Please Post Nathan Barley Articles Here - And Add Them To The Database Too If Possible

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

The idea that it's 'outraged business and community leaders', I mean. Such as? Quotes?

[Ambient Sheep]

CB just mailed me: it's Heidi.

Indeed, I was about to say when I saw your earlier post - I checked the subtitles (although as we know they're not always definitive).

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

Anyone got VLS' review of it?

[TJ]

Anyone got VLS' review of it?

Please???

[alan strang]

Jim Shelley's back in The Mirror tomorrow by the way, so that should make interesting reading. I imagine he took two weeks off so he could check the direction of the wind before writing his review.

I'm not expecting enthusiastic lapdogging or an out-and-out slagging though - probably more a "not brilliant but lots of potential, so please watch, although it won't be to everyone's tastes"-type waste of space.

[peet]

Anyone got VLS' review of it?

Please???

I can scan it in, but haven't Standard articles generally been appearing online same day?
Having said that I'm looking through http://www.thisislondon.co.uk and buggered if I can find it.

[Morrisfan82]

Jim Shelley's back in The Mirror tomorrow by the way, so that should make interesting reading. I imagine he took two weeks off so he could check the direction of the wind before writing his review.

He's been off for a month.

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

Anyone got VLS' review of it?

Please???

Oops, sorry, where are my manners.

[peet]

Enjoy

[Jemble Fred]

Sorry, but I have no idea what any of you see in VLS. Despite raising a few laughs with his silly voices on short-lived TV series many many years ago, I've never heard him express an opinion without sounding either bitter, irrelevant or just plain wrong.

[hencole]

Isn't that the point of him though? All his tv reviews read like that. The Evening Standard article is the same rehash that he brings out for every Morriss project. He hasn't even bothered changing the words on some of his comments like the Heseltine one which is a word for word copy.

[jutl]

Chris Morris doesn't turn viewers on

The new Chris Morris sitcom on Channel 4, Nathan Barley, which satirises pretentious Shoreditch media types, has not proved a turn on for viewers.

An audience of 1 million people watched the sitcom, co-scripted by Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker at 10pm, compared with 2.8 million who had watched The Simpsons 30 minutes earlier.

from http://media.guardian.co.uk/overnights/story/0,7965,1419349,00.html

[Morrisfan82]

I think it would be short-sighted to let VLS' ever-present and visible distaste for Morris cloud the fact that that review of Nathan Barley was arguably spot on.

IMO, etc.

[Beagle 2]

Yes Victor, I'm sure "assasination of the week" wasn't being "desperate to shock" was it. OK, he's largely accurate, but the godawful gags and personal sniping is a bit wearing.

[TJ]

Sorry, but I have no idea what any of you see in VLS. Despite raising a few laughs with his silly voices on short-lived TV series many many years ago, I've never heard him express an opinion without sounding either bitter, irrelevant or just plain wrong.

Try the Loose Ends inserts of Radio 1 shows.

[TJ]

Funny how nobody ever complains about the personal sniping and cheap shots at VLS that Morris used to gleefully indulge in, though.

[alan strang]

That's the great thing about VLS - despite all the usual attempts to pigeon-hole him as a bitter TV critic who slags everything off, he is one of the few unpredictable reviewers still writing. I dont read him because his views reflect my own (usually the defence for a 'good critic') but because he genuinely could go either way. The glowing praise he originally gave The Day Today contrasting with the good kicking he gave Brass Eye sort of sums it up, not to mention his positive reviews of The 11 O'Clock Show/Daisy Daisy vs his disdain for The Office.

Yes, he does still have a bee in his bonnet about Morris, although I'd suggest this no longer actual 'bitterness' (a highly paid newspaper columnist who owns his own TV production company - ha, I should be so 'bitter') and more a case of growling on autopilot.

[Jemble Fred]

Loose Ends inserts or Radio 1 Shows? Not being pedantic about a typo, just checking that's what you meant. I never missed LE in  the old days and do remember VLS' bits – as I say, back in the early nineties his schtick was fair enough, but as a writer he's nothing but an irritant. Okay, his review of mr don and mr george informs my opinions on him greatly, but still... A sticky on his bleedin' restaurant reviews? Still?

None of my business of course, I'm ever so 'umble et cetera....

[DuncanC]

Funny how nobody ever complains about the personal sniping and cheap shots at VLS that Morris used to gleefully indulge in, though.

He didn't do it in the form of professional media criticism. And he's not still doing it.

[The Mumbler]

The Heseltine error grates as usual, but to be honest, most of that review is absolutely fair enough.  And Victor does have a point - Morris *is* cosetted and indulged at Talkback and Channel 4 without ever really doing very much work.  A Morris-breaking-wind project would get commissioned.  Indeed it's currently being transmitted.

[Regular John]

The Sunday Times
Mark Herring, 40, runs talentlab.co.uk, a branding agency that re-markets firms of City accountants using Radiohead lyrics such as "no alarms, no surprises",

Why is this sort of thing allowed to exist and make money?

[Ambient Sheep]

I think it would be short-sighted to let VLS' ever-present and visible distaste for Morris cloud the fact that that review of Nathan Barley was arguably spot on.

Well between "Turning a caricature into a believable sitcom character..." and "...the patient flatlined, then died.", yes.

The rest is VLS' usual nasty inaccurate hypocritical shit.

[NobodyGetsOutAlive]

That said, by the time Nathan began shocking us with descriptions of his own website ("Trashbat is the 9/11 of the mind...it's two people leaping off the Twin Towers and f-ing on the way down), I was glued to  my seat.

Well, this newspaper uses desperate measures to keep me watching dire television programmes beyond the first five minutes, and if it takes glue, then so be it.

That really really amused me.

[rjd2]

Jim Shelley's back in The Mirror tomorrow by the way, so that should make interesting reading. I imagine he took two weeks off so he could check the direction of the wind before writing his review.

I'm not expecting enthusiastic lapdogging or an out-and-out slagging though - probably more a "not brilliant but lots of potential, so please watch, although it won't be to everyone's tastes"-type waste of space.

Um I can never decide if I like Jim or not. While some of his reviews are great e.g. the green wing review and his cheap comments can be quite funny. However some times he comes across really nasty e.g. the relentless Frank Skinner bashing. He is one of the more interesting tabloid TV critics out there; it's a shame in comparison that Ally Ross just reviews guaranteed rubbish shows.. I want to see what he says about this show though he frequently calls Jam classic TV.

[The Mumbler]

Jim Shelley always was a back-biting cunt.  I remember him writing a Melody Maker cover story about Peter Gabriel about 20 years ago, and it was a classic case of not having the slightest nerve to tackle him during the interview.  He waited till he got back to the office, to write a spiteful load of shite.  

Sunday supplement profile writers make a career out of this of course.  And they're no different.

[Bert Thung]

STUDENT NEWSPAPER

Morris�s new clothes

Last week I watched a programme which poked fun at media figures, made inappropriate references to masturbation and bizarre sexual practices, and was hilarious from start to finish. I also watched Nathan Barley, Chris Morris�s latest forced turd.

The first programme was, of course, An Audience With Joe Pasquale. Personally, I had written him off even before he committed cerdibility suicide and went on I�m A Celebrity... as a �play it for laughs� family entertainer in the vein of Jim Davidson - a bit funny, a bit offensive. But, given a show well after the watershed, Pasquale comes alive. One gag, about the amount of sex on TV, had him telling his obviously uncomfortable audience of �celebs� that he had been so angered at the explicit nature of late night satellite that he ended up �sitting on the edge of the bed, waving [his] fist at it�. But the masterstroke was perhaps his on-stage ritual slaughter of Emmerdale sow Lisa Riley, in which he managed to completely humiliate her while painting a picture of the Mona Lisa, upside-down. Everyone went home happy, though, after Pasquale was joined onstage by cute muppet Gonzo and created a shower of fake snow over the audience, in true Andy Kauffman style. Pasquale managed to capture a range of emotions, from the uneasiness of the audience to the feel-good ending, and certainly proved he is a great comic, even if he does have a silly voice.

On the other hand, we have Nathan Barley. And what a hyped-up piece of shit that is. With this series, it seems to be that you either see it for the rubbish it is, or you want to go round to Emperor Chris Morris�s house and praise him on his exquisite fashion sense; finest invisible gold thread is so this season, darling. To be honest, a couple of years ago, I�d have given him the benefit of the doubt; I�d loved everything he�d done, from On The Hour to BrassEye. In fact, when his blurry, confusing sketch show, Jam, and his blurry, confusing short film, My Wrongs, were squeezed out, I tried my best to find them funny. But with Barley I�ve given up trying to convince myself I enjoy anything King Morris is creating now. The jokes come thin and slow, once every five minutes or so, the rest of this comedy-constipated half-hour being filled with the most incidental parts of his previous works - the made-up terminology, the awful feedback-filled comedy music. Even the camerawork is trying for mass appeal, zooming in on all the �funny bits� as if to say: Look! Funny! Laugh now, morons! Perhaps in the last episode we will find out it was Morris�s biggest joke yet: another, sicker, Kauffmanesque trick; we will see Morris swimming in pools of unused Channel 4 budget money. It certainly hasn�t been spent on the script or the production.

I don�t know whether I am getting old beyond my years or whether I have just become more honest with myself, but give me Joe Pasqueaky anyday. There�ll always be artsy hangers-on, but if Morris continues this abdication, more and more people are going to see through his false robes and call for a republic

By Taras Young

http://www.studentnewspaper.org/view_article.php?article_id=20050221124916

[Bert Thung]

MEDIA GUARDIAN

Chris Morris doesn't turn viewers on

The new Chris Morris sitcom on Channel 4, Nathan Barley, which satirises pretentious Shoreditch media types, has not proved a turn on for viewers.

An audience of 1 million people watched the sitcom, co-scripted by Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker at 10pm, compared with 2.8 million who had watched The Simpsons 30 minutes earlier.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/overnights/story/0,7965,1419349,00.html

[slim]

What's up with his/her ?quotes?'

:)

Anyhoo, I wonder if (s)he is a poster here? It sounds suspiciously like it!

[Bert Thung]

What's up with his/her ?quotes?'

:)

Anyhoo, I wonder if (s)he is a poster here? It sounds suspiciously like it!

I thought that at first, then again, with those viewing figures, I don't think the Verbwhores are alone in giving it the thumbs down.

[skibz]

The rest is VLS' usual nasty inaccurate hypocritical shit.

Yeah, I'd agree with you on that - especially when he starts going on about Morris using crash-zooms in The Day Today, which was in fact directed by Andrew Gillman (as even the most cursory glance at the credits would have shown). Oh, and Brass Eye was 100 times funnier than TV Offal, which arguably ripped off the idea of spunking jokes from BE anyway (if we're stooping to VLS levels of criticism, that is).