Ape’s-Eye View

You may have read about the recent death of Cheeta, the chimpanzee who starred in the Tarzan films alongside Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan. Or starred in some of but not all of the Tarzan films. Or may have starred in some of the Tarzan films. You get the picture. Coincidentally, I recently read Me Cheeta, the simian thespian’s autobiography. Think I need more than this thin coincidence for a blog post? Think again.

Me Cheeta is a neat idea (chimp spills the beans on Hollywood’s Golden Age), studded with superb caricatures and tastefully bitter lines. What makes it more interesting then the name-dropping opponent-skewering memoirs from which it takes its cue is its sophisticated use of irony. Irony isn’t only a comic device, although that remains its most familiar employment. A useful way of thinking about irony is the manipulation or the effect of differences in points of view, and in particular differences in what is understood from each point of view. We know what Oedipus has done before he does, and this produces a very different effect than if it were to be revealed simultaneously to audience and character alike.

At least three different kinds of irony are at play in Me Cheeta. The most straightforward is the showbiz bitchiness, typically cast in jovial descriptions of cruelty and failure (my favourite example being, apropos Harold Lloyd, that “you can’t keep judging someone for destroying their wife”). The irony here comes from a knowing juxtaposition of tone and material. The different points of view are not that of reader and character, or character and narrator, but of the narrative and a kind of false point of view suggested by the upbeat tone (ironic understatement is another example of this device).

But the narrator is a chimp, and chimps can’t be expected to know everything. In between savage jabs at (mostly deceased) film stars, Cheeta enthuses about human endeavours to help other species, which of course are anything but. Here the irony is unknowing, and the other point of view is our own. This is a nice way to make a moral point without slipping into a moralising tone, and it’s used sparingly enough to be effective.

The third species (no pun intended) of irony is a little harder to pin down. It comes, I think, from the fact that it’s a chimp narrating the familiar story of the studio system as a gilded cage, and finding himself so at home there. This fact itself casts its own light on the lives of the rich and famous: the closer Cheeta can ape them, the further into the animal kingdom they are drawn. For this irony to work, the narrator need not be aware of it, but in this case he is. Witness his striking (and, for all I know, accurate) description of fame: “picture a human and a chimpanzee facing each other in awkward silence, with nothing to be said, the faint inanity of the interaction stealing over both of them. That's what fame is.” Now that’s what I call a great ape.

Old Hat (New Girl, Channel 4)

To start the New Year, a brief post on New Girl, which is all it deserves. I don’t object (much) to the fact that the basic premise is recycled from numerous other shows (Man About the House, Threes's Company, or, in an Irish context, Bachelor's Walk). Nor need we make much of the fact that the main characters, give or take a couple of traits distributed differently, could have stepped straight out of Scrubs (the soulful and genuine one; the kooky one; the white one who acts like their black; the black one who mostly tolerates this).

I do object (a little) to the fact that it is fraudulently pitched as a sort of indie/alternative comedy, when it is nothing of the sort. This is the kind of programme that could only have been made following the success of shows such as Flight of the Conchords, but which borrows only the most superficial trappings from these predecessors. Just as (500 Days of) Summer, a film so dull its title seemed like its running time, was a faux-indie, ersatz-Woody squib, so too is this old-fashioned sitcom, complete with hugs and lessons learned at the end of each episode. Zooey Deschanel sprinkles glitter and twee about her like a demented Sugar Plum Fairy, but there is absolutely nothing alternative, or indeed interesting, going on here at all. I have nothing against Ms. Deschanel per se (despite having just criticised a recent film of hers and being in process of criticising the television programme she is currently starring in).[i] But she is given little to do here, and does it badly, slipping effortlessly into generic Tweety Pie Princess mode. A traditional sitcom would have been one thing; something genuinely oddball another. This is neither, and the worse for it.

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[i] She and Him are quite pleasant.

National Emergency?          

'Is British humour dead?' asks Prospect magazine. You will not be surprised to learn that Sam Leith’s answer is ‘No’ (an article with that title being unlikely to conclude otherwise). A more interesting question (which, to be fair, much of Leith’s article considers) is what counts as British humour? Leith mentions in passing a traditional idea of Britishness, but his reference points are arguably more English than British (tellingly, he includes cricket). Getting a handle on a British comic sensibility is complicated by the need to have some idea of what makes it British. And to do that, one must also negotiate differences of class and region (indeed, one striking feature of British humour is that it crams in so many micro-varieties).

For example, one might seek to define British comedy by reference to undeniably classic instances: so Peter Cook and Billy Connolly might each be taken to epitomise a British comic sensibility (which they surely do, if there is one). But what do their respective brands of humour have in common? More importantly, what do they have in common that, say, Woody Allen or Dave Allen do not also share?

Another route is to focus on characteristic topics: class and sexual repression are the two which usually get a mention at this point. But each of these illustrate, in different ways, the problem with trying to define British humour. It no longer seems mandatory for comics to attack or even acknowledge the class system (though there has been a recent revival, which may or may not be related to the fact that Britain has its first Old Etonian Prime Minister since Alec Douglas-Home). Sexual failure brought about by social awkwardness is a more common topic: at a stand-up open mic night, one will hear of little else. (A female comic I knew used to open that part of her set with the line ‘Like all stand-ups, I don’t have a girlfriend…’.) However, as an Irishman I can testify that this sort of thing is common currency among comics (both on and off the stage) in at least some other countries. The kinds of theme often mentioned as British turn out to be either too limited or too universal.

We shouldn’t be tempted to conclude from even this brief survey that there is no such thing as British humour. Rather, we just need to scale back our expectations as to how clearly it can be defined. The various examples of British humour share very little except a common tradition, a loose set of reference points none of which on its own could define a national comic sensibility. So Peter Cook, Billy Connolly, class and sex are all relevant, but none are decisive. In a sense, this is an ‘opt in’ (or out) understanding; a sketch troupe in Duluth or Durban could be usefully classed as sharing a British comic sensibility if their act was modelled with sufficient precision on Monty Python or Fry & Laurie. But this is just what we should expect. Humour can flit across national boundaries as easily as venture capital, but unlike money it will usually have a passport, an accent and a family.

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis? (Life’s Too Short, BBC2)

You’re Ricky Gervais. You’ve created one of the best and most-loved entertainments since John Logie Baird first stuck his finger in a cathode ray tube. You’ve endured the Difficult Second Sitcom (not a classic, but not a disaster either), performed hugely successful stand-up and podcasts, written somewhat less successful films, made fun of the rich and famous at awards ceremonies, become quite rich and famous yourself, and duly made fun of yourself for it. What do you do now?

The answer, apparently, is to do it all again. There’s been quite a bit of comment on how Life’s Too Short, the new Gervais/Merchant sitcom, recapitulates many of his trademarks: the faux-documentary format, awkward situations, edgy humour, celebrity walk-ons. The scenes with Gervais and Merchant even feel like a televised podcast. The series co-writers sit on one side of a table in their office, joshing with Warwick Davis, vertically challenged star of the show, sometimes with a celebrity guest in tow. All we’re missing is Karl Pilkington to make Gervais crease with strangely un-infectious laughter.

All of which does raise the question: what is the point of these scenes, given the already animated existence of The Ricky Gervais Show? More generally, what is the point of this show? Not, I hasten to add, that’s it’s rubbish. Davis is a strong lead, though a little too close to Gervais/Brent in manner and outlook. He particularly excels at the sideways worried glance that a show built from awkward encounters gives him plenty of chances to deploy. The supporting cast, including Rosamund Hanson as Davis’ assistant drone and Jo Enright as his estranged wife, is pitch-perfect for the strained naturalism the format requires. A couple of scenes in the first episode were brilliant: Davis caught by his wife attempting a unorthodox return to his house, and the scene with Liam Neeson. His cameo, demanding to learn the secrets of comic improvisation from Gervais and Merchant, is a masterpiece of earnest bafflement with an undertow of unhinged menace. The writing was crisp (though I could have done without the references to Schindler’s List – they felt too jokey), but Neeson took it beyond anything else seen thus far.

The reason for this is telling. Apart from Neeson’s performance, the exchanges felt like they had a point; that they revealed something about his character, in a way that wasn’t merely contrived to produce uncomfortable silences (though it produced plenty of those). In contrast, much of the show feels aimless, comedy awkwardness for its own sake. The point isn’t that awkwardness is passé, or that Gervais and Merchant are recycling the same tropes. It’s that proper awkward comedy demands attention to plot and character. Precisely because no-one is allowed to crack wise every twenty seconds, the humour has to come from telling details of characterisation and motivation; it has to make sense for the characters to get into these situations, to realise what’s happened, and to react as they do. Curb Your Enthusiasm does this season after season (the most recent series is arguably the best yet). The Office was a superb example of how to build this kind of comedy out of everyday non-events.

In contrast, Life’s Too Short is far too episodic and short on plot (no pun intended).[i] Worse, it’s short on milieu. Davis floats in a sitcom nowhere, not quite the media, not quite entertainment, not quite office life or domesticity. It all feels frictionless, lacking the undertows of frustration or resentment that might result in consistent comedy. We’re left with a collection of individual scenes – some very good, some featuring Johnny Depp, and some with Gervais and Merchant that will make you think of other shows you have seen them in. You hope they won’t end up wondering where the time went.

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[i] Oh alright, it was.

A Brief Entry In Lieu Of A Proper Post

The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn – not the kind of ungainly title you’d expect to see at the start of the post on a comedy blog. (I imagine the film is no laughing matter either, though I have no plans to find out.[i])

But digging through some of the ridiculous internet sturm und drang that has blown up around the film, I discovered something worthy of note, if little more. The latest Stephen Speilberg project, produced by Peter Jackson, is written by a Scot and two Englishmen who are, to all intents and purposes, comedy writers: Steven Moffat (writer of various sitcoms, and co-creator of last year’s Sherlock); Edgar Wright (director of Spaced, co-writer and director of Shaun of the Death and Hot Fuzz); and Joe Cornish (one half of Adam and Joe).

Is this the future for the animated blockbuster? Should we brace ourselves for Pixar movies scripted by Graham Linehan, or Dreamworks commissioning Chris Morris to write yet another Shrek sequel? Will this influx of British sitcom expertise revive a slumbering giant, or will these writers become lost in the labyrinthine bowels of the Hollywood system?

The real mystery, of course, is how Stephen Moffat, a man who co-created the latest version of Sherlock Holmes and wrote the excellent first episode, could also have been responsible for Coupling, one of the most wearily formulaic sitcoms I have ever seen. Something for an intrepid Belgian boy journalist to investigate, perhaps (if he ever makes it back to the big screen).

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[i] I did see the trailer, so let’s say it felt like I saw a whole film, and leave it at that.

Brave New World (The Hunt for Tony Blair, Channel 4)

Satire departs in varying degrees from the facts; indeed, this departure is part of what makes it satirical. Its intent can register in a slight exaggeration of a vocal inclination, or in depicting recognisable persons as animals or inanimate objects. The Hunt For Tony Blair presents a familiar cast in a recognisably different universe, not one created specifically for satirical purposes, but drawing on our knowledge of genre. Blair, Mandelson, Brown and the rest scuttle around in a Cold War-era thriller, which is perhaps suitable given that as a piece of satire it’s a little out of date (one reference to trusting the bankers and a mention of Afghanistan apart, there’s little that speaks to Cameron’s Britain).

And yes, the central theme is Blair as a Tory Boy shyster, on the run from a murder charge: the stuff of a million placards. But don’t let that put you off (too much): this is slick, smart stuff, and a lot better than anything else I’ve seen from The Comic Strip. There aren’t too many outstanding jokes, but the conceit introduces us to a black-and-white world where the theme from A Summer Place swoons over the action, bobbies toot on their whistles while ineffectually chasing fugitives, and the Evening Post is sold at London train stations; but it’s also a world with Iraq, New Labour, and an endless stream of political biographies.

The show is all about this world and its stylish execution: there is little attempt to dig into the coils of politics or present the New Labour years in a remotely realistic fashion. A couple of the actors could pass for distant relatives of their characters (notably Nigel Planer as a drooping Peter Mandelson), but in general there’s little attempt at physically matching the targets; Michael Sheen can rest easy. Stephen Mangan does essay the familiar Blair mannerisms, but it’s not so much a portrait as an aide-memoire to remind us who he’s meant to be. Jennifer Saunders does this even more blatantly with Margaret Thatcher; you’re never in any doubt that you’re watching a comedienne doing a Maggie impression (one of the better things in the show, as it happens). The fun lies in seeing how these characters appear differently in this world, and how it reflects on our perceptions of them in ours. Blair’s perpetually nervous grin suggested a man forever on the defensive; here, he’s got Robbie Coltrane’s hulking detective on his tail. Mandelson’s combination of entitlement and false deferrence to whomever he speaks makes him an ideal subject for police cross-examination. Thatcher is perfect as a faded diva, with Norman Tebbit as the butler playing her newsreel footage of her martial triumphs. Not all the characters are placed so delicately: the portrayals of Bush and Brown are one-dimensional, and the likes of Cherie Blair and Alistair Campbell get cameos at best. But by placing these rogues in a glamorous age, it emphasises their seediness without spelling it out for us. And – who knows – maybe it’s a deliberate attempt to portray them as yesterday’s men and women, their problems seemingly as remote from us as tiny black-and-white televisions, smoking cigarettes indoors, and Barbara Windsor’s East End accent.

Not with a Bang, but a Tinkle: NF Simpson

Prayer: Let us throw back our heads and laugh at reality:

Response: Which is an illusion caused by mescalin deficiency.

(from A Resounding Tinkle)

NF Simpson, perhaps Britain’s most influential absurdist playwright, suffered a fatal underdose of mescalin at the end of August.

Before I start, a confession: I have not seen any of Simpson’s plays. My appreciation of him is therefore necessarily more limited than might be ideal. There is an argument that the best way to judge a playwright is by the words on the page, avoiding the risk of any actors, directors or other interested parties making it look better than it actually is. Tempting though this thought may be, I think it must be dismissed. Judging a play in this fashion is like judging a painter only by examining the oils in their bottles. Nevertheless, after reading Simpson’s two most famous works, I have formed an impression which is hopefully worth a blog post at any rate.

Reading A Resounding Tinkle and One-Way Pendulum, I was struck by somewhat contradictory thoughts. Each script was fiercely inventive, but each relied heavily on a particular comic approach which I feel would not work nearly as well nowadays. Humour can date to much the same degree as anything else. There must have been a time, perhaps between the evolution of the opposable thumb and the cultivation of fire, when stories finishing with ‘...and that was just the men!’ were cutting edge stuff. Simpson’s humour was of a much more individual kind, mixing absurdism, farcical events and a recognisably English whimsy which litters both scripts (the playwright complaining that most of his work came to him in Portuguese; the judge asking whether the defendant has any “negro blood”, and being told that he might have one or two bottles of it in his room).

What does not work so well is Simpson’s use of the satiric/absurdist set-piece, in which characters in a recognisable setting earnestly debate or work through some Big Idea, in the process reducing it to something smaller: comedians discussing the purpose of the universe; the spoof radio service quoted from above; the trial which takes up almost half of One-Way Pendulum. These came across as clunky, at times didactic. The hand of the author is too readily discerned in them, carefully positioning his mannequins for maximum effect; the point of the exercise is too obvious. One feels as though each such scene should finish with the author emerging from the wings (as happens in A Resounding Tinkle – another rather creaky device) to triumphantly declare ‘QED!’

I suspect the absurdism which runs through Simpson’s writing might be the root of the problem. The great strength and limitation of the Theatre of the Absurd was the sweeping assumptions it was premised upon. If your claim is that society or the family or middle-class certainties are not just wrong or need to be revised, but are meaningless through-and-through, the temptation will be to present them in as dismissive a manner as possible.  The result tended to be plays which made strong, even thrilling claims, but which had little subtlety to reward closer inspection. Kenneth Tynan, a staunch defender of Simpson, noted that few plays by Eugene Ionesco survived a second hearing. I fear this may also be true of Simpson’s work.