School of Comedy

[BillBrasky]

I'm not sure if this would be everybody here's cup of tea, but I found the first series of this British sketch show to be pretty entertaining. It's basically sketch comedy performed by a group of children (adolescents really, most of them are teenagers). The most well-known member of the cast would probably be Will Poulter , who was in the movie "Son of Rambow". Here's a sample sketch to give you a flavor of what the show is like. There is a little bit of cognitive dissonance involved here, in that in this sketch you have children playing teachers who are teaching children, but the actual content of the sketch is pretty funny:



There's a new series starting on Monday in the UK.

[Barrabus]

Wow! I know there's a cultural gap and everything, but School Of Comedy is such an abomination I'm surprised you dig it, Bill. The selling point is basically "kids saying cunt and referring to sexual acts", and the sketches they do would be awful if performed by actors of any age. Over here we've had so many sketch shows with exactly the same feel and identity as this. Perhaps this all seems original to you.

And Poulter's Cooganitis is physically painful to watch. Christ, his posh stage school face forcing out Alan Partridge... I ought to create one of those Olsen Twin counters so I know which day he stops being a minor. So I can punch him in the face.

[Couldn'tThinkOfaName]

In fairness to Bill, when he said 'pretty funny', he may have been pronouncing 'abortion of good humor' incorrectly.

[darrylduffy]

The selling point is basically "kids saying cunt and referring to sexual acts"

[BillBrasky]

Oh, I know the comedy snobs at Cookd and Bombd likely wouldn't like this show, and I believe they have a term for the "Cooganitis" of which you speak, they call it "thatvoicing".
(Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Gervais are also guilty of this at times, speaking in "that voice", the Steve Coogan Alan Partridge voice). But not everything has to operate at a Chris Morris level of brilliance all the time. I thought this show hit more often than it missed. I'm pretty familiar with the state of British sketch comedy today, and I agree with you that most of the shows are pretty bad. But I didn't feel my time was being wasted with this one; I thought the energy and enthusiasm of the cast helped excuse the odd weak sketch or poor bit of writing. And some of the sketches I thought were pretty good (there's one that was sort of in the same vein as the Mr. Show job interview sketch where Bob is interviewing David- "Oh, really, I'll just give myself a call- don't worry, I'll sweet talk this asshole". Here it is:

[Umlaut]

I didn't watch the video, but I love Son of Rambow a whole lot. Can this thread be about that instead?

[Couldn'tThinkOfaName]

Out of interest Bill, what British sketch comedy would you consider worse than this?

[Barrabus]

But not everything has to operate at a Chris Morris level of brilliance all the time.

A bit of a strawman - people at CaB don't insist on a Morris-level of brilliance (in fact, in the decade prior to the excellent Four Lions he produced very little of merit), they just want something better than mediocre. Which is endemic over here.

The Coogan-aping is so widespread here that it's gone beyond adverts and seeped into office culture. I'm trying to think of an American parallell - perhaps everyone trying to do substandard observational material in the wake of Jerry Seinfeld's popularity?

I'm really struggling to think of a decent British sketch show from the past decade. There must be one I like... Ah! Series 3 of That Mitchell & Webb Look was pretty good. And if Bellamy's People or Look Around You count as sketch shows, then that's the best we've done, TV-wise, since Goodness Gracious Me.

Better stuff tends to be found on BBC Radio. I'll try and upload some to the British Comedy Thread. Hope people have taken up your Grandma's House recommendation Bill, as that is bloody great.

[BillBrasky]

Hmm... well, there have been a ton of really bad British sketch shows in the last few years, some of the ones I can remember off the top of my head:

.Man Stroke Woman
.Spoons
.Blunder (with Rhys Thomas from Down the Line)
.Tittybangbang (all-female cast)
.Scallywagga (young cast, similar to School of Comedy, but terrible)
.The Wrong Door
.The Kevin Bishop Show
.Katy Brand's Big Ass Show
.Touch Me, I'm Karen Taylor

I also don't like "The Catherine Tate Show" or "Dead Ringers", even though those are popular shows. And the last series of "Little Britain" was probably worse than "School of Comedy."

Edit: Yes, I would definitely say Mitchell & Webb , The Peter Serafinowicz Show, and Bellamy's People (if that counts as sketch comedy) are the best British sketch shows in the last 5 or so years. Throw in "Big Train" and "Smack the Pony" if you want to go back to the last decade.

[Barrabus]

See, I'd put all of those series you mention on the same terrible level as School Of Comedy. The Catherine Tate Show has the occasional great bit, but like Little Britain said great bit will then be repeated and smashed into the earth.

As for good sketch shows, I forgot to mention the second series of Harry and Paul, as well as last year's Burnistoun, which was written and performed by the two guys who will be working with Linehan on the next series of The IT Crowd. They've both acknowledged a big Mr Show influence on their stuff. Anyway - from said series, here is my favourite sketch of last year:

[youtube]fQiht_HqMno[/youtube]