Is it just me ? ….No I don’t think so .I might have a highly developed sense of the absurd, having spent a lifetime reading all the “wrong” books and watching all the “wrong” films. I do think I have a fairly highly developed sense of humour …even if it is a little dark at times . I find myself clutching my writhing innards and laughing uproariously out loud at the daftest and strangest things. I’m not talking “chuckling” here…. I mean weeping tears of abandon.
When I see John Cleese beating the tar out of a parked car with part of a tree… or sending up bowler-hatted authority with his Ministry of Funny Walks….or when Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson set- to and knock seven shades out of each other with frying pans and perfectly timed, exaggerated sound effects . …I simply laugh very loudly to the point of tears….Or when Phil Silvers makes a fool out of the US Army ,while as his Sgt Bilko character , he fast- tracks,speed patters and inducts a chimpanzee into the ranks..ad-libbing all the way. {The chimp lifts the phone and Bilko says …”Look , he’s phoning his lawyer!”}
I find it very , very funny . Laurel and Hardy were masters at this kind of slapstick too. A lot of it involves violent mayhem, you’ll notice , but millions laugh at it and with it. It’s what I’d call the “Whistling past the graveyard ” syndrome and funnily enough , it is probably what all humour is actually based on .We’d rather laugh than cry , I suppose. “We”, meaning us ,wee, chattering , hairless human apes.
Why am I even bothering to mention any of this at all ? Good comedy requires timing. pace and a lot of indefineables. There’s plenty of rubbish comedy and copyist comedians about so it’s not all good, but when it is , it is very apparent.
What set me off?….., you’re probably scratching your head and asking by now. Well , I’m pointing out , for one thing, that humour is our safety valve and anything that makes us laugh should be allowed. Fun has been made of the most awful of human behaviour; should it be the “Life of Brian” or “Oh What a lovely War”. These are both based on human tragedies but they are played for laughter and laughs, to take the sting out of the horror and to point out some valid human truths.
A comedy set in the Famine times in Ireland has been commissioned by Channel 4 television and it has caused some uproar. I hasten to add that at this moment it is nothing more than an idea smashing and rattling around the synapses of the writer’s brain; at this moment is is an idea , a collection of thoughts and random images as nebulous as gas , swirling around one human being’s consciousness. So why the uproar? Is someone saying that we are not actually allowed to think ?Apparently there is an online campaign to ban it before it is written and a lot of politicians are already jumping on the bandwagon. Some of you will say , “They would , wouldn’t they?”The proposed writer is Dubliner Hugh Travers and he’s already receiving some flak.It’s a little early to judge whether or not this comedic piece actually”works” so it is the very idea that is being challenged and not how good it actually is or will be .
In this light you might think that something like “Gone With the Wind ” makes light of slavery and war by tacking on a love story to a social upheaval that involved the slaughter of millions. The love story is what everyone remembers about that book and film…not the slaughterfest that occurred as the ultimate plot device.. You might think that the wonderful “MASH” film and television series made light of the butchery of the Korean War. You might be right but am I wrong in imagining that the Irish , a race with musicians, artists, writers, poets and creatives aplenty, haven’t also got a black sense of humour….humour enough to sustain them through centuries of horror and humour enough to sustain them through a fictional television series about their own awful history….with a few absurdist gags and wry jokes thrown in? …Think Topol in “Fiddler on the Roof” wrangling with the mischief of his god.
If you couldn’t laugh about it you might cry a little too much.
I say ,make the programme and let us see it …..and then we’ll be able to see if it’s funny or not..
Why not have a series based around the time 1916 to 1921. Place it in the Irish country side and film it similar to Allo Allo. Show the Black and Tans as incompetent as the Germans were. Should run for a couple of series.
I actually think it’s a form of blastpheming.
Is this what we call entertainment.
Well what would you call “Dad’s Army”? I suppose it’s a blasphemy too ,then.
Totally agree, Harry, anything would be better than Mrs Brown’s Boys.
The main problem one would have with ‘The Famine’ as a subject for an Irish sit-com, Esteemed Blogmeister, is that time has diminished its impact.
No doubt the intervening mega-starvations from Ethiopia (where the unfortunates had nothing to eat) to Bangladesh (where the deprived had no dosh for the purchase of food or influence to curry favour with the depraved) have played their part in leaving the contemporary Irish psyche little stomach for more of the same.
Even the local English version on Irish soil, with a comic Channel Four clown’s red nose to offset the green stains of the nettle and dandelion soup around the gills.
But most chilling of all it might provoke a hip-hop version of ‘The Fields of Athenry’ to be recorded with a view to being its theme music. That would be a musical stoop too far, a blacker shade of dubh.
Besides, the passing years have critically shrunk that sine qua non of comic targets, its solemnity.
Which is a charge which cannot be levelled at the careering herd of sacred cows to be seen,heard and avoided on the information highways of the Free Southern Stateen. No doubt there is some overspill north in these bovine matters across the Black Pig’s Dyke. As there is some form there, from the Brown Bull of Cooley and co. in the analogue time of the anallod.
Space being limited, one is compelled to make an unenviable choice of three from a herd of thundering hooves in their hundreds. At random, therefore, three settings for sitcoms which are sitting ducks and sacred cows and ripe for uproarious hilarity (canned and McCanned).
1. When it comes to solemnity the twin Spires of the two Cathedrals on Liffeyside, Christchurch and St. Patrick’s, are probably ahead of the herd , if only by a short cross bun. The bells ! the bells ! probably swing it their way,just about.
Because the Cods, aka, the RCs have had a number already done on them, this leaves the chancel open for the Prods, or what are modestly called by this minuscule congregatation itself and by their admirers who far outnumber them,the Church of Ireland (sic). .
As the sacred art of pilfering has a track record here, dating back to the reign of Fat Harry,the title (working) of this sitcom could be filched from the,erm, iconic ‘Fr Ted’ and called ‘The Rev. Trev’. Feck it, it’s worth a try. Besides, one understands that Vicar’s wives are particularly noted for their tea-brewing abilites.
The placename to replace ‘Craggy Island’ picks itself, as one glance at the topography of the two Cathedrals reveals. Located high on the top of a hill like an undescended testicle is Christchurch, while at the bottom of the hill within a shake of holy water from a hirsute bag of skin away is the other ball with a belfry, St. Patrick’s.
Despite predating Fat Harry’;s proclivities in that regard, by a mere three or four hundred annos domini, their positioning was just ripe for reform: thus, ‘Scrotumna – it rhymes with Portumna !’
The characters already associated with the two knicked gothics demand inclusion in the list of potential characters in the putative sitcom: from Sitric Silkenbeard to Olly Wartnose heself.
‘The Rev Trev’ bodes well to become a…..holy terror !
2. Such is the odour of sanctifying incense which has surrounded those John Bulled cashcows of The Republic of Ireland soccer, oops, football theme for the past quarter century and so ripe is it for the slaughterhouse it writes its own script. With a little borrowing here and there.
For a title it is a toss up between ‘The Triumph of FAI-lure’ and ‘Eeejitry !’ (with all credit to that brace of embracable U’s from the Sunday Indpendent Cult, Babe Ruth and Declan ‘Game for a Scaff’ Lynch). With such uber-Paddies to pick from like our ‘ero, Cask of Urino and the haggis chomping Wee Ray Hootsmon there would be a richness of embarrassment.
And this is not to even mention the biggest supporting cast in the back story of sitcoms, the Best Fans in World (whose collective agent is the intriguingly named ‘Paddy the Caddy’).
While this sitcom callled ‘Eejitry !’ might not win the Bafta Award for Lafta, it would be a shoo in to win something altogether more enduring:the hearts and minds of discerning sitcom watchers across the water. (Erm, minds?). TnaG might even have do a dubbed version, to be called ‘Amaidi !’.
3. Last but not least of the three suggestions: ‘The Gang of Four’. One must be extremely careful to walk on eggshells here as the subject would be entirely fictional and based on an imaginary Mother Ireland with all her unamputated limbs intact. And where formidable females fill all four of the highest legal positions in the Land of Ire: Supreme Court Justice, Minister of Justice, Attorney General and – Top Cop.
This sitcom based on a one-sex apex might also consider a billingual version: ‘Tiocfaidh ar Law’ and could feature an AVOCA (A Victim of Chile Abuse) to be presented to the leaders of each political party in turn, in a series of tear-jerking scenes. (No, not tears of laughter as this would be a ‘Dworkin Class Production’ where even the giggles are frowned upon).
This male characters name might be: John Silver, with or without the fada.
The only question would be: who to play Madame Mayo?