Farce!

[Beagle 2]

Farce: "A light dramatic work in which highly implausible plot situations, exaggerated characters, and often slapstick elements are used for humorous effect"

I love a good farce me, being a Man city fan it's only natural. Apparently the British do it better than the rest, but the tried and tested format of a series of contrived situations, coincidences and twists leading to a finale in which there is usually some element of spectacular embarrassment or failure has been used by writers since comedy began. Silent comedies used the farce as they needed a bit of slapstick and misadventure, as subtlety couldn't really translate. A lot of sitcoms set out to present a self contained farce a show, with varying levels of success. So what are your favourite ludicrous farce plots, whether movie, sketch or sitcom?

Clockwise

John Cleese stars in this and I watched it over and over as a kid. I actually remember being quite sad at the end of it, but it's a great film, with Cleese playing the pompous career orientated middle class stressball gradually having a nervous breakdown that he was made for, through an hour and a half of  improbable catastrophes.

Father Ted

The one where they fix the raffle. Ace.

Blackadder

The baby eating bishop of bath and wells. Watched this last night, the stuff with Melche and Queenie betting is great. "You see, I am a MASSIVE pervert..."

Nuns on the ru...

No.

I'll think of a ton more when I've sobered up a little. In the  meantime, post your contenders.

[Gannett]

How about The Brittas Empire?  I know this programme was  generally panned, and is now largely forgotten, but I'm one of the minority who love it.  This had a very strong farce element, and managed to pack loads of parallel plots and a usually explosive conclusion into half an hour.  Just thought I'd stick up for this show!

[lardboy]

Pretty much any episode of Frasier that isn't restricted to his apartment, the coffee shop and the radio studio.  There's one episode that springs to mind (slightly fuzzily) where he goes off for a saucy weekend with one of his ridiculously good looking girlfriends, that has people running around in various states of undress from room to room very much like a traditional Brian Rix farce.

Of course there's also Terry and June.

[neveragain]

Fawlty Towers (oviously) handled farce brilliantly. One Foot In The Grave, similarly to The Brittas Empire and Seinfeld, could have up to four of five plots in one episode. It doesn't sound much but it takes a lot to be achieved as well as in the examples I have referred to above. I would offer examples but I'd rather let people pick their own favourite episodes. However, I am watching a Brittas episode at the moment in which there's a dance held in the centre ('Shall We Dance?', series four) and there are a mass of plots swivelling around each other very enjoyably. I'm just off to see how it ends.

[Consignia]

My favourite farce at the moment is that episode of Black Books, were Manny and Bernard house sit. It climaxes when Bernard beats Manny with a tree branch a la Frankenstein and Igor.

[Ciarán2]

Whe I think of farce, I think of "What's Up Doc?" and the immortal line...

"You want your BIKE back?? I'll give you a BROKEN back!"

[Purple Tentacle]

"The Doll" episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, with Larry's cutting of the little girl's doll's hair, the over officious cinema-goer and the non-locking lavatory door all starting off little avalanches that come together into one perfect, rib-busting climax.

The best written episode of....ANYTHING I've seen since Father Ted.

[Tom Hedonist]

"The Doll" episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, with Larry's cutting of the little girl's doll's hair, the over officious cinema-goer and the non-locking lavatory door all starting off little avalanches that come together into one perfect, rib-busting climax.

The best written episode of....ANYTHING I've seen since Father Ted.

I think CYE is a great example of farce. I'd go as far as to say it's almost entirely farce, with some (light) satire thrown in for good measure.

In particular the last episode of series four (without spoling anything) reveals a wonderful farce about the whole of that series.
Strangely, this is the only episode of CYE that I didn't enjoy. Normally I'd be tempted to say "Maybe an hour long show is just too much", but the HBO special is grrrrrreat!

What seems to set CYE apart from, well just about anything else, is that normally within farce, a situation is set up which returns to "bite" the victim later on.  Larry David does this, but nearly always adds an additional bite. And it's this 2nd bite of the victim that, combined with the relationships between characters, makes CYE me all time favourite show of all time :)

[Jemble Fred]

How about The Brittas Empire?  I know this programme was  generally panned, and is now largely forgotten, but I'm one of the minority who love it.  This had a very strong farce element, and managed to pack loads of parallel plots and a usually explosive conclusion into half an hour.  Just thought I'd stick up for this show!

From the few episodes I've watched on the second series set I bought (I also think it's good, it's just not the kind of thing I can watch in any great volume) I can't help but come to the conclusion that The Brittas Empire is deliberately written as a Shakespeare comedy. There's something about the way every episode switches between the groundling-pleasing antics of Colin and Carol, the 'beautiful people' getting into all kinds of mix-ups, and then Gordon Brittas' central towering idiocy, that makes it a glaring mixture of Twelfth Night, Midsummer Night's Dream and Love's Labour's Lost.

A pretentious notion? Well, who's to say the writers weren't pretentious?

[Beagle 2]

What seems to set CYE apart from, well just about anything else, is that normally within farce, a situation is set up which returns to "bite" the victim later on.  Larry David does this, but nearly always adds an additional bite. And it's this 2nd bite of the victim that, combined with the relationships between characters, makes CYE me all time favourite show of all time :)

I didn't know where else to put this but I have to say something about the couple of episodes I've just watched of this. It's the first time I've ever seen the show in full to my shame. I watched "pants tent" on winamp telly last night and it was good, very funny and farcical. So i grabbed a random one off the net today, "trick or treat" and was nearly sick laughing, fucking hysterical, the guy in the wheelchair chasing him threateningly, the look of indignation on his face when he says "It was Bob Cob!", the golf shirt gags and the pay off at the end with the orchestra, wonderful. Pointless gushing on this site about one single episode of an already praised to fuckery show I suppose but what the hell.

I have a lot of these to plough through...

[Hoogstraten'sSmilingUlcer]

Fawlty Towers: The Kipper and the Corpse. Superlative exercise is farce in its *purest* form - taking the simple idea and spinning out a tableau of anarchy. The hiding the corpse in the wardrobe, whilst pretending to clean the room and keeping the guests out, is one of favourite comedy moments.

Curb Your Enthusiasm: I've only seen the 1st series, but The Group is excellent, from Larry telling his 'story,' to the frantic covering-up to Cheryl and the backstage 'reunion' finale, is all wonderful stuff. To be honest, I think each episode of CYE has great moments of farce. I'm not sure whether this is strictly farce, but one thing I adore about CYE is its ability to have Larry insult someone, and then 20 minutes later desperately needing their help. Affirmative Action is a good example of recurring characters, and Porno Gil is brilliant merely for its achingly predictable, but nonetheless hilarious ending, and also for the dinner party.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

Blackadder

The baby eating bishop of bath and wells. Watched this last night, the stuff with Melche and Queenie betting is great. "You see, I am a MASSIVE pervert..."

I think he was a COLOSSAL pervert.

I always thought "Frasier" was a great non-British farce.

[Chadwick]

The word farce always sends a shiver down my spine as it makes me remember the time I went to see the hilarious Ray Cooney "farce" Run For Your Wife at the theatre. Not even the stellar cast featuring Windsor Davis, Ian Lavender, Britt Ekland and Robin Askwith could prevent me making multiple trips to the bar in a vain attempt to numb myself from the hideousness of it all. The only good bit was when Ian Lavender fluffed one of his lines and I shouted "you stupid boy", much to the consternation of the other eight members of the audience.