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comedy
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phespirit.notes: comedynotes from a phespirit perspective
The Performers"The performers are very special people ..... very special people indeed." Phespirit likes his comedy dry, sardonic, satiric, laconic, spontaneous, droll, inspired, inventive, incisive and natural. During the late twentieth century these qualities have occurred with manifest abundance in the following geniuses amongst men, whom Phespirit nominates as the four true gods of comedy: ARNOLD BROWN - PETER COOK - TOMMY COOPER - SPIKE MILLIGAN Milligan invented surrealist comedy in the post-war radio age, Cook pioneered the Sixties' satire boom, Cooper was the unrivalled master of comic timing, Brown was a founding father of alternative comedy in Britain. All are/were uniquely gifted individuals from whom a simple glance, gesture, smirk, wink, sigh or cough could be as devastatingly funny as their killer one-liners. The gods of comedy are priceless gifts of nature. The Great British 30-Minute Sit-ComPopular media's finest and most successful comedy format is the Great British half-hour television sit-com. From the early days of the 1950s radio crossovers, British half-hour sit-coms have developed into a mainstay of primetime programming. Their proliferation has inevitably lead to a dilution of quality, but at the pinnacle of the genre they remain shining examples of astute social commentary crammed with razor-sharp wit ..... plus, of course, the obligatory blend of farce, surrealism and naughtiness. Phespirit's top ten is as follows, in chronological order:
Hancock's Half Hour 63 shows, broadcast 1956-1961
Steptoe and Son 57 shows, broadcast 1962-1974
Till Death Us Do Part 53 shows, broadcast 1965-1975
Rising Damp 28 shows, broadcast 1974-1978
Porridge 20 shows, broadcast 1974-1977
Fawlty Towers 12 shows, broadcast 1975-1979
Only Fools and Horses 61 shows, broadcast 1981-1996
The Young Ones 12 shows, broadcast 1982-1984
Blackadder 25 shows, broadcast 1983-1989
Father Ted 25 shows, broadcast 1995-1998 Other honourable mentions go to Dad's Army and Open All Hours ..... ..... and in the over half an hour category: Minder and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. The Big ScreenArguably, cinema comedy has never managed to improve on the absolute perfection of Laurel & Hardy or, to a lesser extent, the silent work of Harold Lloyd. Nonetheless, Hollywood and the British studios have mustered some fine, surreal efforts between them; films which are noteworthy either as subversive shafts in the mainstream, or as idiosyncratic chariots for the comic gods. No better examples than the top five which Phespirit offers here: The Spoken WordThe vast majority of comedy albums are either recordings of live stand-up shows, or are film or television or radio soundtracks. Monty Python's Flying Circus was arguably the most successful crossover from the big and small screens to album format. It is a testimony to the strength of their material that shows which made such extensive use of visual comedy remained every bit as sharp with the visuals removed. Phespirit regards the three Derek and Clive albums, produced by Dudley Moore and Peter Cook in the nineteen-seventies, as the very best examples of recorded comedy. These albums were laid down in the studio, mostly without audience or script, and make for the most stunning collection of brutally obscene improvised wit ever cut to vinyl. They have to be heard to be disbelieved. Derek and Clive - the complete transcripts |