Dribs and drabs
Jul. 25th, 2010 12:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksI was going to run through the stress tests on the banks, but I'm having such a rough time of it at the moment that I really couldn't give it the attention it derserves. I'm going to treat myself to a Cumberland Pie For One, write this, and then head off to bed wondering how I got myself into such a situation where life is one long rinse-and-repeat of not having fun.
I see that Alex Higgins died today. He came into a betting shop I was working in once -- the Mecca just off Jermyn Street. It was 1977. He wanted to have a grand on a horse and to take the price. A grand was a big bet in 1977, rather than the petty cash than it is today. I guess it would be closer to ten grand today in "value" (where "value" equals "Birks betting inflation", a completely subjective assessment of how valuable betting money is to Birks). Higgins was with his manager and both were absolutely hammered (this was when pubs shut at 3pm). We couldn't lay the bet at 3-1, so he went round the corner and backed it at 7-2 (the price drifted) with William Hill. It won, as it happens.
Far from being a legend made flesh, Higgins was just a loud Irish drunk, and was egged on by his manager to boot.
When I saw him in a TV series a few years ago, a sad shrunken old man, looking up at the TV and still shouting home the horses for his 20p yankee, I fear that my first reaction was "not such a loudmouth now, are you, mate?"
Higgins was in two classic TV documentaries, and I rather hope that they show the first one again. It could have been called "Loneliness of the long-distance snooker player", marking as it did that period after Pot Black appeared on BBC 2, but before the game really hit the TV highlights. Any money to be made was from hustling, moving from snooker ahall to snooker hall, giving exhbitions and then taking on the best the locals could throw at you -- giving them three blacks start and "just" beating them.
Poker has followed a similar trajectory to snooker when it comes to the media, with Higgins and Stu Ungar following somewhat similar paths, I think.
++++++
BBC2 showed another of the classic Dad's Armys tonight -- an episode I thought was lost. It features Godfrey and his two sisters, an absolutely perfect rendition of Edwardian England surviving long after it had been assumed dead and buried -- right the way down to Godfrey (Arnold Ridley) wearing a tweed three-piece suit (and tie) for tea. Beautiful half-hour's comedy.
One would be tempted to say "they don't make 'em like that any more", but they do, they do. Tom Hollander in "Rev" is magnificent, solely because Hollander makes his character so believable. I think this will one day be seen as one of Britain's classic comedies, assuming it gets another series!
+++++++
My Cumberland Pie For One was very nice, TYVM.
___________
I see that Alex Higgins died today. He came into a betting shop I was working in once -- the Mecca just off Jermyn Street. It was 1977. He wanted to have a grand on a horse and to take the price. A grand was a big bet in 1977, rather than the petty cash than it is today. I guess it would be closer to ten grand today in "value" (where "value" equals "Birks betting inflation", a completely subjective assessment of how valuable betting money is to Birks). Higgins was with his manager and both were absolutely hammered (this was when pubs shut at 3pm). We couldn't lay the bet at 3-1, so he went round the corner and backed it at 7-2 (the price drifted) with William Hill. It won, as it happens.
Far from being a legend made flesh, Higgins was just a loud Irish drunk, and was egged on by his manager to boot.
When I saw him in a TV series a few years ago, a sad shrunken old man, looking up at the TV and still shouting home the horses for his 20p yankee, I fear that my first reaction was "not such a loudmouth now, are you, mate?"
Higgins was in two classic TV documentaries, and I rather hope that they show the first one again. It could have been called "Loneliness of the long-distance snooker player", marking as it did that period after Pot Black appeared on BBC 2, but before the game really hit the TV highlights. Any money to be made was from hustling, moving from snooker ahall to snooker hall, giving exhbitions and then taking on the best the locals could throw at you -- giving them three blacks start and "just" beating them.
Poker has followed a similar trajectory to snooker when it comes to the media, with Higgins and Stu Ungar following somewhat similar paths, I think.
++++++
BBC2 showed another of the classic Dad's Armys tonight -- an episode I thought was lost. It features Godfrey and his two sisters, an absolutely perfect rendition of Edwardian England surviving long after it had been assumed dead and buried -- right the way down to Godfrey (Arnold Ridley) wearing a tweed three-piece suit (and tie) for tea. Beautiful half-hour's comedy.
One would be tempted to say "they don't make 'em like that any more", but they do, they do. Tom Hollander in "Rev" is magnificent, solely because Hollander makes his character so believable. I think this will one day be seen as one of Britain's classic comedies, assuming it gets another series!
+++++++
My Cumberland Pie For One was very nice, TYVM.
___________
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Other sitcoms do exist
Date: 2010-07-25 11:08 am (UTC)Never could stand Dad's Army - I think it's to do with the lack of any sympathetic characters. I disliked them all, except the ones that were pitiful. Certainly I don't see it as the sitcom of genius that a lot of others do. Why does no-one re-show Watching or A Sharp Intake of Breath or Chance in a Million?
Re: Other sitcoms do exist
Date: 2010-07-25 06:52 pm (UTC)Chance In A Million is now available on DVD. I vaguely recall the other two titles but their characters don't remain in my memory. So perhaps I don't go for "likeable" sitcoms. I found "Butterflies" excrutiatingly embarrassing to watch, despite the presence of some fine actors.
I just don't have enough downtime at the moment, and it's the mortgage on the flat downstairs that's doing it. I just just forget about it and "service" the debt, but I'm not built that way. I want to pay it off and I want to pay it off as soon as possible. So if I do everything I can to do that, I am miserable. But if I don't, I am miserable for a different reason. At least the first way compresses the misery into a shorter period of time!
PJ
Re: Other sitcoms do exist
Date: 2010-07-25 07:19 pm (UTC)Thing is I need a sympathetic character because if I dislike all the characters then that gets in the way of my finding any of the jokes funny. In truth I've disliked nearly everything Perry & Croft did. It Ain't 'Alf Hot, You Rang M'Lord and Are You Being Served? Not a pretty collection.
My Inner Anorak
Date: 2010-07-25 08:05 pm (UTC)It's arguably worse when you get entranced by a team of comic writers and then their work falls of a cliff. I'd cite Galton and Simpson here (Hancock, Steptoe and Son, and ... well, the anti-depressant pills obviously did the trick); David Nobbs (Perrin -- oddly enough with no sympathetic characters, unless you include Elisabeth); and Clement and La Frenais, who had been going way, way downhill since The Likely Lads (don't even dream of checking out one of their films) and hit rock bottom with my snivelly little mate from school, Jonathan Coe, and his deeply unappealing "The Rotter's Club."
But it's a hard life writing TV sitcoms, really. I'm even prepared to give the authors of Father Ted the benefit of the doubt. And then throw up in a bucket afterwards.
Then again (again), there's always the example of Six/Seven of One with Ronnie Barker in 1973. Barker sympathetic enough for you?
Apart from Porridge and Open All Hours, I seem to remember all the other ones with a certain degree of fondness. I'm still not sure why "I'll Fly You For a Quid" (Clement and La Frenais) and "Spanner's Eleven" (Roy Clarke) never made it. I actually liked "Another Fine Mess" (Hugh Leonard), but then I was genetically programmed to like Laurel and Hardy, so perhaps that doesn't count.
Re: Other sitcoms do exist
Date: 2010-07-25 08:14 pm (UTC)Enjoy trying to work out the share dealing. Fucked if I can understand it.
PJ
Re: Other sitcoms do exist
Date: 2010-07-25 07:47 pm (UTC)You'd be doing yourself a disservice, though, by refusing to watch the specific episode mentioned by Birks, which is presumably on playback. Let's put it this way: it knocks Terrence Rattigan into a cocked hat as a half-hour drawing-room play, and it could show Noel Coward a thing or two about being humorous, as opposed to being bitchy.
It really is very good indeed.
Re: Other sitcoms do exist
Date: 2010-07-25 08:10 pm (UTC)PJ
Re: Other sitcoms do exist
Date: 2010-07-25 08:37 pm (UTC)Unless you suspend disbelief, or perhaps the gag reflex, it's quite possible to see Mainwaring or Godfrey or both as caricature(s). Well, they are. But not necessarily for the sake of a cheap laugh, which I think is the point.
Mainwaring is going to do that anyway, because he's the ranking officer and there's a war on and he's an officious little bugger. Godfrey knows (in a sort of resigned way) that it's all very important, but he's used to certain standards, and, more importantly, so are his sisters. And Mainwaring really doesn't want to hurt anybody under his command, least of all Godfrey.
Listen, if there was a cherry tree in the garden, Chekhov would have cut the fucking thing down before the episode began and just written "The Gatling Gun" instead.
Not that good ole Anton was a bundle of laughs, anyhow.
Re: Other sitcoms do exist
Date: 2010-07-25 09:11 pm (UTC)Don't believe me? Well then. Explain the "Ode to an Old Family Cupboard."
And if anybody mentions synchronicity or Aristotelian dramatic structures, I'm gonna puke.
Re: Other sitcoms do exist
Date: 2010-07-25 08:24 pm (UTC)(I laughed, I cried, I rewound.
(One of the most astonishing things about it is that almost none of the major characters matter worth a damn. It's echt Golden Era British Sitcom from that point of view. From memory, it features Arthur Lowe, John le Mesurier, Clive Dunne, John Laurie ...
(... and, of course, Arnold Ridley, who they must have prised off his mortuary slab for every episode. Consequently, he was under-used for such a fine actor. Not in this case.)
The whole joy of the episode lies in watching Godfrey's sisters. I have no idea who the hell the actresses were. They were magnificent.
Re: Other sitcoms do exist
Date: 2010-07-26 08:37 am (UTC)So I detest the pomposity of Mainwaring, the laconic Wilson and Clive Dunn's character is about as OTT as Frank Spencer. All the cast are just old gits. The only youthful character is Pike who is stupid and I don't like stupid people. But then I recognise and probably welcome being out of step. I don't even 'like' Fawlty Towers a lot of the time, Cleese pushing too hard on the embarassment pedal sometimes.
Alex
Date: 2010-07-25 03:04 pm (UTC)Funnily enough I happened to watch the famous frame against Jimmy White (1982 World semi-final ?) on YouTube about 4 weeks ago. It still grips you after all these years, particularly when the cueball gets more & more out of position but he keeps on potting, not at "Hurricane" pace, but still quicker than others. And the crowd were so up for it. Poor old Jimmy, he never stood a chance after that.
Be in touch
Richard
Re: Alex
Date: 2010-07-25 06:45 pm (UTC)Although Higgins was thrilling to watch, I suspect that he might not have been fun "company".
As you say, Higgins wasn't helped by the times, but he hardly sprang from nowhere. He'd been working the snooker halls for a good few years. He embraced TV and benefited enormously from it because he was a "character". I think that his problem was that, like many not-too-bright celebrities in sport, he came to believe his own myth.
George Best too was "destroyed" by the media, but he, like Higgins, welcomed the upside while it was there.
I suppose things have "improved" in that those who might have been killed by media attention are now multi-millionaires whose old age will not be blighted by poverty )for example, Wayne Rooney). Will our successors have less affection for Rooney in 50 years time as a result? Probably.
PJ
Re: Alex
Date: 2010-07-26 11:27 am (UTC)Kevin
Re: Alex
Date: 2010-07-26 12:25 pm (UTC)PJ
Broadcast Sitcoms
Date: 2010-07-29 07:13 pm (UTC)'Fraid it doesn't work for me. Part of this is the "set in Spitalfields" bit; part of it is the "Anglicans are funny" bit; part of it is the endless minutes of sheer embarrassment.
The latest episode (Monday?) summarises the embarrassment with
(1) A joke about clitorises, which the vicar can't be told
(2) A pathetic old tramp, who actually is the vicar's best friend, although he doesn't realise that
(3) A "cool" black guy, who wants to get married in the vicar's church, but would actually rather get pissed whilst watching a girl with big tits play pool rahnd the pub
(4) The vicar's wife, who has more Facebook friends than he does
(5..infinity) I managed about fifteen minutes, and decided that getting pointlessly drunk was a better idea. I'm trying to avoid that. In future I'll concentrate on Joan Bakewell criticising the Beeb for not hiring enough women, and then calling them crumpet anyway.
I'm fairly sure there's room for British sitcoms out there, as long as they're (a) funny and (b) not lazy and (c) preferably not based in London. Black Books proves that you can manage (a) and (b) whilst still contradicting (c).
The Rev, sad to say, does not.
Re: Broadcast Sitcoms
Date: 2010-07-30 11:13 am (UTC)1) That pub is Rev's regular haunt, so there had to be some way to establish his isolation. A "rude" joke was a reasonable and, I think, realistic way to do this.
2) Colin the tramp is an important character.
3) I wasn't really happy about the main plot line either. It was the weakest so far.
4) Alex the vicar's wife is an excellent character, honest!
5) A comparison with Black Books isbn't really fair, because this is such a different field. Compared with mainstream BBC sitcoms, I think it's very good. When you take "My Family" as the yardstick, rather than stuff such as Spaced and Nathan Barley, which far too left-field to get good ratings, then you can see that Rev is one of the better ones.
PJ
Re:Rev
Date: 2010-08-10 02:48 pm (UTC)Don't let the plot device hit you on the arse on your way out.
I agree that Tom Hollander's performance is a good one. I also think that it will get a second series. The Beeb has a track record of giving a second series to comedies even if the first one (e.g. Black Adder, Red Dwarf) was not so great.
Johnny H.
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Date: 2011-01-18 04:26 am (UTC)