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Nathan Barley on tonight's Newsnight Review

Started by Bean Is A Carrot, February 04, 2005, 05:52:03 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

alan strang

A bit of historical contrast here. The Newsnight Review panel discuss the Brass Eye Special the night after broadcast:

QuoteNEWSNIGHT REVIEW, BBC2, 27/07/2001

MARK LAWSON
We start with a television show which lsat night set out to determine whether any topic is out of bounds for comedy. The comedian Chris Morris became news in television by sending up the techniques of television news. First on The Day Today, and then Brass Eye, he appeared as languid anchormen. The joke was, although he spoke in familiar tones of laconic authority, the headlines he read were surreal - for example, the suspension of a headmaster for using a large-faced pupil as a satellite dish. In his subsequent radio and TV series, Blue Jam, Morris moved on from current affairs to current fears, testing the limits of taste in sketches about sex and death. In the Brass Eye special, broadcast last night, the two sides of his work came together in a spoof news investigation of the subject of paedophilia in Britain. Apparently satirising the social and media hysteria about sexual abuse which followed the murder of Sarah Payne, Morris tricked celebrities including Gary Lineker and Lord Coe into reading out surreal nonsense about paedophiles...

[EXTRACTS: MONTAGE OF CELEBRITY HOAXES]

LAWSON
The Brass Eye Special on C4 last night. C4 today rejected a request from the NSPCC not to show tonight's planned repeat. Paul Morley: C4 have also admitted to just short of 1000 complaints, the Daily Mail and others say that the switchboards were jammed as more people wanted to complain. Are you going to add another one?

PAUL MORLEY
No, what I'd probably do is complain about this morning's GMTV or Celebrity Sleepover or the latest Crimewatch. I find those television programmes the kind of thing he takes the brasseye out of to be, in a way, far more dangerous than this particular show because the way *they* brutalise language and diminish feeling actually creates the shadows where perverts can genuinely hide. This kind of show shines a light on the mediocrity and mundanity of those programmes, and therefore it seems to produce something positive. He is, whatever else he is - comedian, media terrorist, great illusionist - he's a fantastic television *critic*, and if you were obsessed with the type of television he was taking the brasseye out of...every second is a wonderful insight into how those programmes are made. And how indeed they do banalise language and reduce everything, and turn everything into nonsense with absolutely no meaning. And you lose feeling, and they're very sentimental TV programmes, and in the end, what he does, what he's had to do is remind people what feeling actually is - it's to tackle strong subjects like, essentially quite a trivial thing for him as an artist, which is to take the brasseye out of daytime television.

LAWSON
Paul defends his choice of subject there. It has upset a lot of people, John Carey. He seems to be saying that there is no subject which cannot be the subject of a comedy.

JOHN CAREY
Yeah, well I think that's true. What I disliked about this programme - and I disliked it very much and most of Morris's work - is exactly, really, what Paul was saying about reminding us what feeling is because I don't think that is what he does. It seems to me that what he does is to - yes- say that you'll satirise media coverage, but there are no values that come from him. What does he think? What does his programme think about paedophilia? You have no inkling except that...

LAWSON
Well, this is the crucial thing, he tries to remain neutral on that subject, not on the subject of the news coverage but the paedophilia itself.

CAREY
Well, remain neutral, except that he shows disgusting images, which would disgust most people, which are to do with paedophilia, so....it's hardly neutral. Obviously offensive, he must know it's offensive, so what you have is a kind of intellectual snobbery, it seems to me: "We are above values, we are intellectuals", and that's what I hate about the programme, the sneering, self-righteous tone with which he treats members of the general public and celebrities. How ever he makes them say what they say....it makes them look like fools.

LAWSON
On the other hand, John, he would say - I assume - that you did have, during recent events, you had lynch-mobs at various times. You had a paediatrician forced out of her home by people who misunderstood the word. Now he would say that he is attacking that level of misunderstanding and hysteria in society, I suspect.

CAREY
How about the American dancing tots that were looked at, and the presentation of a rap singer who has affairs with seven year old girls? What's his attitude there; is he saying because people do give sexual values to young children, it's reprehensible? Is he or isn't he? I mean, what is he saying? It's not responsible to say nothing, or just to mock.

LAWSON
I suspect he's saying that liberals tolerate rap singers who sing about murder and other violence against women, but not when it was children, I suspect. But anyway.. Elaine Showalter?

ELAINE SHOWALTER
Well, I thought it was really hilarious, a brilliant piece of alternative comedy, and so broadly done. I thought the satire was so broad, and there was so much warning about it with all the hoo-hah in the newspapers about whether it would be shown that certainly people were well-protected if they wanted to get away from it. The only thing I objected to was actually the way he treated the celebrities, and I thought this part of it - the prankster bit - those were cheap shots. He's a satirist, he's aiming really high, he's taking a lot of risks...

LAWSON
Isn't it fantastically revealing, though, that these celebrities, asked to read out things about paedophiles sharing more genes with crabs than they do with normal human beings? And they just read it. It says something about the life of celebrities.

SHOWALTER
Well, it does, but it makes fools out of people who are easy targets....We're not talking here about Tony Blair. We're talking about low-level celebritiies...

LAWSON
Lord Coe.

SHOWALTER
Lord Coe, even Phil Collins, and I think the show would be just as funny without that. I think that part of it really panders to something very cheap, you know - "Let's see them behave idiotically" and the satire, which I thought was pretty hard-hitting, doesn't really get the audience it deserves.

MORLEY
That's what makes it fantastically funny, because as high minded as he goes philosophically with some of the things he's up to...I mean, the very idea that a pervert would watch television and, because of Phil Collins, saying "No, damn, I'm wrong, I'm givin' it up". And the very idea that these people think it's important - Phil Collins, Richard Blackwood...presenting Top Of The Pops tonight without a care in the world, and it's not occurred to him what an absolute buffoon he's made of himself. The very idea that, again, they use words that are emptied out of any meaning, is a very important part.

LAWSON
I accept that, and I thought there was a very funny sequence, a very revealing sequence in which a policeman is asked what violence is acceptable, and what isn't. But the problem is, we have to accept that the NSPCC, the thousands of complaints, they're not about the involvement of Phil Collins, they're about the involvement of children, and many of the complaints relate to a particular scene....

[EXTRACT: PEGG IN STOCKS AS GERARD CHOTE FROM MILIT-PEDE]

LAWSON
One of the trickier scenes from Brass Eye, which has raised many objections today. Paul Morley, you've called him a genius, and said how funny it is. Now, a lot of people found that pretty horrifying. The question is: What is the target there?

MORLEY
I maintain that it's television, essentially. And again, 1000 complaints, even if you multiply it by the number of people who haven't, is not usually a great amount.

LAWSON
Quite a lot in TV terms.

MORLEY
In TV terms it is.

LAWSON
For a Channel 4 programme.

SHOWALTER
There'd be more complaints about dead hamsters.

MORLEY
Yeah, well, anything involving animals. I think in a way, for me, the great thing about Chris Morris is that 20 years ago, looking forward to how comedy and indeed tragedy would be in 2001, that's what I'd hope would have been going on. Strong...

LAWSON
John Carey, presumably, that was one of the scenes that made you queasy.

CAREY
Absolutely. The belligerent tone, and also...it's not a question of how many complaints, it's whether you or I judge it to be disgusting to bring a child into a situation like that.

LAWSON
I have to say I've looked at that sequence a couple of times and we don't know this, but it is possible to film that sequence without the child hearing the dialogue.

CAREY
I know about that, yes.

LAWSON
It's a technique they use where they use dummy words and then dub them in later. And that may well have happened. But anyway, there's more discussion tonight to add to much that there's been today about Brass Eye, which will be repeated tonight on Channel 4 at 12.10.

(originally transcribed by The Mumbler)

lazyhour

Quote from: "Emergency Lalla Ward Ten"Also, Ashcroft says 'Bye idiots' in The Simon Pegg Voice. (yes, finally saw Trailer 2 today.)

He does, yes, but he was also utilising exactly this voice in the show Asylum, in 1997 or thereabouts.  Pegg was also in this programme, of course, but he was a year or two away from nailing the Pegg Voice at that point.  So who actually did it first first?

Oh yes, Steve Coogan did.  My apologies.

I like Julian Barratt, I liked his delivery in Asylum (I've not seen Booshy Wotsit, only heard a bit of one of the radio eps), and I like his delivery of "Bye, idiots" in this.  At the very least, you can't say he is jumping on some currently-trendy Pegg Voice bandwagon.  History disproves it.

Edit: Good point, Rats (below).  I've changed the ending of my post from "ripping Pegg off" because, thinking about it, it's not what I meant.

Rats

I think "the simon pegg voice" is one of their in-jokes, a cliche, to them at least, as they've said it lots of times through laziness. I might be wrong but at least I'm trying to wind them up, give me that. Simon Pegg could have "the simon pegg voice" and I think it was morris who started it. Just unnatural inflection for comic effect I think, as in "stitty stitty stitty"

Gavin

Quote from: "alan strang"
Quote from: "slim"I can't believe they actually said that strangism...

Strangism - like it. Good shit. Well weapon.

Aaaaargh!


Do the strang?

butnut

Just watched it, thanks to the Rats.

Well, I enjoyed the first clip more than I expected, but as I think ELW10 pointed out, that might be because my expectations were so low. I see what people mean by the Pegg voice. I'll wait until I've seen NB, but I imagine that the Dolce Vita comment is pretty ridiculous. I see why she made it, but I imagine the links between the two will be pretty remote, unless Clair Ashcroft goes into a fountain or something.

And did I hear The Cult in the second clip?

NobodyGetsOutAlive

And so Alan Strang's time travelling video recorder strikes again. I'm now deeply sceptical about your 4 year old 'dark' predictions.


Anyway...oh dear, the 2 clips showed last night really did little for me. And why the hell were they so interested in looking for controversy in a show anyway? Poor Brooker seems to be in the shadows on this show as far as the reviews go.




Quote from: "Neil"See what I meant about the camera-work and pointless zooms?

Yes, completely.

(SPOILER for those who didn't watch Newsnight Review and might not want this hilarious gag ruined)

the bit when Dan covered up his knuckles to avoid him being associated with Barley's website was dreadful and really quite patronising. Surely a bit of subtlety wouldn't have gone ammis instead of a nice zoom in on his knuckles?

Dr David V

Christ, those clips were fucking dire. All my expectations for this programme have gone right downhill now. Damn, and I was starting to get more optimistic about it too.

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

The Guardian's preview:

Get ready to hoot your trap off as Chris Morris and Charlie 'Screenburn' Brooker pour the world of Sugar Ape, trashbat.co.ck and general idiocy into the next six Friday nights. Well weapon.

Problem is, as the Newsnight discussion showed, the media *have* to love it because they're terrified of being seen not to get the joke. They fear the 'You protest to much - are you by any chance Nathan Barley?!!' charge, like a rock star who doesn't like Spinal Tap. Real people like us, however, have nothing to lose from saying what we see.

rjd2

Will Victor Lewis Smith be given an opportunity to review this?

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: "Emergency Lalla Ward Ten"Problem is, as the Newsnight discussion showed, the media *have* to love it because they're terrified of being seen not to get the joke... Real people like us, however, have nothing to lose from saying what we see.
So where does Roy Walker figure in this?

Rats

Quote from: "Emergency Lalla Ward Ten"The Guardian's preview:

Get ready to hoot your trap off as Chris Morris and Charlie 'Screenburn' Brooker pour the world of Sugar Ape, trashbat.co.ck and general idiocy into the next six Friday nights. Well weapon.

That must be part of the press kit because it's in the mail as well

Robot Devil

Die Telegraph's review:

QuoteIt's been four years since Chris Morris (Brass Eye) made anything for TV, so the return of the scourge of the small-screen watchdog, even if only as writer/director, is notable. Oddly, if today's opener's anything to go by, this new series may please Morris's detractors (it's predictably rude and offensive) but frustrate his fans - hip, drivel-spouting meejah types are in his sights here, not necessarily the hardest of targets, nor perhaps the most interesting. But I was laughing like a drain by the end. Co-written by Charlie Brooker of tvgohome.com fame, it brings its Nathan Barley to life as a babbling, gadget-wielding webmaster and all-round 21st-century twentysomething idiot. Nick Burns (Nathan) and Julian Barratt (as his magazine writer idol, Dan) star; anyone getting past the sensory assault of the first few minutes may be surprised to find there's a (relatively) conventional comedy lurking deep within.

EDIT: Spelling.

slim

Quote from: "Rats"That must be part of the press kit because it's in the mail as well
Yeah, considering what we've seen on the website and such so far, that struck me as an incredibly lazy piece of writing.

Beagle 2

Cheers Rats. Well everything's already been said really, I did laugh out loud at Heidi and the whole conversation surrounding it, but the camerawork was fucking irritating and the whole "rape" bit at the end was dire, really desperately trying to stretch out a thin premise and make it funny.

I want to stamp on Kwame's head, I really do find him the most bullshit fuelled smug pompous tit.

Quote from: "butnut"And did I hear The Cult in the second clip?

Yeah I was trying to think what the significance of playing that track was.

The Mumbler

Don't be fooled by the "Chris Morris" trumpetings on the front cover of the new issue of was-actually-pretty-good-about-15-years-ago-men's monthly Arena.  It's in their "Zeitgeist" or "Bollocks" or "We couldn't get anyone on the phone to comment on it" section - but could I actually find it?  Good luck if you fancy trying your luck.

Question Time:
What do you think Nathan Barley producer Derren Schlesinger was doing exactly 15 years ago then?

Pythov

Whew!

I'm glad we're not over analysing this post; to the point of being as usless as a 'celebrity' making a comment.

It will be interesting to see and coment on next weeks Barley threads, after the first broadcast episode, and see the polorised opinions - and the reasons for and against.

The Mumbler

I'll answer my own question, I don't care:

He was deputy editor at Smash Hits.  And shortly afterwards, seemed to disappear off the face of the earth.  Until now.