Why Brits do it better… (comedy that is)

I’ve noticed that my last few blog entries have tended to err on the heavy side. I promised my readers diversity and I fully intend to fulfill that promise. So now I present to you:

Why Brits do it (television comedy) better!

Having grown up along ‘the border’ I’ve had the opportunity to sample the televisual delights from countries as diverse as the United States, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Now I reckon I know what you’re muttering under your breath – all 4 of those countries are English-speaking highly developed nations who share a hyper-commercialized culture. You’re right, but here I’m talking about comic diversity.

This comic diversity is most visible in stand-up comedy. But these same types of humour are what greatly influence the production of television comedy programs.

The Irish are the kings of self-deprecation. From the accent to the way Irish men dance in clubs, Irish comedians love to take the mickey out of themselves and their country men. Some comedians, such as Patrick Kielty even go as far as to use the IRA as a point of humour. They also share with the Scots a penchant for dark humour where death can easily be as funny, if not funnier, than life.

The Brits (English/Welsh/Scottish) are a bit of a mixed bag. The English have their famous dry wit and a unique way of making the dirtiest jokes sound clean. The Scottish have an amazing combination of subtlety, black humour and the ability to mock their neighbours to the south and get away with it. The Welsh tend to absorb all the comedy types around them and fuse it into something unique, if often undecipherable.

Canadians also like to think they are good at self-deprecation, but they tend to be better at this when the individual comic lives multiple identities (ie. Deborah DiGiovanni being a woman, Italian and Canadian or Russel Peters being brown and Canadian). Canadian comedy tends to be fairly physical and enjoys occupying a middle ground between British and American humour. All in all it’s quite funny, even if you wonder whether the humour is intentional or a by-product of the “We’re different! We aren’t American! Pay attention to us!” complex Canadian comedy, tv and film has tended to suffer from over the past 30 years.

American comedy tends to be slapstick or rude and sometimes both. Self-deprecation is common, but that doesn’t mean it is done well, such as the ‘red neck’ comedy phenomenon. Can anyone really laugh comfortably at one of these kinds of jokes, let alone heckle, knowing that the comic might be carrying a concealed hunting rifle? Years and years of American television, movies and stand-up comics and by-and-large I still don’t find Americans funny.

Of all of these types of comedy, one stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of television adaptability. British television comedy, often infused with a sizable helping of Irish, is simply the funniest. Is this statement biased? Yes. Is it just personal opinion? Absolutely. Do I have any ‘proof’ to back this claim up? No and I bet you don’t want to invest $100,000 dollars in government spending so that a group of social sciences academics can come up with some.

British comedies or britcoms as they are lovingly known have proven themselves to be rather timeless. I can still watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus and laugh at all the jokes, Fawlty Towers will never get boring, Keeping Up Appearances still keeps up spirits and Are You Being Served? continues to service comedy audiences around the globe 25 years after its last broadcast. And these shows can’t even be considered the peak of British television comedy.

I stand by the fact that The Vicar of Dibley is the funniest television show that has ever been produced anywhere. Spaced is a wonderfully scripted comment on what happens when 30 becomes the new 20. Kris Marshall’s performance in My Family is a never-ending source of giggles. As much as I love Steve Carrell and John Krasinski, the Brits even have the better (and the original) version of The Office. I think a good chunk of this difference in quality is attributable to the difference in the way ‘seasons’ or ‘series’ are organized.

The Brits tend to churn out between 6 and 10 episodes per ‘series’ (equivalent to the American season) while Americans are expected to produce between 20 and 24 episodes, at least double and possibly quadruple that amount. British writers are able to focus on writing 6 amazing episodes as opposed to 24 mediocre ones. It just makes sense for good comedy.

Now that you’re excited about British comedy, if you haven’t watched it before you might be wondering where to start. I’ve got 2 lists to help you with that.

My Top 5 British Comedy Programs Still On Air

1. Outnumbered
2. My Family
3. The IT Crowd
4. Inbetweeners
5. Gavin and Stacey

My Top 10 British Comedy Programs of the Recent Past (1995-Present)

1. The Vicar of Dibley
2. Spaced
3. Father Ted
4. Coupling
5. Cold Feet
6. The Office
7. My Hero
8. Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps
9. Beautiful People
10. Massive (a one series wonder)

You can often watch a whole series in the same time it would take to watch a Peter Jackson film, so there’s really no excuse for not giving one a go if you’ve some time on your hands.

Happy Viewing!

To Bubble Wrap or Not to Bubble Wrap?: The UK’s ‘Ride to School’ Dilemma

On Monday papers and news services across the United Kingdom (and apparently in Canada and the United States as well) were ablaze with a story about two London parents who allow their children to ride their bicycles unaccompanied to school. Though children riding bikes to school itself is not that interesting, what made this a story was that their children’s school threatened to report these parents to social services. Mr. and Mrs. Schonrock have two children, a daughter aged 8 and a son aged 5 who they allow to travel to school (located one mile away) on their own (but both children together) via bicycle by a route selected by their parents to ensure that the children would avoid all major intersections with the exception of one, which has a lollipop lady to help children across the road. (For more details please see the Daily Mail story http://bit.ly/9lOoPg or Google it)

Within minutes of the story breaking, it was all over Twitter as parents, children and people who used to be children raced to share their opinion on the matter. Surprisingly, though I thought opinion would be split, from what I saw the majority seemed to be in support of the parents in this case. Even high level politicians such as the Prime Minister of the UK and the Mayor of London (who by the way wrote a fantastic piece on the case in the Telegraph http://bit.ly/bnMAxD) have chimed in in support of the Schonrocks.

What is particularly interesting about this case is not so much the details, but the way in which the fervent support of the parents’ right to make decisions about their children’s safety might signal a tipping point in the Anglo-American-Canadian style of parenting that has predominated since the early 1990s. Now that the so-called helicopter kids are becoming helicopter-adults, many are beginning to see the effects of over-parenting and are taking steps to regain some independence for their children.

To be fair, it must be recognized that there are a number of parents that have spoken out against the decision of the Schonrocks, who have argued articulately and passionately that children that young should not be allowed to ride to school. Some of the most common arguments I have come across are health & safety (if a child falls off and is injured is the other one old enough to know how to get help), personal safety (stranger danger) and the loss of a great bonding opportunity. While I can understand concerns over health and safety, at the same time stories stories of 6 year-olds helping siblings and even parents escape fires are not that uncommon. Children are incredibly resilient. I even agree somewhat with the bonding argument, but the stranger danger argument, I think is the weakest of the lot. Statistics have shown that the number of young people ‘snatched off the streets’ pales in comparison to the number abused by people they know – particularly family members and family friends. (http://bit.ly/blqzbr – yes these stats come from Oprah and no it won’t happen again) The number of children killed in traffic collisions is much higher still, yet there continues to be this fear of the outside world that prevents many parents from allowing their children to enjoy playing outside by themselves or with friends as they once did.

I understand the need to keep children safe. I grew up in the early 1990s in an area where there had been a ridiculously high number of stranger abductions etc. per capita. While this certainly did make my parents fearful, they did their best to try to hide it. I wasn’t allowed to walk home on my own ’til I was about 10 or 11, a large part of the reason being that I lived out of the school bounds so the other children didn’t walk in my direction. Even then I usually chose to walk with friends once some moved into my neighborhood. I was allowed to play in the park on my own (until the streetlights went on) as long as my parents knew where to find me. As terrifying as this was for them, my parents knew that it would be best to let me discover the world a little on my own and with peers as opposed to carrying me through the obstacle course of life. I thank them for it – like many young people I learned as much, if not more about the danger, risk and the world in general at the playground than I did in class or when my parents held my hand. Questions like “Are these monkey bars too high for me to catapult myself off?”, “What happens if I ride my toboggan down stairs?” and “What should I say to convince J. to not give up, go home and take his new basketball with him?” had built-in life lessons as answers.

While I would not recommend having parents everywhere drop their guard entirely and let their children bike all over town, I do support fully the approach the Schonrocks took. Think about your children as individuals, assess their maturity and readiness, make a thoughtful decision that eliminates as much of the perceived risk as possible and don’t strangle your children with the reigns you want to put around them – Now that’s responsible parenting at it’s finest. Fair play to you Oliver and Gillian Schonrock! Here’s to hoping you’ve ignited a paradigm shift!