Kayb95

I enjoy a lot of the British comedies. I love Coupling, Ab Fab, Keeping Up Appearances, My Family, etc... But some of it I just don't find humorous. I like Mr. Bean, but find Benny Hill and Blackadder silly and predictable.

Not strictly a comedy, but I loved the early seasons of Monarch of the Glen - especially before Hector departed. Very humourous.

Also not a comedy, but I love Coronation Street. I live close to Canada and can pick up their CBC station. It's so different from US soaps where everyone looks like a model, lives in a fabulous house and has a fab, high paying job.

Mark_va

I just looked at my posting and noticed over 40 replies. Its taken on a life of its own! Part of the humour is how these threads turn out, I suppose. I didn't expect comments to get into tv, movies and "adverts," but so be it. I always thought Fawlty Towers was a panic. Some other Brit shows are just plain silly. All that aside, I found the humour in the people themselves in everyday life-in a pub, on London walks, on the tube, etc. Thats where I picked up those little exchanges. I didn't find that they took shots at others only-they included themselves.
Has anyone else had some funny exchanges with those English which they can share?
Mark

Mark_va

Thinking about my trip to London last week, I thought of something that bugged me when I saw it-in the British Museum-the Elgin Marbles and where do they truly belong. I posed it as a new inquiry. The British Museum is a must see on any London itinerary, by the way.
Mark

Ann41

Isn't anyone else scared that flanneruk knows the precise TV ratings for these (well, any) shows?

And anyway, the Irish are much funnier than the English.

One more thing: am I the only one that doesn't find Bo Selecta funny in the least?

flanneruk

Ann:

Why should it be scary? I've been intrigued recently by a weird paradox, which I've been researching while everyone else in Britain has been watching Big Brother.

40 years ago, the junk on British TV was American and the art house stuff British.

Sometime around the global popularity of Dallas and the minority following Hill Street Blues got, this began to change.

Now virtually all US programmes (apart from feature films) on British TV get minuscule ratings and virtually fawning critical acclaim. "West Wing" has the role among Britain's political classes "Yes Minister" had, and nothing's had since.

Meanwhile, Britain sometimes looks as if it's overtaken the Italy of the housewife-stripper era in its ability to create mind-numbingly awful TV.

Crude simplification. But it's as if the US has, in two decades, moved from being purveyors of elevator music to crafters of jazz. Indeed American TV shows now have pretty much the same standing with Europe's chattering (and frequently anti-American) classes that jazz had in the 30s and 50s

Not scary, but odd. And utterly at odds with the fantasies of the brain-dead "American McCulture is killing the planet" propagandists.

SiobhanP

Ann41 - I aggree I just can't stand Bo selecta. I am not ahuge Acid Merton fan anyway. The whole Craig David with a kestral does not even translate here in Ireland..A few of us had to be told why it was funny..hmmmm. Give me a bit of Ab Fab any day!

lauralamb

I like Bo Selecta!...especially Michael 'Jackass' Jackson and Mel B. HOW DO! And Kelly Osborne...Hi Douchebags! And those who think the Irish don't like taking the p. out of others have obviously never seen Graham Norton or Father Ted.

SiobhanP

Taking the piss and being cruel are two different things...Graham Norton is the more outrageous style humour. They would not have placed him on TV in Ireland on RTE. While I like him it is getting to be a stale formula now.

Farther Ted though is Irish Actors and I believe Irish Writers. It's a great piss take on the Catholic Church. I have met "Mrs Doyle" Pauline McGlynn a few times. She is such a hilarious and witty person.