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Robert Katz Articles

Started by Neil, February 17, 2004, 12:26:15 AM

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Neil

Hello, just got chatting to a fellow on Soulseek and he pointed me to a couple of articles by Katz.  I've been waiting to see these for  months actually.  Some mailing list called The Friday Thing mentioned that he would be a regular columnist in their new print mag (London News Review), but he never turned up in the "pilot issue" so I presumed they were full of shit.  Anyway, chrislemon has just pointed me to two articles that finally turned up in the mag, so here's the links:

Addicted to Hutton:
http://www.lnreview.co.uk/hi/politics/000162.php

Israel: A Personal View
http://www.lnreview.co.uk/hi/correspondents/000372.php

Gamma Ray

Yeah, ever since my brother told me that this guy called Robert Katz was partly responsible for the Blue Jam monologues I've been wanting to find out what else he's done.

Neil kindly pointed out that he performed a sort of proto-monologue on one of the Morris GLR radio shows - so I'll be checking that out. I think that it'll be pretty strange to hear that kind of material outside of Blue Jam ... Apparently there was a thread about Katz at the old forum, so if anyone could shed any light as to what the gen was there I would be most grateful for their munificence ...

I found this little CV of his TV work at the BBCi website. Personally I've never heard of 'Klinik!', 'The Pooters', or 'Shadows Of Reflections', though I'm sure some of you have - let me know what they're like, if you could ...

In fact I'd be interested to know anything about this mysterious individual, so what else you all got stored up there in them heads?

butnut

Quote from: "Gamma Ray"In fact I'd be interested to know anything about this mysterious individual, so what else you all got stored up there in them heads?

Me too. I did a thread on the old forum, that didn't turn up much if I remember.

Thanks Neil for the articles - I enjoyed them, especially the Hutton report one. I might even bother to go the offivial website and read it one day now.

Neil

I really can't remember if The Pooters was discussed on here at all, and I am sure I missed it.  Anyone remember if it's any good or not?

Can't get into Yahoogroups to check our mailing list archives at the mo, so tomorrow I'll repost the stuff from the guy who was at a Katz live show.

Darrell

The Pooters was awful - one of the worst Comedy Labs I've ever seen. It was someone who looked a bit like David Mitchell wearing a dressing gown, sneering at C-list celebrities' autobiographies. Then Patrick Moore arrived.

That was basically it. Dreadful programme.

fbb bastard

god yeah..the pooters was the absolute dregs....charlie skelton done a pretty funny book with victoria coren about making a porn movie but he should hang his head in shame for writing and starring in that rubbish

Sarge

the pooters (I'm not even going to bother capitalising it) was a piece of shit.  God, I regretted watching it, and I rarely watch t.v.

Dr David V

Heads up, Katz is doing something else on the Comedy Lab tonight I think. I couldn't tell you what it is though, I just remember seeing it in the Radio Times.

Neil

Wow, really?  Let's see...Must be this one...

Quote
23:05  Comedy Lab: The Russell Brand
More from the sixth year of the prestigious comedy showcase. Welcome to the weird, dark and twisted world of Russell Brand, a world that has all the distinctive characteristics of a David Lynch film.  

Hmm.

This one sounds vaguely interesting...

Quote
23:40  Comedy Lab: Private Lives
Random members of the public film their daily lives, revealing a cornucopia of liars, egotists, neurotics and downright lunatics... Written and performed by Laurence Rickard and George Sawyer.  

fbb bastard

i think he is actually involved with the puppet one after them both

Neil

Can't see any mention of a puppet thing after, bob.  There's an hour-long documentary about testosterone, then Monkey and shitloads of sci-fi crap, and then an interesting sounding documentary about the Pyramids on at 5 in the morning.

fbb bastard

bugger...it was on the teletext earlier for sure

this one i do believe

http://www.talkbackthames.tv/site_includes/Text.asp?partID=108

Re: The London News Review - Robert Katz did contribute to the pilot issue - he did the 'What Brock Found' / Blake poem on the back cover.

Neil

Quote from: "wrapperisauniquecode"Re: The London News Review - Robert Katz did contribute to the pilot issue - he did the 'What Brock Found' / Blake poem on the back cover.

Damn, I was misled then, thanks for that!  The guy told me he definitely wasn't mentioned in the credits and I had to badger him to check.    

Ta for the link, bob.

Gamma Ray

Hi folks, seems you're all as ignorant as me about our friend Robert Katz. I've found a couple more little things about him - an entry in the IMDB here which credits him with contributions to Da Ali G show as well as My Wrongs. It seems that a picture of him turns up in TDT pilot too ... judge rules Leicester man was right to eat sister

There's also a review by Sam Taylor of a show that he did in Edinburgh back in the last millenium (!) here called Unfucked: Parkinson and Katz over at The Observer website. I think that Neil mentioned it to me over at Soulseek, so apologies if you've seen it before, but here's the relevant bit -

QuotePossibly the fourth-best thing I saw in Edinburgh was an unheralded lunchtime show called Unfucked: Parkinson and Katz. These two could easily have billed themselves as Mrs Merton and Mrs Morris - Sarah Parkinson is Paul Merton's girlfriend; Robert Katz is Chris Morris's sidekick - but such crass marketing would not have suited the humour of this pitch-dark, slyly amusing hour.

The mordant, stubbly Katz and the waspish, blonde Parkinson sit on plastic chairs, delivering little speeches about each other and how they met (in Docklands in the Eighties), Katz playing the odd atmospheric lick on a bass guitar, before moving into dramatic monologues: Katz's a funny, bleak portrayal of a man who seems to be a mentally ill alcoholic; Parkinson's a more overtly satirical piece about a female newspaper columnist that trawls similar ground to Katz and Morris's spoof suicide columnist Richard Geefe, published to such controversy in The Observer earlier this year.

It's not wholly convincing - the structure is awkward and the two monologues never really dovetail - but it's still far more interesting than most daytime offerings in Edinburgh. The day I saw it, Paul Merton was in the audience, laughing loudly and not even cringing when Parkinson declared that the first time she met Katz: 'I thought that I would sleep with him.' She didn't: hence the title. If Chris Morris was in the audience, he must have been in disguise. Which is quite possible, actually.

Again, I'd be very interested to learn more about this guy - he must have done other stuff. Particularly writing, as that's my personal 'bent' ... You know where to apply etc.

Entropy Balsmalch

Unf**cked was excellent.

More Blue Jam than Blue Jam itself - Katz delivering his monolouges with slightly more style than Morris while tapping out wierd tunes and rythms on his bass guitar playing through a delay box which meant they'd buckle back on themselves and distort well into Sarah Parkinson's bits.

Also, wasn't Katz invovled with a comedy lab from ages ago about a poet played by Kevin Eldon which was also co-written by Simon Munnery?

Hush,
Boom,
Loud.
The
Mush
Room
Cloud.

alan strang

Quote from: "Entropy Balsmalch"Also, wasn't Katz invovled with a comedy lab from ages ago about a poet played by Kevin Eldon which was also co-written by Simon Munnery

Can't remember the title or whether Katz was involved but the character was called 'Paul Hamilton'. He used to do it as part of Cluub Zarathustra.

Entropy Balsmalch

Cheers for that - helped me find this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/s/shadowsofreflect_66603060.shtml

Katz was producer.

No mention of Simon Munnery though he definately was one of the writers.

Gamma Ray

Quote from: "Entropy Balsmalch"Also, wasn't Katz invovled with a comedy lab from ages ago about a poet played by Kevin Eldon which was also co-written by Simon Munnery

Quote from: "alan strang"Can't remember the title or whether Katz was involved but the character was called 'Paul Hamilton'. He used to do it as part of Cluub Zarathustra.

According a page at the BBCi website here it was called Shadows Of Reflections and Robert Katz was producer. Was it any good?

Edit: Ah, Entropy beat me to it. Still, I did link the BBCi resouce up the top there - shows that you pay attention to my posts, ¿eh?

Entropy Balsmalch