Well, I thought that I’d talk briefly about British comedy today, and the one thing that makes it so different from US comedy. This was something I ended up thinking about in mid-March after I started reading a laugh-out-loud comedy-horror novel called “Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome” (2022), which is a spin-off from an absolutely brilliant comedy-horror sitcom from 2004 called “Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace” which ran on Channel 4 (UK) for six episodes.
The premise of the sitcom is that it’s a “lost” 1980s TV show written by a fictitious hack writer called Garth Marenghi (played by Matthew Holness) who has a vastly over-inflated sense of how good he is at writing. The show itself is full of intentionally wooden dialogue, goofy characters, zero-budget special effects, ridiculous “because its cool” moments etc… It’s designed to be a dreadful, rejected 1980s TV show and this is what makes it funny. Even the opening credits (warning – subtle flickering) – trying to imitate cheesy US TV dramas of the 1980s – are gloriously funny. Not to mention the hilarious irony of doctors gleefully brandishing guns as well.
British humour is, at its core, all about imperfection. It is the literal polar opposite of the sort of idealistic mindset which can traditionally be found in US comedy – and US culture in general. Although I haven’t really watched much of the US sitcom “Friends” (1994-2004), it is the perfect example of what British humour is NOT. It’s a show about a group of beautiful, likeable and fashionable twenty-somethings who live in a giant, pristine apartment and regularly visit a trendy café.
This is the antithesis of traditional British humour!
To give a few classic examples, one of our most famous sitcoms – “Fawlty Towers” (1975-1979) – is about a cantankerous and unlikeable man called Basil who runs an utterly dreadful hotel. Another one – “Only Fools And Horses” (1981- 2003) – is about two small-time con-artists living in London, “independent traders” who often sell shoddy and/or stolen goods, or are trying to swindle someone. Yet another one – “Blackadder” (1983-1989) – is a historical themed sitcom, set across four eras, focusing on a deeply unlikable member of the upper middle class who is constantly scheming to get more money or power… and failing in hilarious ways.
A slightly more recent example is the sitcom “The Inbetweeners” (2008-10), which focuses on a group of 16-17 year old boys who all go to the same Sixth-Form college. And it is about as far from a typical US-style “high-school comedy” as you can get! It’s cynical, all of the characters are “imperfect” in different ways, there are numerous awkward situations, the humour is as crude as you’d realistically expect from characters like this, all of the locations are drab and realistic, the main characters are middle-class but not exactly “rich” or “trendy” etc…
I mean, it’s very telling that – with the bizarre exception of “Friends” – the examples of US comedy which have been the most successful in Britain have been the ones with “imperfect” characters. And, interestingly, many of these have been animated sitcoms – “The Simpsons”, “Family Guy”, “King Of The Hill”, “South Park”, “Rick And Morty” etc… All of these have the sort of “imperfect” characters and cynical moments which are a traditional staple of British humour.
British humour is, at its core, about imperfection. It isn’t meant to be idealistic or aspirational. Why? Because we actually have to live in Britain – even in the “nice” parts of it, there’s still plenty to be cynical or miserable about! Because, whilst it can be escapist fun to see US dramas and films about impossibly perfect people living impossibly perfect lives in impossibly perfect places, it can also be deeply alienating and depressing if you ever make the mistake of comparing yourself to it. If you want to relax or laugh in this country, then seeing the many imperfections of ordinary life being exaggerated and presented in a funny way is much, much better!
Because laughing at an unlikeable character – pompous, ambitious, annoying – is a lot more relaxing than trying to laugh with a “perfect” character. Whether it evokes reassuring feelings of “I may not be perfect, but at least I’m not THAT bad” or whether it is because the character reminds you of an annoying person in real life, it’s cathartic. It isn’t aspiring to some unreachably perfect standard, it’s looking at what is already here and having a laugh about it.
British comedy might seem “depressing” or “miserable” to someone who isn’t used to it, but the imperfections are literally the point. It’s all about laughing at hilariously crappy situations, contexts and/or characters rather than laughing along with perfect characters in perfect places. And, in this social media age – where we’re all bombarded with carefully-selected “highlight reels” of everyone else’s lives and where everything is a popularity contest, there’s something uniquely refreshing and realistic about British humour 🙂
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Anyway, I hope that this is interesting 🙂
