I find the 'pretend pub' linking sections in
this second series - in which all six of the troupe play exaggerated versions
of their personas in a deliberately imaginary setting - trying in the extreme.
It feels thrown together, and takes away a lot of screen time that would have
been much better spent on proper, crafted, sketches.
When you eventually get to those, they're always more comically interesting than ever actively funny to my find. Ben Elton had a rather theoretical sense of what makes a sketch - set up a premise which you then undermine through reversing, characters will then lose composure and behave eccentrically, etc. - but Robbie Coltrane, Hugh Laurie, Siobhan Redmond and Emma Thompson were all such good comic actors that there are often little flashes of surprising characterisation which outshine the material that they're working with.
One case in point is a skit with Coltrane and Redmond as parents who visit an Educational Officer (Laurie) in the naive expectation that they can send their son to Eton. The point of the sketch is quickly apparent, and it doesn't escalate in any very interesting way, but Hugh Laurie manages to find a different response to convey awkwardness, condescension and having to convey disappointment for each successive exchange that gives the routine a depth and conviction. It’s taped in a real office (one of a large number of sketches recorded on OB), which gives the proceedings a muted, real life mood.
There's also a sketch about an exclusive restaurant not accepting a diner without a tie, a familiar scenario. When did people finally stop doing versions of this old comedy standby?
When you eventually get to those, they're always more comically interesting than ever actively funny to my find. Ben Elton had a rather theoretical sense of what makes a sketch - set up a premise which you then undermine through reversing, characters will then lose composure and behave eccentrically, etc. - but Robbie Coltrane, Hugh Laurie, Siobhan Redmond and Emma Thompson were all such good comic actors that there are often little flashes of surprising characterisation which outshine the material that they're working with.
One case in point is a skit with Coltrane and Redmond as parents who visit an Educational Officer (Laurie) in the naive expectation that they can send their son to Eton. The point of the sketch is quickly apparent, and it doesn't escalate in any very interesting way, but Hugh Laurie manages to find a different response to convey awkwardness, condescension and having to convey disappointment for each successive exchange that gives the routine a depth and conviction. It’s taped in a real office (one of a large number of sketches recorded on OB), which gives the proceedings a muted, real life mood.
There's also a sketch about an exclusive restaurant not accepting a diner without a tie, a familiar scenario. When did people finally stop doing versions of this old comedy standby?
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