Comedy, welcome home! pt II

Naomi has recently revealed to me that she doesn't find my conversational obsession with British TV comedy to be all that interesting. Undeterred by this ingratitude, I thought I'd share with you some thoughts about some of my favourite comedies over the last few years. In some cases they're shows that I have grown to love by virtue of having watched them along with my two brothers - and I can certainly think of a few other friends who I've discussed this with who have also got into a given comedy by laughing at them with their siblings. I'm sure that as I write this someone is doing a postgraduate degree in the application of functional anthropology to televised comedy in the British family. Probably at a world reknowned establishment such as Staffordshire University.

Anyway, here's my run-down (in no particular order) of the comedies I've really enjoyed over the last few years. If you aren't familiar with them, maybe I can suggest that you head over to UK Nova, where you'd be able to download those that don't exist as commercial DVDs.

1. The creations of Chris Morris - Jam, Nathan Barley, Brass Eye. These are essential. I prefer Brass Eye to his other Newsnight-style series, The Day Today. Jam felt like it was pushing a lot of boundaries of taste when it aired, so is certainly for the more open-minded, and if you're really loving his style of comedy, you should also seek out the DVD of his 'My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117' short film, which is quite good.

2. Where would we be without Steve Coogan? Alan Partridge was pure gold (particularly series one of I'm Alan Partridge). Possibly my number one comedy series ever. Other less-well-known things you really should seek out if you like AP would include Cruise of the Gods, a really funny film he did for the BBC with Rob Brydon and David Walliams before either of them had really hit the limelight. You can get this on BBC DVD and I'd recommend that you do so. In addition, the Steve Coogan Live DVD (called 'The Man Who Thinks He's It') was way ahead of its time and has some fantastic content of other Coogan creations such as Paul Calf.

3. Armando Ianucci. Massively influential on most of the comedy in the list here, and as you know, I'm a huge fan of Time Trumpet, his most recent series. Watching Time Trumpet made me seek out The Thick of It - filmed in a similar way (ad-libbed then edited)to I'm Alan Partridge this is like a wonderful modern-day take on Yes Minister, where you watch the main character stumble from one political faux pas to another, through no fault of his own. The presence of a horrible spin doctor creates some fantastic moments in this. Apparently the BBC had fronted up funding for a further 10 episodes, but unfortunately Chris Langham has been the focus of recent court cases which means that there's going to be a significant change of tack if the series is to carry on. See The Thick Of It on Wikipedia for more info. It would be a great shame if there wasn't more of this series. If you like TTOI and TT you may also wish to check out the Armando Ianucci show. You can probably still get these on UK Nova.

4. Lee and Herring - in quite separate comedy category were this duo who put out series such as Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy. Fantastic in a puerile and sarcastic way (a bit like the Mary Whitehouse Experience), I've been reliving my late teens by watching the complete Fist of Fun in the last few days. You can get an ISO of the complete Fist of Fun from UK Nova at the moment.

5. Victor Lewis-Smith - The one comedy I haven't seen for years that I'm dying to watch is TV Offal by VL-S. It's a very underrated show from the late 90s which centred around his obsessions with different aspects of TV, and it had some amazing moments (such as Assassination of the Week, The Gay Daleks, prank phone calls to Michael Winner, and clips of really bad regional television from past archives). I would really like to see this gem of a show again. Not on UK Nova though, sadly.

Anyway, that's my comedy round-up for now. I expect there'll be other things to follow, but I do hope that this will encourage you to investigate some of these shows that you haven't heard of. Oh, and if you have a video iPod or a reasonably modern computer, I've encoded quite a number of them for mp4, so do let me know if you'd like me to send you a DVD of the ones I have in that form.