Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 06:00:17 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Worst Acting In A Sitcom

Started by Satchmo Distel, April 28, 2019, 09:26:23 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Virgo76


Hey, Punk!

I always thought Polly was a posh American like Connie Booth is.

DrGreggles

'Room service man' in The Comic Strip Presents... Private Enterprise:
https://youtu.be/RarEupWeyLQ?t=1836

Mr Banlon


gmoney

I was talking to someone about this the other day, Harry Enfield in Men Behaving Badly marks the first time I recognised someone being a bad actor, and not being able to enjoy it because he was so awful. I would have been 7 or 8 when it started, and was a huge fan of the pretty broad Harry Enfield's Television Programme so my parents let me watch it. I can distinctly remember thinking "he's not very good at this". I still think he's a great sketch performer.

Clownbaby

Rich Fulcher is absolutely shit but I love him to bits

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I think I've only seen one episode of Outnumbered but I remember thinking Tiger Lily (or whatever his stupid name is) was terrbile as the eldest son. He somehow managed to mumble and over enunciate his lines at the same time.

pigamus

Not really a sitcom, but someone in another thread mentioned Kelda Holmes in Press Gang.

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 30, 2019, 04:56:09 PM
I think I've only seen one episode of Outnumbered but I remember thinking Tiger Lily (or whatever his stupid name is) was terrbile as the eldest son. He somehow managed to mumble and over enunciate his lines at the same time.

He was very annoying and one-note in Cuckoo too, but then his character was meant to be a tosspot. So maybe he's great after all.

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 30, 2019, 04:56:09 PM
I think I've only seen one episode of Outnumbered but I remember thinking Tiger Lily (or whatever his stupid name is) was terrbile as the eldest son. He somehow managed to mumble and over enunciate his lines at the same time.

Ben Dover's son isn't he? His did can perform at least.

Gulftastic

Quote from: Nice Relaxing Poo on April 30, 2019, 06:49:29 PM
Ben Dover's son isn't he? His did can perform at least.

Ben and Linzi Drew.

What a strange household to grow up in.

the science eel

Alf Clown in Well You Wouldn't, Would You?

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: hummingofevil on April 30, 2019, 02:30:11 AM
I remember seeing an interview where he debunked the idea that the kids were improvising in Outnumbered. He said that there was "no script" for them but this didn't mean their lines were ab-libed. He said what they actually did was just tell the kids what lines to say before each scene and the kids then repeated them as the camera's rolled. Happy to be proved wrong if anyone knows any different.

That's right, yes. I didn't express myself very clearly in my previous post, I wasn't suggesting that Ben and Karen improvised all their lines. They were always told what to say just before the cameras started rolling, but those suggestions were usually filtered through their young child imaginations - hence why they often ended up saying things that were funnier than what the writers had come up with.

The adults then had to respond to the kids' semi-improvisations, which would sometimes send scenes in a slightly different direction. Everything that happened in Outnumbered was carefully devised by Hamilton and Jenkin, it's just that Ben and Karen added their own stuff.

EDIT: Ah, gilbertharding has already explained this. OH WELL.

Andy147

Elderly camper who thanks Jeffrey in the pilot episode of Hi-de-Hi (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ibrv1 at about 35 minutes) sounds like he's reading his lines for the first time.

Checking IMDB shows that Harry Markham had been in plenty of other shows, so presumably he wasn't always that bad (even in his later appearance in the same series he's less stilted than here).

studpuppet

Quote from: Gulftastic on April 30, 2019, 06:59:42 PM
Ben and Linzi Drew.

What a strange household to grow up in.

Did they work from home then?

willpurry

The stallholder in the episode of 'As Time Goes By' about Sandy's stalker.

Virgo76

Quote from: Andy147 on April 28, 2019, 10:41:05 PM

Similarly, Michael Fielding (Naboo) in The Mighty Boosh.

Very true.

SteveDave

SteveDave bad-mouths Lolly Adefope again.

vainsharpdad

I saw some of Brush Strokes and Bread yesterday. The entire cast of both, please....

Utter Shit

Quote from: gmoney on April 30, 2019, 04:30:39 PM
I was talking to someone about this the other day, Harry Enfield in Men Behaving Badly marks the first time I recognised someone being a bad actor, and not being able to enjoy it because he was so awful. I would have been 7 or 8 when it started, and was a huge fan of the pretty broad Harry Enfield's Television Programme so my parents let me watch it. I can distinctly remember thinking "he's not very good at this". I still think he's a great sketch performer.

The problem IMO is that he's exactly the same in Men Behaving Badly as he is in his sketch shows - his default expression is that of someone who is desperately trying not to corpse. Wide-eyed and with a subtle but noticeable grin on his face. You can sort of get away with that in a sketch show, but in a sitcom it detracts from whatever reality has been created.

Fuming that no one has co-signed my Cassandra shout. The scene where she thinks Rodney is cheating on her and has a crying fit is one of the worst things that has ever happened in humanity. Worse than Hitler, you wouldn't catch Hitler basing his anger acting on a three-year old having a tanty.

Utter Shit

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on April 30, 2019, 07:41:14 PM
That's right, yes. I didn't express myself very clearly in my previous post, I wasn't suggesting that Ben and Karen improvised all their lines. They were always told what to say just before the cameras started rolling, but those suggestions were usually filtered through their young child imaginations - hence why they often ended up saying things that were funnier than what the writers had come up with.

The adults then had to respond to the kids' semi-improvisations, which would sometimes send scenes in a slightly different direction. Everything that happened in Outnumbered was carefully devised by Hamilton and Jenkin, it's just that Ben and Karen added their own stuff.

EDIT: Ah, gilbertharding has already explained this. OH WELL.

One of the sad things about Outnumbered is that, as the kids got older and more capable of learning their lines and acting 'properly', they were far less funny for it. Karen's performance in the first couple of series is so believable (presumably because it is essentially her) and just utterly brilliant - as the series went on she was just a somewhat-talented child actor capable of delivering a funny line. Still good, but not a patch on the early series.

EDIT: Feels incredibly mean to criticise someone who probably wasn't even in her teens by the end of the show, I genuinely don't mean it to be harsh - it's more about the process that allowed those early performances to feel so real.

neveragain

Quote from: Utter Shit on May 03, 2019, 01:29:43 PM
The problem IMO is that he's exactly the same in Men Behaving Badly as he is in his sketch shows - his default expression is that of someone who is desperately trying not to corpse. Wide-eyed and with a subtle but noticeable grin on his face. You can sort of get away with that in a sketch show, but in a sitcom it detracts from whatever reality has been created.

Fuming that no one has co-signed my Cassandra shout. The scene where she thinks Rodney is cheating on her and has a crying fit is one of the worst things that has ever happened in humanity. Worse than Hitler, you wouldn't catch Hitler basing his anger acting on a three-year old having a tanty.

Oh I agree. There's an episode in which Rodney says "I'm not knocking Cassandra on the head" (as in dumping her) and I often think "Wish you bloody would" (as in commit domestic abuse in order to improve her acting).

Quote from: Utter Shit on May 03, 2019, 01:29:43 PMyou wouldn't catch Hitler basing his anger acting on a three-year old having a tanty.

Hitler once obtained the nickname terpenfresser, among Nazi insiders, over rumours he threw himself on the floor and gnawed a carpet in rage over some bad news.

Quote from: Utter Shit on May 03, 2019, 01:29:43 PM
Fuming that no one has co-signed my Cassandra shout. The scene where she thinks Rodney is cheating on her and has a crying fit is one of the worst things that has ever happened in humanity. Worse than Hitler, you wouldn't catch Hitler basing his anger acting on a three-year old having a tanty.

I honestly thought there wouldn't be any more nominations after Cassandra was put forward as she clearly wins this thread hands down.  Gwyneth Strong's performances in that show really do honk. 

kalowski


Quote from: Absorb the anus burn on April 28, 2019, 11:26:06 PM
Christopher Ryan in The Young Ones.

I don't agree with that.  His wry dryness and understatedness was a good foil to the other, more over-the-top characters.

St_Eddie

Quote from: kalowski on May 03, 2019, 08:10:02 PM
Hylda Baker
https://youtu.be/AIfSKagyag8

Is the whole tripping over her words a character thing, or is she really just that bad of an actress?

kalowski

Quote from: St_Eddie on May 03, 2019, 08:17:21 PM
Is the whole tripping over her words a character thing, or is she really just that bad of an actress?
I'm pretty sure she's fucking useless.

the science eel

Quote from: Phoenix Lazarus on May 03, 2019, 05:58:09 PM
Hitler once obtained the nickname terpenfresser, among Nazi insiders, over rumours he threw himself on the floor and gnawed a carpet in rage over some bad news.

Teppichfresser

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: Phoenix Lazarus on May 03, 2019, 08:13:23 PM
I don't agree with that.  His wry dryness and understatedness was a good foil to the other, more over-the-top characters.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with Ryan's performance in TYO. He's playing a relatively subdued quasi-authority figure whose eccentricities are less pronounced than those of his housemates. Mike isn't a particularly funny character, but his role within the group is vital.