime time tv show with his name above the lights, he claims they cut out his entire routine about Gaza, and just shrugs it off.

Something has changed.

Cold Meat Platter

If he has been told he wasn't going to be censored falsely then he must quit surely? What's the point in writing satire if your perceived agenda can be decided by editing?

Ignatius_S

Quote from: biggytitbo on May 22, 2018, 11:47:30 AM
Maybe, but the BBC probably 'cut them out', like everything else.

In 2010, Boyle wrote an angry letter to the BBC complaining that they'd cut two small jokes about Palestine out of something he was in on the radio. Here, on his own prime time tv show with his name above the lights, he claims they cut out his entire routine about Gaza, and just shrugs it off.

Something has changed.

Not true.

That open letter by Boyle was about the BBC Trust upholding a complaint about the jokes that had been broadcast. Nothing had been excised from the show.

As previously discussed, there is other form when complaints were upheld – e.g. Mock The Week and Rebecca Addison, something he returned to years later.


Soup

Nothing has changed, Boyle's not switched sides, his show still isnt very good. He chose to have as one of his discussion points something that's been in the news. He has reams and reams of shit where he's dumping on the tories. He chose to have one segment on an issue which, blown out of proportion or not (it is), has nevertheless become a story and therefore A Problem for Corbyn and Labour leadership that have handled it poorly. It is thus a legitimate enough target for satire (which this weak piss just about qualifies as).

Or not, whatever. Perhaps any criticism of Corbyn is slanderous smearing by right wing zealots and any concession to anyone who disagrees with him is the true mark of a worthless, servile worm.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Soup on May 22, 2018, 04:20:02 PM
Nothing has changed, Boyle's not switched sides, his show still isnt very good. He chose to have as one of his discussion points something that's been in the news. He has reams and reams of shit where he's dumping on the tories. He chose to have one segment on an issue which, blown out of proportion or not (it is), has nevertheless become a story and therefore A Problem for Corbyn and Labour leadership that have handled it poorly. It is thus a legitimate enough target for satire (which this weak piss just about qualifies as).

Or not, whatever. Perhaps any criticism of Corbyn is slanderous smearing by right wing zealots and any concession to anyone who disagrees with him is the true mark of a worthless, servile worm.


It's a topical satire show in which all reference to the weeks biggest story were mysteriously 'cut-out' in favour of an extended segment on a hoary 2 year old story the BBC have already driven into the ground a million times.

Soup

Mysteriously? What's the mystery? What am I meant to suppose is implied by this mystery?

It's a "hoary 2 year old story" that's been quite high up the news agenda recently and has become a problem for the leadership of the opposition. It's a perfectly valid topic of discussion.

As to him not joking about the recent massacre, I find the idea he had a joke about it in his monologue which was cut perfectly feasible to the point of total mundanity. He could have made it a topic for one of the round table discussions, but maybe he didn't feel there'd be comedic legs in it. Maybe he thought it would come off crass, maybe the BBC didn't want him to do it, maybe he, or the guests he was having that week, didn't have any material on it. All of which might be grounds to call Boyle an unconvincing satirist.

What I find more troubling is that people seem to have created some false binary, whereby Boyle talking about anti-semitism in the Labour party precludes or replaces discussion/criticism of Israel's recent actions. I don't really need to spell out why this is not a good look.

Jockice

As I've said, if anyone on that show had said anything new or remotely funny on that subject it would have been more acceptable. But they didn't. It was just shit. Total shit.

Soup

Aye, that it was. It's not much of a showcase for Boyle really, who I quite rate but has managed to curate another incredibly bit of mediocre BBC panel satire. His opening and closing monologues are good though: the one from last season he did as Paul Nuttall killed me, if only for the line "To many of you, I probably look like at some point in life I've had to pull a dangerous dog off my mum."

Jockice

He can write some decent stuff but I'm not a particular fan of his on-stage delivery. A lot of his material comes across better to me written down. 

rue the polywhirl

Just watching the show. Opening monologue and Boyle appears massively doped, body ballooning but somehow dressed in oversized clothes and looking like a Proclaimer Karl Marx. He perks up when the panel come on but the first minute was so lethargic I thought my whole world was turning into slow motion. The mostly female panel are gash. Complete gash. The bleached blonde orange one who's claiming to be white needs destroying with fire. The antisemitism in the Labour Party rountable was incredibly tedious and drawn out and the way Windrush despite being a more recent, topical story is reduced to pretty much 'oh that a somewhat successful jab that Labour are trying to draw capital from BUT LETS FOCUS ON ANTISEMITISM IN THE LABOUR PARTY ANOTHER 5 MINUTES'. Apparently Labour aren't being radical enough with their policies anyway so they all just implicitly throw their support behind this current backward government who are actively hostile and racist... and anti Semitic. Plus the line-up is quite synthetic and PC-driven, with talent not being a criteria. They invite David Baddiel on to be a spokesman for a race, chuck him out once the race topic is done and wheel on a gay guy to talk about the royal family with the all female mainstay trio. There doesn't seem to be any honest appetite for discussion, just trading of really insincere, crap half-observations. Boyle gets a couple of good lines in and Baddiel is a pretty genial guest and Ryan looks like a partially professional comedian but otherwise the rest of the show is completely charisma-free.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Soup on May 22, 2018, 08:37:07 PM
Mysteriously? What's the mystery? What am I meant to suppose is implied by this mystery?


Mysterious in that I'm not sure I believe him. The real Frankie Boyle would be more annoyed about it, rather than shrugging it off as just something that happened almost as if to someone else.

selectivememory

#72
Mixed feelings about this show in general. I like Boyle quite a lot these days since he's mostly given up the offensive-for-the-sake-of-it stylings of his earlier performances/material, and the segment on the royals was pretty strong and a decent antidote to the fawning coverage everywhere else in the media.

It was strange though to focus so much time on the Labour stuff, particularly when they could have talked about Windrush and the Tories. Nothing wrong with addressing it - it has been a big news story - but I don't think that anyone really had anything interesting or funny to say about it. I think Boyle's made his position on Israel clear though, and there was at least one joke about that, so I'm not going to get on his back about that.

Ryan is a good panellist. I like Sara Pascoe, but her presence feels kind of awkward on this show. Maybe the format needs a little tweaking. It's all this semi-serious discussion punctuated every now and then by a dark Boyle joke. I'd rather hear more of that kind of humour to be honest. The earnest parts of the discussions felt pretty superficial - as mentioned already, it doesn't seem like there's much appetite here for any proper discussion.

Mango Chimes

It's absolute shit. The topical comedy filter whereby everything has to be absolutely surface level. No investigation, no telling you anything you wouldn't already know from glancing at the news and making broad assumptions. Dry and superficial when it's serious, and any laughs almost invariably of the 'he looks more like an x who y in z!" formula. Everyone speaking with the same voice, nodding to each of their tepid generic comments.

Boyle is alternately an absolute flannel and interjecting with something comedically vicious, lost in the main role and awkwardly playing his own Frankie Boyle sidekick. Pascoe is an idiot who desperately wants to be seen as a Stephen Fry, and as such is cloyingly dreadful. Ryan is doing her rote appearance on any panel show.

And the optics are not good, like someone hasn't quite understood the point of diversity. Half the people are women, they've a Jewish guy and a woman of colour and a pansexual guy... Lovely.

But the two white women comedians are the same two white women comedians we have on all TV, (Herring made a very nice joke about this on Ryan's recent RHLSTP: "It's good to have more women on panel shows; it'd be nice if they weren't all you,") they're sat lower down as adjuncts to the white man hosting it and add little. Next to them sits an asian woman who isn't a comedian and doesn't really do or say... anything. The jewish comedian is brought on for the jew discussion and then is swiftly dismissed because we can't hear him speak about anything that isn't about jews. And then the camp guy is wheeled on to discuss celebrity pageantry. Well done, everyone.

Soup

Quote from: Mango Chimes on May 23, 2018, 03:02:29 PM
It's absolute shit. The topical comedy filter whereby everything has to be absolutely surface level. No investigation, no telling you anything you wouldn't already know from glancing at the news and making broad assumptions. Dry and superficial when it's serious, and any laughs almost invariably of the 'he looks more like an x who y in z!" formula. Everyone speaking with the same voice, nodding to each of their tepid generic comments.

I do think this about most TV satire. Was it ever good? Everything is either in that HIGNFY/Mock the Week mode of lobbing weak whimsy or smug snark from a position of studiously non-committal non-politics; or else it's that post-Daily Show John Oliver thing where people recap the news in a shallow way, give their fairly obvious take and basically use jokes of that "a doing b? that's like x doing y!" variety that serve no purpose, add nothing, aren't very funny and are bolted on like they have a fucking quota to fill.

I am often minded to think that the idea of satire itself (or at least how its thought in a modern context) is a sort of liberal establishment mirage, offering the myth of some easy check on power that does fuck all. But then, perhaps that's a topic for a different thread.


Quote from: Soup on May 23, 2018, 03:59:02 PM
I am often minded to think that the idea of satire itself (or at least how its thought in a modern context) is a sort of liberal establishment mirage, offering the myth of some easy check on power that does fuck all. But then, perhaps that's a topic for a different thread.

Sounds like that would be a really good thread to start. What the role of comedy is in this day and age is probably something we should discuss more on here. So a general thread about whether satire is a liberal mirage or not might throw up some interesting stuff, some interesting perspectives.

I personally think that we're living in an era that conclusively proves that satire doesn't work at all.

spamwangler

i did an amazing satire show on BBC the other day

bastards only bloody cut the thing tho didnt the


bastards


dex

Quote from: Soup on May 23, 2018, 03:59:02 PM
I do think this about most TV satire. Was it ever good? Everything is either in that HIGNFY/Mock the Week mode of lobbing weak whimsy or smug snark from a position of studiously non-committal non-politics; or else it's that post-Daily Show John Oliver thing where people recap the news in a shallow way, give their fairly obvious take and basically use jokes of that "a doing b? that's like x doing y!" variety that serve no purpose, add nothing, aren't very funny and are bolted on like they have a fucking quota to fill.

I am often minded to think that the idea of satire itself (or at least how its thought in a modern context) is a sort of liberal establishment mirage, offering the myth of some easy check on power that does fuck all. But then, perhaps that's a topic for a different thread.

Start a thread on this topic. I think it would be an interesting subject.

kidsick5000

I know it's meant to be satire, and punctuated with humour but it has to have more focus when tackling the tougher subjects. If not, just stick to the safe stuff. The relief when Joe Lycett comes on to talk about the Royals was palpable.

To frontload the Labour question with anti-semitism - including two clips centring on anti-semitism - but not want to go into how that relates to Corbyn properly is poor planning.
It's left to the Maureen Lipman clip to say that being Jewish does not mean Zionist. I'm surprised the panel didn't want to point out that being against Israel's attacks on Palestine does not make someone anti-semitic. But they just have a go at Robert Peston. Possibly a result of editing.

And as much as I like Sarah Pascoe generally, the earnest English guilt of her gammon bit was eyerolling. I'd love to know which side of the qipao 'cultural appropriation' prom dress she fell on. You could take bets on that. It's a Schrodinger's Cat of a possibiity

Depressed Beyond Tables

Right this is bad. I hadn't watched it so was merely commenting on the fact that Frankie happily let the BBC edit his show without a care. I'm only 5 minutes in and it's proper shit the bed territory. Derek doesn't have a patch on this.

Also loving the cutaways after each gag to mentioned demographics (Indians, white women).


Depressed Beyond Tables

Have to bail. British politics and a possible antisemitism issue is not really any of my concern.

imitationleather

I watched an episode of this last series, which I think was on pre-2017 General Election, when it was just The Accepted Truth that Jeremy Corbyn was a disaster and the Labour party were going to cease existing soon if they didn't get David Miliband or someone in as leader. The show was almost entirely him, Katherine Ryan, Sara Pascoe and Unfunny Data Woman all going on about how shit Corbyn is while being really, really unfunny about it. As in, even worse than 21st century HIGNFY-levels of unfunny. Can't believe this has got a second series and is apparently touting the exact same crap, despite the fact that everything that was originally being said about Labour under Corbyn just hasn't happened. Who is this programme aimed at? Why is the effort being made to have it exist? It's not for Conservatives, is it? A Tory isn't going to watch this. Is it for those Centrist Dads I keep hearing about now? The whole thing is just baffling.

Or is there some sort of a satire quota the BBC has to fulfil and this just about satisfies it, like how that discussion programme on Sundays with Nicky Campbell counts as the religious stuff they have to make because every week one of the topics is a variation of "Does God exist?" (Spoiler: The answer is always "Yes.")

Ever since I saw the episode of this last year I've been unable to enjoy anything involving Boyle, Pascoe or Ryan (not even the Persil ads she's in now!), such was the unforgivable appalling nature of this programme.

Jockice

I can't remember seeing any of the first series but there was a special around Christmas time when Boyle and the whole panel just agreed that the Labour Party was providing 'no opposition' to the Tories.

Again there were no new angles taken and nothing funny said, just the sort of thing you could already read/see all over the mainstream media. And whether you like Corbyn's Labour or not, they definitely are opposing the Tories.

I'm just glad that it's not just me on this board who thinks it's shit though. It's like some sort of chummy upper middle class dinner party where the host is of higher standing than the guests and so nobody dares to contradict his views no matter how dully he drones on.

Steven

I forgot how vicious the satire in Spitting Image was, literally addressing political subjects comedy shows wouldn't go near these days, such as Rent Boys.

Also, fucking hell.

up_the_hampipe

Does Boyle not know any other female comedians besides Katherine Ryan and Sara Pascoe?

manticore

One of the basic problems with TV/radio satire is that it's supposed to be challenging accepted ideas and at the same time it's trying to make the audience laugh along. The two don't really go together.

Pseudopath

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on May 26, 2018, 12:26:42 AM
Does Boyle not know any other female comedians besides Katherine Ryan and Sara Pascoe?

Give him a break. He doesn't fancy Roisin Conaty.

Dr Rock

Sara Pascoe thinks sharks are mammals.

Mr Banlon

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on May 26, 2018, 12:26:42 AM
Does Boyle not know any other female comedians besides Katherine Ryan and Sara Pascoe?
Isn't the NWO 'team' Boyle, Ryan, Pascoe, + guests ?

Jockice

#89
Quote from: Mr Banlon on May 26, 2018, 01:28:21 AM
Isn't the NWO 'team' Boyle, Ryan, Pascoe, + guests ?

And the other woman. Mona Lisa or whatever her name is. Who was on HIGNFY last night as well. She's turning into that pretty female psychologist who was on everything that required any psychological input a few years ago. She didn't say much apart from a ridiculously obvious crack about racism in the royal family. Which got a big laugh from the audience.

I watched the Boyle programme too (you can see how exciting my Friday night was) and it was a bit better than the first week. They did cover Windrush this time and had Akala as a guest, who is obviously a very intelligent bloke (although he's becoming a bit ubiquitious on TV too)  I don't think it was just that the subject was more to my (dis)taste than last week's. It just hung together better. And I liked Boyle's Yemen aid joke. I lost interest in the second half though, as they covered Donald Trump. About whom I genuinely don't think anyone could say anything new or funny about. It's all been done before.