The other evening, having watched two more episodes of the dark and gripping Danish crime thriller "The Killing" on BBC4 (highly recommended), we caught some of a Charlier Borker show. And before we knew what was happening there was a clip from a "comedy" series in which the bloke came in from giving himself some manual stimulation and announced he was going to make a nice post-w**k sandwich. Cue gross jokes. hahaha.
I've had to reconcile myself to the fact that some of my favourite comedians (e.g. Eddie Izzard) are addicted to effing left right and centre and yes of course comedy always pushes boundaries (Lenny Bruce etc.). So I guess that sooner or later, through a process of fractional distillation, different people reach the limits of their tolerance and cut off.
There are now several programmes on TV I just find obnoxious and won't watch. Does it mean I'm an old fogey? Possibly. Should I try harder to bear them and even enjoy them, to avoid becoming a superannuated "Outraged of Bradford-on-Avon"? Pass. If I'm going to make an effort to do something I don't like, it will be for something more rewarding than developing a tolerance for low-grade juvenilia.
I've had to reconcile myself to the fact that some of my favourite comedians (e.g. Eddie Izzard) are addicted to effing left right and centre and yes of course comedy always pushes boundaries (Lenny Bruce etc.). So I guess that sooner or later, through a process of fractional distillation, different people reach the limits of their tolerance and cut off.
There are now several programmes on TV I just find obnoxious and won't watch. Does it mean I'm an old fogey? Possibly. Should I try harder to bear them and even enjoy them, to avoid becoming a superannuated "Outraged of Bradford-on-Avon"? Pass. If I'm going to make an effort to do something I don't like, it will be for something more rewarding than developing a tolerance for low-grade juvenilia.
3 comments:
I think you'll find that the "clip" on Charlie Brooker's programme was an intentionally extreme skit on this type of BBC3 comedy and made especially for the programme with the aim of ridiculing it. I didn't beleive for one minute that it was a real programme - though how close to the truth it is I have no idea because I usually don't give that type of crap any attention.
It's horribly close to reality - close enough to have fooled me :)
In fact irony within irony, I find CB himself often veers too close to a kind of mirror image of Jeremy Clarkson.
You're right. I can only take so much of him at a time. He's risking becoming over-exposed recently what with this series and his stuff on 10 O'clock Live. He's definitely better in short sharp doses.
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