Its Spandau Ballet, and they're laughing at an orphan who's fallen off his bicycle
And this is
where it begins... Watching this is funnier now than it seemed at the
time. The strain of having to establish a raft of characters, situations,
rituals - and an unfamiliar ramshackle comic idiom - made it quite an effortful
25 minutes to view. In retrospect, now that I know how each episode was structured,
I can pick up on the amusing ideas and variations without the initial
"What is this and how does it work?" reaction.
The audience reaction is fascinating, especially as we get to see them several times, including some hostile and bewildered faces amongst the crowd. Although some have come from the old New Cross Albany Empire audience and are primed to know what to expect, a lot of them don't know what they've let themselves in for. There's a quality of hesitancy and not knowing where the jokes are to their collective responses, and you can sense a greater uncertainty in Reeves' performance because of this. This went after the first few episodes, after which presumably everyone who went to the recordings had already seen them on television. I think that I actually prefer this to the response to what happens by the second series, when the audience seems full of Wonder Stuff fans, cheering every catchphrase and encouraging rather shouty performances from the stars.
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