Television comedy isn’t quite dead – but we know the exact date when it will be
TELEVISION comedy isn’t quite dead, but we already know the exact date it’s due to expire.
Monday April 8, 2024, in the early hours of the morning.
It’s the moment we lose for ever Curb Your Enthusiasm, a genuine masterpiece which, over 12 series, has detailed one man’s fight against every modern convention, imagined injustice and annoying habit, on the Sky Comedy HD channel.
That man being Larry David who, if he wasn’t so wonderfully Jewish, would be the patron saint of all blokes in the 45-and-over age bracket — those impossible-to-ignore souls whose prostate glands have expanded at the exact time their internal censorship organs have shrivelled away to almost nothing.
Tactless, rude, short- tempered, entirely selfish, Larry’s a character I feel I know horribly well, and you’ll also be familiar with someone like him as he crosses most significant boundaries, including the political.
Painfully laid bare
Maverick right-wing MP Lee Anderson, for instance, is very obviously Larry David, but then so too is left-leaning Gary Neville who, for the love of God and Man United, cannot keep his gob shut.
Never, though, has this type been so exquisitely and painfully laid bare as it has been, these past 24 years, on Curb where Larry David, or this exaggerated and largely improvised sitcom version of him, was the man who invented Groat’s disease to extricate himself from a relationship with the monstrous Irma Kostroski, played so superbly by Tracey Ullman.
He’s also the man who couldn’t help but tell a mixed-race couple their newborn baby was, “A little light for a Kwame” and, when someone wrote “Larry David is disrespectful to women”, on a sponsored brick at his local synagogue’s building fundraiser, penned his own charitable tribute to himself. “Larry David is an amiable fellow who has attended two women’s basketball games.”
“Is that true?”
“No.”
Nothing is too uncomfortable for Curb, you see.
Though, before anyone gets too hot under the collar, I should add Larry is always the victim of his own failings and comeuppance arrives in a glorious pile-up of circumstances at the end of every episode.
Quite apart from the terrible sadness at it all finishing, however, the big concern with the final series was that it wouldn’t do justice to one of the greatest sitcoms ever made. I shouldn’t have worried.
After a relatively hit-and-miss opening, it hit the sweet spot with last week’s Fish Stuck episode and continued on Monday’s helping where Larry blew his big date with Sienna Miller, managed to get himself banned from another restaurant and was mistakenly arrested for spray-painting a massive “c**k and balls” all over Susie Green’s advertising billboards for her now booming kaftan business. And no, as Britain’s point-missing community will be quick to say, someone like Sienna would never date “a bald old f***” like Larry, in real life.
But that’s the genius of Curb. At the exact moment the comedy establishment was chorusing, “You can’t say or do that” Larry David dared to disagree and said it and did it anyway. There are other important lessons to be learned here, of course, by British TV executives who pretend comedy talent is distributed evenly and politically, like seats on Labour’s ruling NEC. It’s not. It may be unfair but, thanks to things like accent, life experience and delivery, some groups, like Jewish people, Glaswegian men and Lancastrians, just do it better — and the rest of us should enjoy their brilliance.
Privately, of course, a lot of execs know this to be true but are so frightened of defying the woke cultists that if you gave them the choice of ten comedians, nine funny and one who’d allow them to signal their virtue, they’d go with the latter every time.
The damning irony here, given this insane obsession with equality and fairness, is that the only people now brave and capable enough to be genuinely laugh-out-loud funny are the super-rich comedians, who can survive the financial consequences of woke witchhunts.
Men like Larry David, who’s worth $500million, thanks to Curb and co-writing Seinfeld; Dave Chapelle ($160million); and our own Ricky Gervais, who’s backed up by a mere $60million. I think they deserve every penny for their courage and we should cherish Curb Your Enthusiasm while we still can (Sky Comedy HD, Monday, 3am).
For after Larry, there is nothing.
NOT SO MAGIC CIRCLE
AT some point in the last year, BBC1 came up with the genuinely brilliant idea of sending Vicky Pattison, Alex Scott, Laura Whitmore and Sara Davies, the professional northerner from Dragons’ Den, to the Arctic Circle, where temperatures can reach -20C.
Then it ruined everything by sending a camera crew and TV production team as well.
The result was an entirely incident-free Comic Relief trudge called Snow Going Back, which took place in Norway, where hope flickered briefly back to life when the narrator, Hannah Waddingham, explained that, “If this group is going to come back alive, they’re going to need an avalanche expert and survival guide” but was then crushed again by the very next caption.
“Torbjorn Ness, mountain guide.”
Health and safety gone mad, if you ask me.
A compromise that meant I remembered almost nothing else that happened over the remaining 55 minutes, other than the priceless moment Vicky Pattison’s attempts to put some distance between herself and Geordie Shore (“Not my finest hour”) were immediately followed by this cold shower from the voiceover.
“To cycle this perilously icy road, the four women have been given bikes with fat tyres, aka fat bikes.”
Harsh, Hannah. And not entirely fair.
FOR those who missed ITV’s Oscars coverage. Jonathan Ross: “They’re live on the red carpet now. I’m not sure who we can see. It looks certainly, I know that I’m correct in saying, the carpet’s red.”
Kicking yourselves now, aren’t you.
TV listing of the week. Crufts, Channel 4, Saturday, 7pm: “Dion Dublin wants some advice on showing his mastiff.”
Avoid public places or you’re liable to six months in prison.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
THE Weakest Link, Romesh Ranganathan: “In geology, the White Cliffs of Dover are principally formed out of what substance, chalk or cheese?”
Helen Flanagan: “Cheese.”
The Tournament, Alex Scott: “On its maiden voyage, the Titanic set sail from which UK port on the south coast?”
Matylda: “Leeds.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “Which English rock band ended their Last Domino tour at the O2 Arena in March 2022?” Sam: “The Beatles.” Celebrity Mastermind, Clive Myrie: “The Millennium Bridge, opened to the public in 2001, connects Gateshead with which city?”
Karim Zeroual: “Gateshead? I’ve heard of this one . . . Wales.”
Random TV irritations
ANT and Dec’s mortifying hidden camera stunt with Lorraine Kelly on Saturday Night Takeaway.
A serial quiz show attention-seeker called Ted, who was last seen making a nuisance of himself on Lightning, wearing a stupid “look at me” hat on The 1% Club.
Vicky Pattison swearing her way across Norway for Comic Relief.
And Z-list exhibitionists, like Aaron Evans and Karim Zeroual, who think it’s not enough to display their shocking ignorance on Celebrity Mastermind, they must put on a showboating performance as well.
Please, just say “Pass” and sod off.
Great sporting insights
GREAT Sporting Insights. Don Goodman: “It’s deja vu from last week, but different.”
Daniel Sturridge: “Liverpool have done well in recent years and also past years.” And Paul Merson: “Players need to remember that, wherever you go, you have to take your head with you.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
TV MYSTERIES of the week: Why hasn’t the BBC very publicly sacked the imbecile responsible for destroying A Question Of Sport?
Was Channel 5’s Love Rat written in crayon or chalk?
And when exactly did the great British public hold a meeting and petition the Beeb to have Alex Scott on our screens 365 days a year?
Because my invite appeared to go missing, again.
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the month. The Wheel, Michael McIntyre, below : “It can’t be a bad thing – it’s Kay Burley.”
Celebrity Big Brother, Levi Roots: “Peter Jones is up there with Nelson Mandela.”
And Will Best: “The good news is Celebrity Big Brother is coming to you on ITV.”
Then, I beg you, Will, spare us the bad news.
L’OREAL advert, Jo Whiley, 58: “I don’t want to be told I look great for my age, I want to be told I look great.”
Great, you look your age.
TV Gold
C4’s deeply disturbing but necessary Accused: The Hampstead Paedophile Hoax.
Nestor Carbonell stealing the show as Vasco Rodrigues, in the impressive Disney+ production of Shogun.
ITV’s The Best Of Saint And Greavsie, above, even if they did screen it at 5.10am. The one positive development, so far, from ITV’s Celebrity Big Brother: “Lauren and Louis are in the celebrity wheelie bin of shame writing a letter of apology.”
And the first ever laugh-out- loud moment on C4’s Naked Attraction, where Mark from Hull provided a definitive answer to this question from erotic fiction writer Toni, during the accent reveal round: “Can you moan my name?”
“Urrrrr, Tuuuur-ni.”
No, he can’t.
Lookalike of the week
THIS week’s winner is Joe Biden and Walter from Jeff Dunham’s show. Sent in by Richard Waller, of Ashford, Kent.