What happened?

Hi stemal-1. I agree with everything you said.

I know Dave was pretty miffed about not being asked to be on the tv series, but he's not one to kick up a fuss and he's basically just got on with things. He managed to get a (very brief) talking part as a plumber on Eastenders for one episode, and he's been in Silent Witness and Da Vinci's Demons recently, as well as being in the lesser known surrealist comedy This Is Jinsy. So it's not like he's not working, but still, yes, I'd have liked to see him as Geoffrey too.




I've been a fool but you know I wouldn't kill for you...

I need to blame someone for this and it has to be Graham Linehan.

Linehan is a genius, responsible for much of the great UK TV comedy of the last 20 years, but went off in an unnecessary direction here. Arthur didn't need tampering with.

I've gone on ad nauseum in other threads about the radio series compared to this, and I won't start again. I'll stick with that the main difference seems to be the involvement of Graham Linehan instead of Graham Duff.

I'd still kiss his boots if I met him, before I asked him what the hell went wrong with Count Arthur.

If the stroke comment was meant to be a chiding for using a post stroke life as a comedy source then substituting it for the modern pandemic of dementia is hardly an improvement. I can only suggest that every character in everything will sometimes display FAULTs if you like. We could show distaste to Mr Humphries in Are you being served for displaying such a perception of his lifestyle/choice. Oddly I find this to be a pervasive display yet it has spawned a multitude of like displays to the extent it seems as thought this IS the way to tell the world who you truely are.

It would also be wrong to stereotype pompous people or delusional people, Mrs BUCKET. BOUQUET. We can even [sinfully] laugh at situations regarding dead people See WEEKEND AT BERNIES with its corpse manipulation and disrespect for the dead.
Taken to its extremes perhaps one of my Heroes Cromwell should come back. He banned frivolity of any kind. Including Christmas which may not be a bad idea yet not clamoured for by the non believers. Perhaps they are also the lip serving manufacturers etc of the products the rest of the gullible public [are forced to by peer pressure] purchase for the population of greedier growing offspring.

Yes we are now guilty of laughing at as opposed to laughing with. But all things are unfair. The advancement of our nation [wealth]has always depended upon the reduction of worth in another so that is unfair.

I am sorry that I get amusement at what some might find as someone else's ailment or suffering. Ricky Gervais while playing Derek is probably distasteful but his character in the office series should also attract our sympathy. Or incarceration? Those deluded people with those self beliefs do exist and the bye ball is frequently allowed. Many even have been given promotion to keep them out of the way and out of the courtrooms.

Ronnie Barkers Open all hours must have also been a cruel take on stutterers and his many of his monologue wordsmith routines.

I have only within the last few days discovered this character STRONG and am now working my way through the second TV series. Some of the material is really laugh out loud stuff for egample the Captain Phillips moment being watched from behind the curtains was really a fantastic moment and there have been quite few of them and yess the 'expertise I'M afraid' line classic or is it now Legend/Quality. I cannot criticize any of the supporting work as it is only there as filler. This is to watch Delaney at work and his work is good. The memory required to repeatedly include the wrong words into a piece of flowing prose is surely quite difficult. But most comedy gives us pathos and yet we can be given 'moments' of real emotional drama. Getting a lump in the throat is hard to handle in the middle of a period of out loud laughing. That sort of acting I do give full marks.

I have a book, written in the 1930s. It is called '1066 and all that'. It is suggested that a few teachers have put together the submitted answers by pupils in history exams. Perhaps that too is showing us laughing at and not with. It is quite a hoot to read the confused interpretations and lack of comprehension. As it is history I am assuming it would have been from one of the up market parts of the education system of the time.

Someone will always bear the brunt of attempts at humour. My wife loves banana slipping stuff so You've been framed is good enough other than when small children are involved being hurt.

Perhaps we need to reappraise our attitude in laughing at dear old Adolf/Mugabwee [ee ba gum]/any given North Korean leader/any Ayatollah/Bin Laden [alive and well running a dry cleaning shop in Albuquerque with his now 100 wives as assistants] and not least at the man most responsible for modern [terrorist caused] deaths seen as a child abuser and also polygamist [and so were they all back then when possible. Why would the apostles have been any different].

I hope I will continue to see laugh out loud material in the next episodes. I hope to introduce my wife to this but she has had a minor stroke, I believe she has ADD wish it was OCCD or even ADHD with a duster. She beleives she can play games of a computer and watch Tele out of the corner of her eye. Well I can give her that if it is any of the soaps but otherwise I doubt. She can even read in bed and watch tele and sleep and watch tele [I digress]. She is guilty of mispronunciation for a few words but that may be because she is Scottish and is as well spoken as the Scottish leader of today. Her ability in understanding comedy is dependent upon the joke being very short or very visual. T. Cooper J. Pasquale come to mind.