Birds of a Feather

[badaids]

The BOAF gang are currently stinking out the BBC4 TotP reruns by appearing in the video for the 1993 Comic Relief single 'Stick It Out' with Right Said Fred.

Appropriately for a Comic Relief single, nothing remotely funny happens.

It's a truly terrible terrible terrible song and video.  But there's quite a lot in there to talk about. 

Firstly the song appears to be encouraging men to expose their cock and balls to doctors and anyone else, for a laugh you know.
Then it's got a chromakey black and white Peter Cook who looks embarrassed to be in it for about 2 seconds.
It's got those fucking terrible squashed tomato things everywhere that people used to put on the front of their ford escort markII.

[Glebe]

Yeah saw that the other night. It was for a good cause and everything but fuck me worst charity song ever surely? Embarrassing video to match.

[idunnosomename]

i hate Hale and Pace so much but The Stonk is a lot of fun for the load of silly crap that it is. also you've got Brian May, Cozy Powell and Tony Iommi on it.

but that... thing is one of the most rancid songs ive ever heard. it felt like it was twice as long as it was. genuinely terrible

[MrMrs]

Just to say I looked on the website and there are loads of Pauline Quirke Academies. My nearest one is Bicester.

15 or so of them in London alone (I say or so because some of them seem to be just outside).

My wife works for one lol

[jobotic]

Waddle she doo?

I mean, what's her job?

[McDead]

The Birds of a Feather Academy (BOAFA) teaches you how to fulfill some of society's key roles: housewife with jailbird husband, housewife with jailbird husband but you have short hair, and next door sexual harridan. There's jobs for the men, too: jailbird, jailbird and man who is not in jail. Something for everyone, at BOAFA.

[MrMrs]

Waddle she doo?

I mean, what's her job?

Bit disingenuous of me to say she works there. She's a teacher and her friend runs one of the franchises. She does the odd week's work in the holidays. She directs the kids in shows 🙂

Never met the Quirke though

[idunnosomename]

BoaFA deez nuts

[McDead]

Never met the Quirke though

No one may see the Quirke and live

[ImmaculateClump]

What was with the tarty older woman archetype in those old sitcoms? Dorian in this, Marina in last of the summer wine, rose in keeping up appearances, blanche in the golden girls, lilo lil in bread, etc. You don't really see it anymore.

Later that night ...



"Hello, is that reception? Susan? Oh, hi. Can you make more tarty older women come on my telly please?".

[Fambo Number Mive]

Who is the bald bloke with glasses in the video?

Wonder how much it cost to make.

[Brundle-Fly]

Who is the Ronnie Corbett impersonator in the Comic Relief video? Cribbins is the only one who comes over with any semblance of dignity intact. He was  sixty five even back then.

[Brundle-Fly]

Thought including that footage of that young child in Africa, implying they were dancing to that appalling rotten song, was a bit rum

Followed by a meths drinker passed out, face down on a municipal bench. I wonder if he got an appearance fee.

[non capisco]

Who is the Ronnie Corbett impersonator in the Comic Relief video?

Steve Coogan, presumably willing the BBC to hurry up and greenlight that TV adaptation of On The Hour with every fibre of his being. Had he been on Saturday Zoo as Paul Calf by this point?

[sevendaughters]

that Right Said Fred vid is the Rosetta Stone for 4 Poofs and a Piano.

[Norton Canes]

As I said on the BBC FOUR TOTP thread:

Don't know about you but that is by far my favourite Right Said Fred song, easily the best thing they ever did. No pretention there, no attempt at sophistication, no desire to produce anything but a string of the very basest and most flimsy innuendo, and have the bare-faced cheek (oo-er!) to stick it out as a charity single

As for where Stick It Out stands in the pantheon of Comic Relief singles...

Here's a list of all the official Comic Relief singles up to 2017 in sales order. First thing I noticed was that there haven't actually been that many out-and-out comedy efforts - apart from Stick It Out it's really just been Living Doll, (I Want To Be) Elected, The Stonk and Absolutely Fabulous (I'm not counting stuff like Help!, Spirit in the Sky, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree and all the other ones that are merely light-hearted takes on songs with madcap, comedian-strewn videos). And of those, however charitable we're inclined to be towards the Pet Shop Boys, surely Living Doll is the only one that raises any sustained laughter. So viewed through this prism of mediocrity, perhaps Stick It Out isn't all that bad.

For what it's worth, I quite like the video for the brief shots of Laurie, Cook and Anderson clowning about in their tweeds. The 'balloons between your knees' bit, though... not sure it was a great idea to take up a whole verse with a joke that makes no sense whatsoever if you're not watching the video (and isn't funny even when you are). Who are those two red-heads, anyway? On first viewing I assumed it must be the Fairbrasses, but it's not, is it? (freeze-frames again) Is it? Also of course the vid can GTF for not just employing the malodorous cliché of saucy hockey schoolgirls but by the look of it using actual schoolgirls rather than agency artists (or wherever one goes to procure a bunch of adults to pretend to be children so people can leer over them safely).

[sevendaughters]

as said by Pauline Quirke as she hurried toward her car

[peteprodge]

Who is the bald bloke with glasses in the video?

The Great Suprendo, AKA ex-Mr Victoria Wood

[poodlefaker]

so it's a franchise, bit like Londis? And no-one ever meets the Quirke. some journalist needs to get in there and blow that whole thing wide open.

[idunnosomename]

Eww

[hamfist]

so it's a franchise, bit like Londis? And no-one ever meets the Quirke. some journalist needs to get in there and blow that whole thing wide open.

My kids go to one of these - and they both met La Quirke - my son online as they did the classes on zoom during lockdown and he asked her some questions and had a nice chat, and my daughter when they did a show at a west end theatre earlier this year and she came to chip in at dress rehearsal.

It's pretty good tbh, just a drama class but well resourced and gives my northern kids the chance to stand on stage in the west end - that's pretty fun. They're filming shorts at the minute which will be premiered (for kids and parents) at a local multiplex - it's all good stuff.

Used to watch Whaddle-eye as a kid more through a kind of tv Stockholm syndrome I think.

[Matthew Dawkins Jub Jub]

Chiming in as my nephew attended one of these waddle-eye schoos on Saturdays for a while. I excitedly asked him whether he ever met Queen Quirke and he looked at me as if I was dense. He dropped out. I'm guessing because he didn't get to meet Queef Quirke.

[Glebe]

as said by Pauline Quirke as she hurried toward her car

"Pauline, where are you going?"

"I've um got a dentist appointment... ooh you're really gonna enjoy that academy bye cigs."

[Replies From View]

My kids go to one of these - and they both met La Quirke - my son online as they did the classes on zoom during lockdown and he asked her some questions and had a nice chat, and my daughter when they did a show at a west end theatre earlier this year and she came to chip in at dress rehearsal.

Imagine listening to her chipping in with advice at a dress rehearsal, everyone sitting on the stage cross-legged, all hushed and reverential as these pearls of wisdom are offered:  wow that's Pauline Quirke herself, she is rarely here and we must absorb all this, wowee

and then the spell drops for a moment by mistake and everyone suddenly remembers that Pauline Quirke was in Birds of a Feather and that's it.  Horrible Birds of a Feather; horrible Pauline Quirke.

I'd be roaring.  GUYS IT'S NOT FUCKING DAME JUDY DENCH THIS.  Mutiny.  LET'S DOUSE THIS JOINT.  Everyone gone feral, fucking around with hoses - I'm their leader now.

[jobotic]

Does everyone call it PQAPA (pronounced Puh-Kwa-Pa)?

[Huxleys Babkins]

I never thought I'd say this, right, but pull down the curtains. I'm closing the Pauline Quirke Academy of Performing Arts. For an hour.

[Glebe]

I'm try'na run the Pauline Quirke Academy of Performing Arts, not some Punch & Judy show down on the beach in Margate!

[non capisco]

I'm try'na run the Pauline Quirke Academy of Performing Arts, not some Punch & Judy show down on the beach in Margate!

THAT'S THE WADDLE EYE TO DOO IT!

[jobotic]

Very good!

[Replies From View]

PIPE THE WATER FROM THE RESERVOIRS OF THE COUNTRY INTO ALL THIS ACADEMY'S ABSORBENT SURFACES

MAKE THE WOOD BLOAT

MAKE IT ROT

WARP THE STAGE AND THE SEATING


DOUSE THIS JOINT



Pauline Quirke going ooooeeeerrhggh why this happen throughout my beloved school of performance waddle I

I'LL TELL YOU WHY, QUIRKE:  BIRDS OF A FEATHER IS HORRIBLE AND YOU ARE HORRIBLE.  YOU ARE NOT DAME JUDY DENCH YOU ARE HORRIBLE.

and a tidal wave emerges to scoot her up onto her arse and carry her out through the open doors of this bulging palace and deposit her in the local estuary