Jane Root - was she so bad?

[idunnosomename]

Exactly right. Was getting annoyed at that very clip the other day and all, and talking with my partner about how that could have been the only reason it was popular, since, as an actual gameshow, it was needlessly convoluted, and ridiculously stacked against the contestants.

You could say the same about, say, the Crystal Maze, but at least that had nice sets.

i mean considering the cuntiest Richard O'Brien got was playing the harmonica while some hairspray cunt in a jumpsuit struggled with a slidey tile puzzle, I think it's aged much better than that patronising, sniping, downright vindictive shit

[johnlogan]

i mean considering the cuntiest Richard O'Brien got was playing the harmonica while some hairspray cunt in a jumpsuit struggled with a slidey tile puzzle, I think it's aged much better than that patronising, sniping, downright vindictive shit

Yes, an insulting comparison to make, since that was more of a panto atmosphere, rather than some dickhead off Watchdog sneering at the public. I apologise.

[idunnosomename]

you're hardly a person who needs to apologise for anything at all. goodness knows the production behind that which led to "are you are on beneFITS?". really grim stuff

[Retinend]

I wouldn't blame Jane Root for having shunted this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vvE5zwmuOU (Attention Scum! s01e01)

...onto a graveyard slot with minimal advertising. It's just not that good.

In my opinion it was executed badly compared to the pilot episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtwCkqla1PA (Cluub Zarathustra)

All the atmosphere of the pilot is lost by performing it in open air with a tiny crowd (who don't seem very amused) and a projector whose image can barely be seen, even at dusk.

What's more, it doesn't scream "Übermensch" to see Munnery struggle to perform to a crowd while simultaneously performing to a small camera he holds in his hand (which is disguised as a sword).

IMO, Munnery is just a little too into his philosophy. A verbwhore said that his recent show is a set all about his readings of Kierkegaard, and that it didn't really come off so well as comedy there, either.

[BlodwynPig]

I wouldn't blame Jane Root for having shunted this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vvE5zwmuOU (Attention Scum! s01e01)

...onto a graveyard slot with minimal advertising. It's just not that good.

In my opinion it was executed badly compared to the pilot episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtwCkqla1PA (Cluub Zarathustra)

All the atmosphere of the pilot is lost by performing it in open air with a tiny crowd (who don't seem very amused) and a projector whose image can barely be seen, even at dusk.

What's more, it doesn't scream "Übermensch" to see Munnery struggle to perform to a crowd while simultaneously performing to a small camera he holds in his hand (which is disguised as a sword).

IMO, Munnery is just a little too into his philosophy. A verbwhore said that his recent show is a set all about his readings of Kierkegaard, and that it didn't really come off so well as comedy there, either.

I watched it last night and thought it was dated and awful. Wackaday without any depth.

[petril]

my memory of it is feeling the small crowd and him struggling must've been the joke; the grandiose, wordy revolutionary who can't get a following but still padding along. been utterly years since I watched it. Liked Kombat Opera though, that was nice and silly

[Endicott]

All the atmosphere of the pilot is lost by performing it in open air with a tiny crowd (who don't seem very amused) and a projector whose image can barely be seen, even at dusk.

One reason for that being the tiny budget they were given by the BBC

(reposting link from p1)
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/mar/12/mondaymediasection.bbc

[colacentral]

I remember Attention Scum from its broadcast on UK Play, the proto-Dave channel. I assumed it was a UK Play production. I enjoyed that cable was like that at the time, you'd browse through the backwater channels and find odd stuff like that. It doesn't scream prime time BBC 2 though, even for the time.

[Mobbd]

I wouldn't blame Jane Root for having shunted this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vvE5zwmuOU (Attention Scum! s01e01)

...onto a graveyard slot with minimal advertising. It's just not that good.

In my opinion it was executed badly compared to the pilot episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtwCkqla1PA (Cluub Zarathustra)

All the atmosphere of the pilot is lost by performing it in open air with a tiny crowd (who don't seem very amused) and a projector whose image can barely be seen, even at dusk.

What's more, it doesn't scream "Übermensch" to see Munnery struggle to perform to a crowd while simultaneously performing to a small camera he holds in his hand (which is disguised as a sword).

IMO, Munnery is just a little too into his philosophy. A verbwhore said that his recent show is a set all about his readings of Kierkegaard, and that it didn't really come off so well as comedy there, either.

There are lots of reasons a person might not enjoy Attention Scum but I'm afraid you just didn't get the joke. The League Against Tedium is a deluded wannabe dictator with no money or authority. He's supposed to be addressing small nonplussed crowds from the back of a transit van with a load of shoddy props. In his Edinburgh show, the plan was for him to ride on stage in a Reliant Robin daubed with swastikas. The joke is that he's grandiose and pathetic.

Cluub Z wasn't a pilot for Attention Scum. It was a pilot for a CZ television series. Attention Scum just happened to have the same character in it. If it shares any material/dialogue, it's because it was all worked up at live festival shows.

Showing a not-laughing audience is a deliberate thing too. It continues into Go Faster Stripe recordings for Lee & Herring et al. It's supposed to be a way to differentiate this stuff from glossy stand-up specials that dishonestly only show laughing faces when, as every comedian knows, the room is seldom that united. It also suits The League's character that nobody relates to what he is saying.

"Soren Kierkegaard Sings" was brilliant (though performances would differ, of course) and the Kierkegaard stuff was only about 10-minutes of material used as a throughline. It contained a brilliant verbatim reading from Kierkegaard's diary in which the great but clearly insecure and vain philosopher, is angry about some people who made fun of his trousers. It was a fucking delight.

[Retinend]

OK not a pilot for this show - a pilot for a very similar show. My mistake. Thanks for the correction.

To my mind, the the jokes in the pilot episode were aided by the dim lighting and the suspension of disbelief inherent to the space. You say this is the atmosphere in which the jokes were developed so it makes sense that this is where they work best.

If the joke, for Attention Scum, was supposed to be that the small crowd represented his pathetic flock of followers, then I definitely missed the point. I didn't get the idea that they were devoted followers at all. I think the crowd did a bad job of pretending to be in his thrall - as I said, they look barely amused.

[Mobbd]

To my mind, the jokes made sense in the atmosphere of a comedy club, where the lighting was controlled and there is a sense of unreality.

That's fair to say, I think. Munnery and Lee would probably agree. Munnery in particular was never completely at ease with TV as a medium for comedy full-stop. Go Faster Stripe are considering a stream of his IAMTV show (another League show), which sort-of airs some of his grievances!

[Mobbd]

OK not a pilot for this show - a pilot for a very similar show for "CZ" (Czech Republic?). My mistake. Thanks for the correction.

If Cluub Zarathustra had gone to series, it would have been in a big studio with a 1984 vibe like the one seen in the pilot. Munnery felt (rightly imo) that this didn't do the character justice. He needs to feel like someone it would be a nighmare to bump into on the high street, not someone with the full establishment backing of Channel 4. Haha.

[Mobbd]

If the joke, for Attention Scum, was supposed to be that the small crowd represented his pathetic flock of followers, then the crowd did a bad job of pretending to be in his thrall - as I said, they look barely amused.

His followers are the vampire, the monkey, and the opera device. The crowd are passersby.

[Retinend]

You caught me editing - I realized "CZ" wasn't "Czech Republic" in the end 🤦  though it made some sense in my head that Munnery's humour would be more appreciated in that land somehow

[Mobbd]

You caught me editing - I realized "CZ" wasn't "Czech Republic" in the end 🤦  though it made some sense in my head that Munnery's humour would be more appreciated in that land somehow

Haha, sorry about that!

[dissolute ocelot]

Anyway, looking at Wikipedia now, it looks like she has a lot to answer for. She commissioned Coupling, The Weakest Link, Top Gear, What Not to Wear, Who Do You Think You Are?, and "audience vote" shows like the fuck-off patriotic Greatest Britons.

I'm going to be controversial and say most of these were fine shows, maybe not to my taste, but they did what they set out to. It's just that they didn't belong on BBC2, they were big populist shows and most eventually moved to BBC1. In particular WDYTYA was excellent popular history (until they ran out of celebrities with interesting pasts), but it was later shown on BBC1 and the American version was on NBC. Coupling also fine, populist comedy, much like Friends. Even What Not To Wear would be fine on daytime (though no match for BBC2's earlier Would Like to Meet). TG and WL appealed to a certain audience, and the biggest criticism is they were unsurprising. Greatest Britons was schedule-filling controversy-mongering bullshit though.

[Chriddof]

Eeehhhhh... WL's biggest criticism is that Anne Robinson did things like mock people for being on benefits, as linked to on a previous page.

[sevendaughters]

Given how corporatised the entire BBC and media industry has become, it's hard to lay the blame for the decline of BBC2 as a relevant force at Root's door. Indeed we're probably a median age that was around for Partridge, Day Today, Red Dwarf, and as such see anything non-seminal after as a weak lemon drink equivalent.

I've pulled up some random BBC2 schedules from Root's era and found

- John Peel night - https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbctwo/england/1999-08-29
- on that topic, the general fad for themed evenings ("I Love the 80s"), Jane Root early vaporwave pioneer?
- Working Lunch!
- The Trench - (Another chance to see the three-part series in which modern day volunteers relive the reality of day to day life in a First World War trench, based on the official diaries of the 10th Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment.)
- Ray Mears! Think she had a thing for ham-faced men.
- a series called Radical Highs about extreme sports, each episode lasting...15 mins
- fly on the wall tat called Made in Manchester (thrice weekly!)
- 3 Non Blondes!

It's not exactly filled with classics, but people booted out are always liable to grumble. For me it comes down to i. snooker ii. Heartbreak High so she gets a pass.

[Famous Mortimer]

As someone else who's never found Munnery all that funny, I don't blame Root in this instance either. Everything else, fair enough.

[thugler]

There are lots of reasons a person might not enjoy Attention Scum but I'm afraid you just didn't get the joke.

This is a problem with the show and not the audience. If self described comedy fans who go on a forum about comedy don't get it it's hardly their fault.

[sevendaughters]

I absolutely loved Attention Scum! (and the gameshow he did called Either/Or). I think it worked on a similar basis to Limmy ie. not every moment was perfect but the density and labour involved were impressive, and it was clearly an example of something that only one person on the planet could have produced.

If Root hated it fair enough. What I semi-object to is that all shows aren't just available in some form. We did pay for them after all, and maybe the audience for it couldn't discover it at the time what with all the fuckery.

[thugler]

Must say, I do think Munnery is really talented, but him on tv, particularly anywhere near a decent slot on BBC doesn't make an awful lot of sense. Something culty and on in the wee hours, sure. I can see why this stuff didn't really work.

[Endicott]

This is a problem with the show and not the audience. If self described comedy fans who go on a forum about comedy don't get it it's hardly their fault.

No. It is quite clearly his fault. That doesn't make him wrong, by the way, it means the show doesn't work for him. If I follow your logic that it is the fault of the show, then to fix that, the show would have to appeal to everybody. It would have to be all things to all people, which is a patently absurd position.

[Retinend]

For the record, I did understand that he's a self-appointed philosopher-king with delusions of grandeur. I was just saying that the way he first appears in Attention Scum undermines that premise. If he's the philosopher king with delusions of grandeur he would care more about controlling the mise-en-scène (as he does in the, imo superior, Cluub Zarathustra pilot).

[sevendaughters]

delusions of grandeur don't mean you have the ability to do anything about it. i mean in the first episode his stand-up bit paints him as someone who is too scared to talk to women on the phone at all.

[Mobbd]

I absolutely loved Attention Scum! (and the gameshow he did called Either/Or). I think it worked on a similar basis to Limmy ie. not every moment was perfect but the density and labour involved were impressive, and it was clearly an example of something that only one person on the planet could have produced.

If Root hated it fair enough. What I semi-object to is that all shows aren't just available in some form. We did pay for them after all, and maybe the audience for it couldn't discover it at the time what with all the fuckery.

Yeah! E/O was fascinating and fun and I agree with your assessment there.

Good points above regarding Root and our (certainly my) attitudes to post-weak-lemon drink comedy, etc too. Fair point. Good postin'.

[sevendaughters]

Meades made some of his best work under Root - I'm going to assume it was she who booted him from a series of 30 min shows to his annual hour-long format as his next proper series of Abroad In is 2005 after Root goes - although his top dollar best was him being slotted into the Pevsner cavalcade that he was not the defacto star of. Some people work better under duress; it's not like his BBC4 stuff is ESSENTIAL Meades.

[BlodwynPig]

OK not a pilot for this show - a pilot for a very similar show. My mistake. Thanks for the correction.

To my mind, the the jokes in the pilot episode were aided by the dim lighting and the suspension of disbelief inherent to the space. You say this is the atmosphere in which the jokes were developed so it makes sense that this is where they work best.

If the joke, for Attention Scum, was supposed to be that the small crowd represented his pathetic flock of followers, then I definitely missed the point. I didn't get the idea that they were devoted followers at all. I think the crowd did a bad job of pretending to be in his thrall - as I said, they look barely amused.

They looked like standard British passers-by and his commentary was neither funny or bizarre enough.

[Captain Z]

The first five minutes of that Attention Scum episode is literally "sex! knickers! bras!". Does it get better? Because I had to bail out.

[thugler]

No. It is quite clearly his fault. That doesn't make him wrong, by the way, it means the show doesn't work for him. If I follow your logic that it is the fault of the show, then to fix that, the show would have to appeal to everybody. It would have to be all things to all people, which is a patently absurd position.

Eh? If the show fails to communicate how it's concept is meant to come across, yes I would say that's an issue with the show. It doesn't come across as intended. It's not about whether it appeals to everybody. You can't just say it's the audiences fault. The fault is with the production team. If I draw a picture of a daisy and most people think it looks like a fish I can't just claim it's their fault.

The CZ pilot was a lot better in this regard I thought, but If I remember correctly it was shorter than the 30 minutes it was supposed to be and had an 'insert funds' message which was maybe a bit cheeky.