A Comedy On This Day: Saxondale - Wasps (3 July 2006)

Iggy Pop's over fifty and he still canes it.

Dude, Iggy Pop only canes it on stage. He still has to go home and descale the kettle.

 Watching this in 2018 is a qualitatively different experience than it was in 2006. I was 34 then and had a much happier distance from these characters in their fifties. Watched now, it’s a stark warning of where I could be heading!

 Its a very nuanced comedy, which encourages the viewer to reward themselves for emotional literacy if they register how each scene develops line-by-line, when the characters' understanding of each other constantly fluctuates depending on whether they say the wrong or right thing. This must be very acutely done because, even though I haven't seen it since broadcast, I do find that I can remember everything that happens or gets said in this programme. My response this second time around is wry appreciation rather than very much in the way of active laughter, though.

 It is very good at capturing the way that certain blokey men with popular cultural interests of that generation talk to each other, in deliberately clever, allusive, catchphrasey language, and the cusp within that sort of speech between what they say being either really impressive or really irritating to listen to.