Comedy characters trapped.

[andy-hughes]

Watching the Steptoe & Son film a few nights ago reminded me how often our best commedy characters are those who are trapped in their situatrions.

Hancock, Fawlty, Meldrew, Brent, all kicking against the system, and making comdy that is a mere whisker away from tragedy.

That situation was always so wonderfully realised in the relationship with Harold and Albert - manacled together, each needing the other more than either would ever dare to admit to each other, much less to themselves.

The faces Wlfred Bramble could manufacture, rendering Albert a nasty selfish old man, and in the wink of an eye a pitifully frightened lost soul, were Brechtian in scale and execution, and their black and white TV episodes, often shot on one camera with no edits, were masterclasses in comedy theatre.

Why oh why cannot modern writers create such gems, or find actors with the genuine thatrical skills to bring them to life?

[mrs_overall]

Oh I so agree with you Andy.
The comedies today are a misnomer

[mickrog]

agree totally.....Steptoe imo was the best

[emmie]

because that was a golden age, and they were not so constrained by being politically correct. Look at many comedies of the time and you can show them, but rarely will tv companies do so because they could well offend some people.

[mike11111]

Till Death Us Do Part was brilliant for its time but no-one would dare show the first series again.

[mrs_overall]

mike, I remember my nan telling me about that

<<<<legs it>>>>

[emmie]

Mike, exactly, can you imagine the uproar showing Alf garnett in all his glory.

[mike11111]

Mrs O, Till Death... came AFTER Steptoe.

[commoner]

Hancock's "The Blood Donor" also had some remarks which would not be allowed today.....I still LMAO at those same remarks....does that make me racist?...mmmm.....maybe in some peoples view, though I certainly don't consider myself so ....

[mickrog]

to the pc do gooders they would cry racist....remember Love Thy Neighbour?

[jno]

that's because Love They Neighbour was racist - and not funny. A racist comedy that *was* funny would be trickier to deal with, but I don't know of one.

[mickrog]

it was not racist,.....the black guy always came out on top

[tenrec]

mickrog - so it was racist

[naomi24]

^^ Same with Alf Garnett. The bigot was the butt of the joke.

Perhaps the PC brigade that brought an end to these comedies didn’t do good causes much good after all.

[sandyRoe]

Sorry, starring Ronnie Corbett, also dealt with a character trapped in unhappy circumstances. It wasn't a patch on Steptoe.

[mickrog]

why do some people here thrive on bringing racism into anything they can?......sad really and not worth conversing about

[tenrec]

I hope that wasn't aimed at me Mickrog?

[commoner]

One person's view of racism can be very different from another's.... why is it seen as racist to be "White and proud of it!" but seen as good to be "black and proud of it!"..............never did understand that one????

[andy-hughes]

em10 - I disagree - I don't think political correctness has anything at all to do with the strength of comedy from the past. They were of their time, but with The Office, Gervais and Merchant managed to conjure plenty of comedy mileage from their PC constraints - including race and disability - using them to further comedic impact, rather than dancing around sensitive issues.

microg - the, shall we say, 'broader' strokes of 70's comedy evindenced in Love Thy Neighbour would not sit well today, because times have moved on considerably, as has the subtlety of viewing tastes and expectations. Two middle-aged men trading crude insults would not necessarily offend the majority of viewers, so much as be seen to be seriously dated, and viewed for what the series was, a one-trick pony repeated an nauseum week after week like some dreadful Sysiphean nightmare.

And finally, Sorry was irredeemably dreadful - as funny as dysentery on a coach holiday!

[Hopkirk]

Have you not watched the first series of Outnumbered?

Brilliant comedy is still being made.

[woofgang]

great comedies. Dinner Ladies, Thin Blue Line, Jam and Jerusalem, Clarence with Ronnie Barker, Lame Ducks, Big Jim and the Figaro Club, Turtles Progress.