Last night I
watched about half an episode of a prime-time sitcom that was so broad I had to turn it
off.
Naming the
programme would be petty, so let’s just say the title falls somewhere between
‘Citizen Smith’ and ‘Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan’.
A couple of friends had already given me the heads-up that I probably wouldn’t like it – but like a moth to a
flame (or a voyeur driving past a car crash), I was drawn towards it against my will.
The problem may
be more to do with me than the programme; it's possible that I take comedy too seriously and have a far too high expectation of what it should achieve. I’m not completely sure that is the case, though: I don’t watch
something new hoping it will fail; I really do want to be entertained.
It’s also not
meant as a personal attack on the people involved; I understand that they are
writing and performing to a format – and that this sort of programme has its place.
I do understand that there is often a huge divide between what suits a prime-time slot on a mainstream channel and what suits a slightly more specialist audience. Not everything can be ‘The Thick of It’, but even the mainstream sitcoms of my youth, such as ‘One Foot in the Grave’, ‘2point4 Children’ and ‘Men Behaving Badly’, were better than this.
Comedy doesn’t have to be intellectual to be funny; it does, however, have to have jokes. For me, an old man offering to share his bath water with his wife - as happened in last week's episode - before farting in it and then gurning at the camera, is not a good gag; it doesn't even pass for quality slapstick.
Doesn't a nation that produced the likes of 'Only Fools and Horses', 'Porridge', 'Blackadder' et al., deserve a little better than this?
(I'm starting to sound like the Daily Mail.)
Maybe I’ll give
it another go next week.