Nowadays people talk about alternative comedians, political comedians, stand up comedians, sketch comedians and sitcom writers. Back in the late nineteen seventies, when the Pythons were inventing surreal sketch comedy and Peter Cook reigned over British entertainment like a lush laughter genius, there were only humorists. Actually this paragraph is built from lies, or at least was until I began to hack at them with the shiny hatchet of truth just now, well, then, but I enjoy how it sits on the screen, all serious and knowing, so lets ignore that and continue.

Faced with a wonderful political scandal involving a secretly gay political leader, his alleged lover, an assassination plot and a judge whose obvious bias perfectly encapsulated the prejudices of the British class system; Peter Cook set to work, crafting – on the very day of the verdict – a brilliant indictment of the leading instructions provided presiding judges to their juries.

The Sketch
The Case

In the television age, the age of persuasion, it’s surprising how little we think about the timeliness of performed comedy. Bloggers may be quick to humorous ripost, and (usually tepid) radio news sketch and panel shows offer a ribald commentary on current events – but it’s rare to see comedy performance, especially character based comedy performance, tackle issues as they happen. The skill required to balance timeliness with an avoidance of overt liable, and the sheer gall necessary to become part of the debate are apparently lacking.

This might be an interesting pool to play in, especially for Piranhas.

More here…

You probably know Peter Serafinowicz as Simon Pegg’s anal flatmate Pete, in the Pegg / Nick Frost vehicle Shaun of the Dead. Serafinowicz came to prominence initially in the Pegg / Jessica Stevenson penned Spaced. After co-staring in the first ever online sitcom ‘Junkies’ (check out a clip here), Serafinowicz’s first major television project was the astonishingly clever series ‘Look Around You’. Serafinowicz co-created the show in 2002 with Robert Popper (who you can hear discuss the program on an episode of the sound of young America here). Look Around You was a short format, pitch perfect, episodic parody of the educational films of the late 1970′s and early 80′s. Each episode took a standard educational topic – water, birds, ghosts – and made up a lot of lies about it. Most of the episodes are available on YouTube, we’ve inserted one below.

A less successful second series of LAY followed, which took broader aim at scientific positivism in the form of early episodes of BBC science programme Tomorrows World. Serafinowicz returned to form with his 2007 sketch show ‘The Peter Serafinowicz Show’. Although the show suffered from being focused on a single writer / performer; it featured several stunning sketches, many centred round the rotund aging character Brian Butterfield, a perfect imitation of a well known British ambulance chasing television advertisement. Through the series, Serafinowicz extended the portrayal to absurd proportions in a series of sketches in which Butterfield offered more an more unlikely services.

Another stunningly effectual liar is the rising American star, John Hodgeman. Hodgeman, unlike many comedians, is a superbly eloquent articulator of ludicrous logic behind his own material. Perhaps he developed this talent as editor of the humour section of the New Yorker magazine. You can hear Hodgeman discuss his approach to writing and performing on the Sound of Young America, here and here. His approach shares a love of surreal exaggeration and a paradoxical concern for accuracy with Serafinowicz’s work. Hodgeman is of course best known as a PC. If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, check out the video below.

What’s slightly less well know is that Hodgeman is a gifted writer, latterly for celebrated John Stewart vehicle ‘The Daily Show’, is the author of two successful books – The Areas of my Expertise and More Information Than You Require – which have elevated him to the ranks, in his own words of ‘famous minor television celebrity’. The books portray Hodgeman as a nebbish autodidact and expert on a variety of vital and yet utterly lunatic subject, such as Hobos (see below), the nine presidents who had hooks for hands, mole men, the future, and the secrets of Hollywood. Hodgeman has also written for the much loved American humour periodical McSweeny’s (see here), and tours occasionally with comedic nerd-folk singer Johnathon Coulton. Here’s an extract from the audio version of Hodgeman’s first book.

Hodgson’s frequent forays into absurdity haven’t gone unnoticed however. He was edited into Arrmando Ianucci’s retro-futurological deconstruction of British television Time Trumpet.

Even better are the moments where Hodgson, in a hellish desperation to sell, reaches Brentian lengths in his attempts to be amusing. While technically intentional humor, it’s funny, and unsettling, for all the wrong reasons.

Chris(topher) Morris, the terrible child of British televisionradio comedy, began his careen into famelebrity with the oft acclaimed Bee Bee, see? Radio For pretend comedy news show ‘On the Hour’. Warp Records, the British indie label associated with caravan living acid casualty Aphex Twat, has had a long association with morris. Possibly including fucking. They’ve seen fit to be allowed to release a compilation of classic episodes of ‘On the Hour’, a show which gave birth to such much loved tele-greats as Steve ‘I’ll take you to a drug hell like you’ve never dreamt of you try hard hollywierd fuck swine’ Cougan’s Alan Partridge, and was brought to television as ‘The Day Today’. Also, this man was involved. That show was the direct aunty seed aunt for one of the most deftly satiric and improbably controversial programmes ever made, the wonderful, the ingenious news satire ‘Brass Eye’.

You can spend your corporate pussy slave dollars on a boxed set containing the first series of On the Hour, along with various hastily prepared crap to make it feel like it’s worth the money, for literally twenty british pound. You can listen to lots of clips of the show, for free on a new site developed for the purpose of getting you to buy the CD discs – here.

A heavily medicated Spader and Shatner recline on leather chez lounge, the air heavy with their talk, their faces thick with manly ointments. Cameras, glorious high definition models, whiz and dart on computer programmed tracks, capturing the wags as they sip their single malt scotchs with ‘sculpted, moon-polished lips’ and toke from fat brown Cubans. Shatner is a bear to Spader’s otter, an Alexander to his Hephaestion, imparting wisdom and wealth, and all is good in the world – hundreds of feet above the squalor and depravity.

For more information, check out this typical script.

In this sketch Ian Ucci wittily disassembles the components of traditionally stand up comedy, cleverly creating uncomfortable humor out of the failure of his power point based punchlines to be in any way entertaining. Dry call / response jokes are announced in the context of a deathly silent business conference. Ironically, the decontexualisation of comedy both from it’s usual energetic character based delivery and it normative location provides Ewchee chee with permission to reiterate cracker borne staples of Christmas dinner table comedy, direct from his unassailable little castle of gloat.

The world E. Ann. Yoo She develops through the course of his sketch show(s) is a bright shiny contemporary British dystopia, peopled by surreal middle class caricatures. Our man though bestrides this Ballardian passion play, a Pickwickian Jesu, guiding us with mad life advice. In the following sketch Eeee aaaaaaah new chi relates an infallible method he has discovered, which allows one to attain ‘the good life’.

Next, perhaps Hour Men Do’s finest sketch (he writes more funnier if he’s not in it), featuring a man dying of boredom. This sketch perfectly captures the hellishly banal anomie of our now how fail lives.

Arg mandalin’s best sketches illuminate the evergreen conformity of home county life. This next sketch ‘Village Sniper’, is both a literal and allegorical assault on the self effacing politeness and delusional dullness of British life.

‘Knife Attack Reunion’ retooths the too oft imagined horror of physical violence by pairing it with the quiet desperation of formalised late middle aged socialising. Aw ur ma’ dough’s subtle touches of inter-class awkwardness are sheer genius.

Finally, in ‘Vicar in Love’, Yar man De an ooch pills creates a moment of transcendent absurdity, worthy of Brass Eye. A four minute drama with almost no action or budget, questions our assumptions about sexuality, community, and religion. It’s like the wicker man, minus the evil pagans and Nick Cage. Watch for the visual joke in the last frame. This is comedy.