OXYMORON

QUALITY TELEVISION COMEDY

We have a television in the apartment but haven’t bothered to connect it to any cable TV offerings and cannot receive any free TV. This is no loss as when we were temporarily staying in another apartment last year we did have TV and the offerings were execrable. Not as bad as USA TV but not as good as UK TV and certainly not as good as New Zealand TV which we have missed.

We just use the television as a monitor to view DVD’s or hook up to the laptop computer.

We’ve discovered that as modern day television news coverage is of far less quality than news, documentary and current affairs programmes of yesteryear, we are not missing out on anything that the internet can’t tell us. Anyway, we have apps for the best news providers on the iPad so are fairly up to date.

What I’ve been doing when The Old Girl is out is catching up on old British comedy series which I can find on the internet. Timeless classics like Dad’s Army, The Last of the Summer Wine, Hancock’s Half Hour, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, One Foot in the Grave, Steptoe and Son etc. show British comedy at its best.

Sure the actors are superb and the concepts great but what really marks these out is the standard of writing. There was obviously fierce competition amongst writers to get spots and no doubt the casualty lists are very long. Struggling writers probably had to plod away for years just to get a few lines accepted before they were able to get accredited with a show or a series. But, it was a training ground. Years of hard graft eventually resulted in sparkling and clever comedy that was original and not formulaic. Sadly this seems to have been usurped by BBC and the other corporations taking a strictly commercial approach and taking few risks. The emerging actors and writers can’t get a look in because the powers that be seem to only bankroll tired old actors and established writing teams who churn out a lot of the ‘same old’. This when they’re not churning out cheap and mindless ‘Reality’ shows.

Sure, occasionally something comes through that is original and stunning (This is Jinsy and The Mighty Boosh spring to mind) but they are the exception to the rule.

I’m hoping for a revolution. I have a belief that eventually, after things have been dumbed down too much (politics, education, literature, arts, food supply) people will start ‘voting with their feet’ and reject the crap that they’re being served up. Quality will be recognised although consumers will have to pay extra for the good stuff) and if it doesn’t exactly replace the dross it will at least be an alternative.

Then we may see outstanding new comedy series of the calibre of Yes Minister and superior comedy drama series like Boys From the Blackstuff and Auf Wiedersehen Pet – that mixture of comedy and pathos that the Brits can do so well when they try.