Meeja Hoors
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Difference be damned
Three series into Peepshow – a fourth is on the way – and now with their own comedy series, this is Robert Webb and David Mitchell’s moment. After years behind the scenes writing for others, taking bit parts and presenting their own radioshows, they’re now due their place on Jonathon Toss’ sofa. Get your laughing gear round them.
Or don’t. Despite their years of experience, lame characterisation, cheap production and uninventive dialogue plague the majority of their skits. Most of the other sketches are flatly delivered in their Cambridge accents. They play gay or northern characters but can hardly be bothered to get the voices right. Fry & Laurie often got away with this but that’s because the material stood up. Of the regulars, it’s only the prurient and gaudy Numberwang, a send-up of the pointless, neon-lit world of gameshows where other Peepshow alumni guess numbers for spurious prizes, that beats the humdrum. Interestwang, at last. It’s important to remember that Footlights has a tradition of producing groundbreaking comics and that being institutionalised in the BBC culture can drive people on, but for these two they both act as comfort blankets.
After you’ve seen one or two of these episodes, it makes sense that Mitchell & Webb weren’t responsible for devising or writing Peepshow, only for additional material. Compare the M&W Look to other sketch shows like Big Train, where there were delightfully manic and schizoid scenes made larger than life by proper comic actors, or Fast Show, which benefited from the input of many writers, and the deficiencies become even more apparent. Instead, the Look ends up in the same disgracefully low-ambition territory as Man Strokes Woman, petit bourgeois sketches highlighting the peccadilloes of the modern world. “Oh yeah, you are a bit like that, aren’t you?” Ho-ho? No. Ho-hum. We want something a bit more off-the-hook than that guys.
“Q Which living person do you most admire and why?
A Christopher Hitchens”
Still thinking that now, eh Webster? It was wrong then and is even more wrong now. These two perfomers, even if they don’t know it, have an agenda – propping up the consumer democracy and the erroneous perceptions of the populace. So in the final analysis it is not the lack of talent and imagination or the old school tie that is most responsible for holding them back, but their innate conservatism; this is as far as they want to go with their artmedia. Robert Webb and David Mitchell are the David Camerons of comedy. Just because you have had elocution lessons, know the value of good diction and can say the right thing (the only requirement of a politician in these on-message days) doesn’t justify you a presence; you have to do a lot more to subvert your reality and make it interesting.
Mitchell and Webb – normal and proud of it. Ditch the Look, and wait for the latest Peepshow.
Three series into Peepshow – a fourth is on the way – and now with their own comedy series, this is Robert Webb and David Mitchell’s moment. After years behind the scenes writing for others, taking bit parts and presenting their own radioshows, they’re now due their place on Jonathon Toss’ sofa. Get your laughing gear round them.
Or don’t. Despite their years of experience, lame characterisation, cheap production and uninventive dialogue plague the majority of their skits. Most of the other sketches are flatly delivered in their Cambridge accents. They play gay or northern characters but can hardly be bothered to get the voices right. Fry & Laurie often got away with this but that’s because the material stood up. Of the regulars, it’s only the prurient and gaudy Numberwang, a send-up of the pointless, neon-lit world of gameshows where other Peepshow alumni guess numbers for spurious prizes, that beats the humdrum. Interestwang, at last. It’s important to remember that Footlights has a tradition of producing groundbreaking comics and that being institutionalised in the BBC culture can drive people on, but for these two they both act as comfort blankets.
After you’ve seen one or two of these episodes, it makes sense that Mitchell & Webb weren’t responsible for devising or writing Peepshow, only for additional material. Compare the M&W Look to other sketch shows like Big Train, where there were delightfully manic and schizoid scenes made larger than life by proper comic actors, or Fast Show, which benefited from the input of many writers, and the deficiencies become even more apparent. Instead, the Look ends up in the same disgracefully low-ambition territory as Man Strokes Woman, petit bourgeois sketches highlighting the peccadilloes of the modern world. “Oh yeah, you are a bit like that, aren’t you?” Ho-ho? No. Ho-hum. We want something a bit more off-the-hook than that guys.
“Q Which living person do you most admire and why?
A Christopher Hitchens”
Still thinking that now, eh Webster? It was wrong then and is even more wrong now. These two perfomers, even if they don’t know it, have an agenda – propping up the consumer democracy and the erroneous perceptions of the populace. So in the final analysis it is not the lack of talent and imagination or the old school tie that is most responsible for holding them back, but their innate conservatism; this is as far as they want to go with their artmedia. Robert Webb and David Mitchell are the David Camerons of comedy. Just because you have had elocution lessons, know the value of good diction and can say the right thing (the only requirement of a politician in these on-message days) doesn’t justify you a presence; you have to do a lot more to subvert your reality and make it interesting.
Mitchell and Webb – normal and proud of it. Ditch the Look, and wait for the latest Peepshow.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Corporate adventurism must pay off
Following on from the recent look at Elephant residential conceits, two new projects have landed up the road in SE1, around Bankside and near Blackfriars, as if from average Space.
This Southwark Street façade has coloured windows frames and outdoor shutters exposing the internal structure and maybe shifting shape and position like the diaphragms of Paris’ Institut du Monde Arabe. But it is a poor imitation of the Seineside geometrical experiment, whose structure adheres to a rigourous and functional aesthetic. Cheap it most certainly is, but on a bright autumn morning its sleek shapes have a certain vorti-futurist appeal. The shock of the new thus achieved, on circling round I was disappointed to see that they have shaped the building round the contours of each adjacent road, when there was a possibility of a much more striking objet thrust behind the Tate Modern.
No such worries up Great Suffolk Street and right into Union Street, where Alsop’s Palestra building affronts the quotidian reality of the no-man’s land around Southwark tube. ‘Art at work’ says the webshite, even architecture has to pay its way these days, and this misshapen Jaundiced Mondrian demands one’s attention as you scuttle from Starbucks to workstation. The view of both from the rail-line rather than the pavement is by the far most rewarding. As well as more esoteric panelling, the Palestra relies on the appearance of two huge structures, the top one weighing down the other like an anchor, making it look as though it’s tipping into the ground.
While both buildings attempt to trompe les yeux, as your visions comes down to near ground-level there’s no mistaking the corporate intentions. Style-less foyers come into view while at the former there’s no announcement of the building’s name or architects – just the business end of who’s doing the interiors, fit-outs, etc. Let’s hope both get sufficient tenants – the London Development Agency are moving into Palestra – to justify their presence.
This Southwark Street façade has coloured windows frames and outdoor shutters exposing the internal structure and maybe shifting shape and position like the diaphragms of Paris’ Institut du Monde Arabe. But it is a poor imitation of the Seineside geometrical experiment, whose structure adheres to a rigourous and functional aesthetic. Cheap it most certainly is, but on a bright autumn morning its sleek shapes have a certain vorti-futurist appeal. The shock of the new thus achieved, on circling round I was disappointed to see that they have shaped the building round the contours of each adjacent road, when there was a possibility of a much more striking objet thrust behind the Tate Modern.
No such worries up Great Suffolk Street and right into Union Street, where Alsop’s Palestra building affronts the quotidian reality of the no-man’s land around Southwark tube. ‘Art at work’ says the webshite, even architecture has to pay its way these days, and this misshapen Jaundiced Mondrian demands one’s attention as you scuttle from Starbucks to workstation. The view of both from the rail-line rather than the pavement is by the far most rewarding. As well as more esoteric panelling, the Palestra relies on the appearance of two huge structures, the top one weighing down the other like an anchor, making it look as though it’s tipping into the ground.
While both buildings attempt to trompe les yeux, as your visions comes down to near ground-level there’s no mistaking the corporate intentions. Style-less foyers come into view while at the former there’s no announcement of the building’s name or architects – just the business end of who’s doing the interiors, fit-outs, etc. Let’s hope both get sufficient tenants – the London Development Agency are moving into Palestra – to justify their presence.
