I've mentioned several times throughout this site my memories of watching the Masterpiece Theatre presentation of The Irish RM
as a little kid, during which I'd get maybe 5% of the humor but would
laugh along, bewildered, while my dad laughed uproariously. - XMASTIME
One thing about Downton Abbey is that in looking at it today I'd have no problem believing it was produced in 1983, the same year The Irish RM was on; now here I am, only slightly younger than my dad was at the time, and I'm laughing/crying uproariously at it. I guess Downton Abbey, after all these years, is MYIrish RM.
"They were 'Black Protestants', all of them, in virtue of their
descent from a godly soldier of Cromwell, and all were prepared at any
moment of the day or night to sell a horse."
Finding mirth in misery is one of the most fundamental qualities of
being Irish. “Sure, if you didn’t laugh, you’d cry,” my mother, a
Dubliner with a wicked ability to see the funny side of life, is fond of
saying. There has always been an obsession with darkness in the
country’s folklore, and its modern literature also revels in it. Flann
O’Brien’s 1941 satire, The Poor Mouth, set in an impoverished
region of Ireland where it rains relentlessly, is regarded as one of the
greatest Irish-language novels of the 20th century – at once hilarious
and macabre. Comedians, too, have skilfully mined Ireland’s traumatic
past over the years, from Seventies satirical storyteller Dave Allen, to
stand-ups Ardal O’Hanlon, Tommy Tiernan and Dylan Moran.
That has
translated to telly as well. But none more so than in recent years.
Irish TV comedies may have been around for decades – the deliciously
giddy and subversive Father Ted was a groundbreaking water-cooler hit when it arrived in the Nineties, followed by the surreal sitcom Black Books and the mockumentary Paths to Freedom in
the 2000s. In the past five years, however, there’s been an explosion
of them and they’re drawing in fans from around the world.
I've gotta do some digging int, right now the only Irish shows I've really seen are Father Ted, Derry Girls, Moone Boy and Hardy Bucks. (Black Books was written by Graham Linehan but is set in London and is thoroughly British.) I love the Irish R.M. but I wouldn't call it a sitcom.
Of course these are only based on what I've actually seen, who knows what could go on this list next week?
1970s
One of the charming things about shows from the 70s is that the sets and production look like they were made with a $20 budget. And when I say that, I say it with affection. There’s a cozy quiet to them, which let’s you focus on the characters and comedy.
To the Manor Born
A lot of British sitcoms are about class but none more explicitly than this one. Throw in a will-they-or-won’t-they? Between the great Penelope Keith (The Good Life) and always debonair Peter Bowles (The Irish R.M.), and it’s hard to mess this one up.
Fawlty Towers
Basil Fawlty is without a doubt the most irredeemable sitcom character ever. There is not one second of any episode in which he is remotely nice or warm. But he is one thing: hilarious.
Porridge
Ronnie Barker’s world-weary cynicism mixed in with his affection for young Godbar (Richard Beckinsale, who tragically died young at 31) is our magic. And another spot of genius is have the yin-yang of two security guards, one a hard-ass and the other a softie, to have Barker play against.
1980s
The 80s (and 90s, really) were a bit barren for comedy at the BBC, at least what I’ve seen so far. To be honest I originally wanted this to be the best 5 of each decade, but simply couldn’t think of 5 I love from the 80s.
Only Fools and Horses
The Greatest of All Freaking Time. Period.
Blackadder
A remarkable show that spent every minute of it’s run being incredibly funny & snarky and then in the last minute pulled the rug out from under all of us, leaving us gasping in wonder.
Yes, Minister
A brilliant, if not terrifying, behind the curtain look at how the sausage gets made. But unlike Veep’s brilliant nastiness, this shows more of a gentle hand from those who know how things actually get done (or, more importantly, don’t) leading those who enter the arena with a charming, if useless, idealism.
1990s
The Vicar of Dibley
The King (or should I say Queen) of the era’s warm, cozy embraceable sitcoms. Every character is funny, but what else would you expect from the British National Treasure that is Richard Curtis?
The Royle Family
The second this first aired, every single tv writer in England surely thought “a show about a regular lazy-ass broke family lounging around watching tv? WHY THE HELL DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT??”
The Alan Partridge Show
Another
British protagonist who is extremely unlikable and doesn’t have a
single kind moment in the whole run, yet we love it because he’s just
too damn funny.
2000s People like to claim the 1970s was the “Golden Age” of the BBC, but the fact is the 21st century is stuffed to the gills with great sitcoms. I had more trouble paring these down than any other decade.
Gavin & Stacey
Hard to imagine a single show having a mix of so much heart and so many funny characters. While the the two leads play it mostly straight, the supporting cast is an all-star team. And of course it delivered to us another British Treasure in James Corden (who also wrote it, along with co-star Ruth Jones.)
The Inbetweeners
Since this hysterical raunchiest came out, seemingly countless shows have tried to imitate it, all failing miserably. These four are The Beatles of their genre to everybody else’s Herman Hermits.
Peep Show A horrifying answer to the question, “what if we could hear what someone’s really thinking?” And when one of them is a George Costanza and the other bit of a psychopath, the comedy simply does not stop.
2010s
The Wrong Man(s)
A comedy spoof of every spy/thriller movie ever made, but essentially boils down to we love it for pretty much one thing: James Corden being James Corden.
Moone Boy
A big warm-hearted hug of a sitcom from late-80s Ireland, what draws us in is Chris O’Dowd because one thing we all as human beings have all agreed on is that we all love Chris O’Dowd. But what keeps us is the main character, a kid so naturally funny I dread the day he pull a Theo Huxtable and realizes he’s on camera and has to be an ACT-OR.
Spy
I first noticed Darren Boyd in the great Whites, thinking “wow, this guy was made to play John Cleese (which it turns out he did).
That led me to this show in which not only is he great, but also a
lunatic Richard Lindsay and a genuinely funny, asshole little kid.
I've mentioned several times throughout this site my memories of watching the Masterpiece Theatre presentation of The Irish RM as a little kid, during which I'd get maybe 5% of the humor but would laugh along, bewildered, while my dad laughed uproariously. - XMASTIME
One thing about Downton Abbey is that in looking at it today I'd have no problem believing it was produced in 1983, the same year The Irish RM was on; now here I am, only slightly younger than my dad was at the time, and I'm laughing/crying uproariously at it. I guess Downton Abbey, after all these years, is MYIrish RM.
I don't have any audio books to recommend, I've never actually listened to one myself, but I understand that people with real lives are pressed for time so if you must then I'd recommend any dead Irish writer; I've long loved checking in on Finnegan's Wake a few times a year just to gently fall into the flow of Joyce's incredible Irish rhythms, to the point that I don't really care what's happening in the actual book itself.
Another one of my favorite books ever by Irish writers is my beloved The Irish R.M. of course, so if you find yourself on a long drive and wanna be lifted along the road a bit by the lilting lull of some great Irish bullshit, you can listen to it all HERE. 🤗 🤣
I clipped one of my favorite lines from the book for myself, enjoy!
"They were 'Black Protestants', all of them, in virtue of their
descent from a godly soldier of Cromwell, and all were prepared at any
moment of the day or night to sell a horse."
I remember when Alistair Cooke died a few years ago - "oh man, that sucks" I cleverly thought. To me he was the Masterpiece Theatre guy, a show I often watched with my dad when I was a kid even though I understood not one single moment (although I will always remember The Irish RM...I can remember my father laughing out loud twice when I was a young buck: during The Irish RM, at which I would chuckle along pretending I knew what was so funny, and when I played him my cassette tape of Bill Cosby: Himself, during which is the only time I saw him almost lose control laughing.)
But tonite I stumbled on Masterpiece Theatre: The Unseen Alistair Cooke, and I was shocked to find out not only that he had spent 58 YEARS doing a radio joint every week called Letter from America (I'm a fucking retard), but also he had a collection of journals of trips throughout America during the war, traipsing back and forth through "rural America" and getting people's reactions to the events of the day - a collection of writings largely unfound until shortly before his death in 2004 and since published as The American Home Front: 1941-1942. How had I never heard of that? Oh yeah, LC and Audrina were fighting.
Anyways. A fascinating life - 50 years in a rent-controlled apartment on 5th Avenue, THE European Gentleman to most Americans, and, according to his widow, "Not a silent farter." Awesome.
I've mentioned several times throughout this site my memories of watching the Masterpiece Theatre presentation of The Irish RM as a little kid, during which I'd get maybe 5% of the humor, and laugh along bewildered while my dad would laugh uproariously to the rest. I'm reading the book now and while I understand a lot more, I'm also aware that as an American shit-kicker I'm still probably gonna miss a lot. I have a feeling I'm getting about a third of it dead on. Then there's another third that I think is funny that someone from Ireland or England wouldn't even notice, and then there's another third that THEY'D think funny that I'd completely miss. In other words if I and, say, James Joyce read the book side by side we'd only laugh at the same bits about a third of the time. Well, and I guess I'd have to have died. Which would make me sad :(
This clip is dedicated to The Fashion Herald, who I know loves those MT period pieces. Enjoy!
Tall, commanding, deep-voiced and usually
moustached, Peter Bowles, who has died at the age of 85, was frequently
cast as either establishment chaps or gangster geezers.
His
most successful roles in the former camp were as Richard DeVere in To
the Manor Born (1979-81), one of Britain’s most-watched sitcoms, and The
Irish RM from 1983-85, playing Maj Yeates, a British Army officer sent
to 19th-century UK-ruled Ireland as a “resident magistrate”.
Bowles also had the class, in acting terms, to
interestingly explore the overlaps between the two social groups,
combining both sides of the range as an upper-class conman in The
Bounder, another TV success which was shown on ITV in 1982 and 83.
Across
a 66-year career, he spectacularly disproved the warning of a drama
school teacher that his dark hair and rapidly tanning skin meant he
“would never play an Englishman”.
Like another comedy from the same
era, Only Fools and Horses, the show was a reflection of the disruptions
to the English class system by the recently elected Margaret Thatcher, a
shopkeeper’s daughter who had poshed up her voice but was committed to
social mobility.
The casting of the charming
Bowles helped to offset the potentially nasty snobbery of the premise;
it seemed inevitable from the start that Audrey would fall for Richard
despite his nouveau roots, and the couple eventually married.
...Downton Abbey, All Creatures Great and Small, The Irish R.M., Mystery!, the 80's Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Irons, a million episodes of Frontline, Independent Lens, and American Masters, NOVA, Ken Burns, Charlie Rose, The Gallopin' Gourmet, Cookin' Cheap, Two Fat Ladies, the gateway to early British comedy like Monty Python/Fawlty Towers/The Vicar of Dibley, The Making of A Hard Day's Night, The Steven Banks Show, The Red Green Show, they invented reality tv with An American Family, Sara Moulton Live, Cucina Amore, Sandwiches You Will Like, A Hot Dog Program, The French Chef with Julia Child, How The Beatles Rocked the Kremlin, the greatest documentary series ever on rock and roll - the one that came out in 1995, and on and on and on....
Having finally settled into watching the slapstick Man Down, I can officially put the brilliant Greg Davis on the short list of BBC actors who starred in THREE great sitcoms. Off the top of my head, right now its:
(my favorite role of each in BOLD)
Greg Davies - The Inbetweeners, Cuckoo, Man Down
David Jason - Only Fools and Horses, Open All Hours, Porridge
Peter Bowles - To the Manor Born, The Irish R.M., Only When I Laugh
Simon Bird - The Inbetweeners, Chickens, Friday Night Dinner
Joe Thomas - The Inbetweeners, Chickens, Fresh Meat
Matt Berry - The IT Crowd, What We Do in the Shadows, Toast of London
Matthew Baynton - Gavin and Stacey, Spy, Ghosts, The Wrong Man(s)
Tamsin Greig - Black Books, Friday Night Dinner, Episodes
Of course to a generation of young Brits, Greg Davies will always be Mr. Gilbert!
Today seems to be Irish Friday here on Xmastime, and I'm happy to announce I've stumbled into a hilarious Irish show I've never seen before: Hardy Bucks, streaming on Netflix (streaming on Netflix...like, what the fuck else would it possibly be doing on Netflix, breakdancing?) Just watched the first episode, killing me :)
My other favorite Irish sitcoms:
The Irish RM, Father Ted, Derry Girls, Moone Boy
And here's more Graham Linehan (Father Ted)shows - they're classified more as British shows but fuck it:
Apparently, today is the 100th birthday of the BBC. I wish I'd known more in advance, I would've put something a bit more together here, but I think you people know how much I love the damn BBC. From my early days of The Irish R.M. to its cooking shows thru finding cool stuff on PBS and in my early BBC America days of The Vicar of Dibley and The IT Crowd and then Gordon Ramsay and finally, through streaming, opening its wonderful floodgates of endless sitcoms for me to cherish every day. This little quirky channel from across an ocean has certainly enriched my life, and I look forward to much, much more.
"They were 'Black Protestants', all of them, in virtue of their descent from a godly soldier of Cromwell, and all were prepared at any moment of the day or night to sell a horse." - The Irish R.M.
"She disliked wine, abhorred tobacco, and was always on the verge of becoming a vegetarian." - The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
"They were 'Black Protestants', all of them, in virtue of their descent from a godly soldier of Cromwell, and all were prepared at any moment of the day or night to sell a horse."
To me, the world is divided into two kinds of people: those that love The Irish R.M., and those that don't. Period.
Okay, that's not true, but I just thought of it and wanted an excuse to mention it, along with a great clip HERE :)
"They were 'Black Protestants', all of them, in virtue of their
descent from a godly soldier of Cromwell, and all were prepared at any
moment of the day or night to sell a horse."
Silas Marner:
“Bryce of course divined that Dunstan wanted to sell the horse, and Dunstan knew that he divined it (horse-dealing is only one of many human transactions carried on in this ingenious manner).”
90% of what I watch are sitcoms, so I'm...guessing most of my answers would be from PBS? I loved Brideshead Revisited...oh, and the HBO Mildred Pierce! I thought of Friday Night Lights but it's so disconnected from the book...or is it? Roots, although I've shamefully never read or watched it...Wolf Hall was great...here's one more ellipsis...ooooh, THE IRISH R.M., superslice of superslices!!
"They were 'Black Protestants', all of them, in virtue of their descent from a godly soldier of Cromwell, and all were prepared at any moment of the day or night to sell a horse."
