Comedy effort succeeds

Press, 15 July 1976, Page 17

Comedy effort succeeds

By A. K. Grant Every New Zealand television comedy series has had to lean on enormous, and usually insupportable weight of hopes, aspirations and expectations.

Too much was: expected of “In View of the Circumstances” because it was the first attempt at a series. Too much was expected of “Buck House” because it was the first attempt at a situation comedy series. Too much has been expected of “Something to Look Forward To” because of the raltive failures of “Buck House” and “In View of the Circumstances”. The makers of each of the three programmes have been made to feel that they (the makers) are all that stand between the flickering flame of New Zealand television comedy and the dark gusts of extinction. This results in their having forced on them a self-consious sense of purpose inimical to the production of good comedv.

j It is for these reasons j that the best New Zealand I television comedy has i been provided by John I Clarke and Dave Smith, in i sketches which occur in | the context of more j serious . ogrammes.. Freed j from the weight of supi porting the programme itj self, they have been free I to exhibit their gifts with i a lightness of spirit denied | to the makers and peri formers of "Buck House” I and “In View of the Cir- : cumstances”. ! Fortunately, David MacI Phail and Derek Payne, j and performers in “Some- | thing to look Forward To” I appear more capable than | their predecessors of re- ! sisting the pressure of exI pectations to which have i referred. | On balance, over-all, ; and making no allowances of any particular kind I enjoyed “Something to I Look Forward To”. I must j confess I cringed a bit i when I learned of the j title. It is usually the kiss I of death to give a comedy ' programn.e a title like I TH \T. i All you are doing is I presenting malicious re- | viewers like me with the j opportunity to say “Oh, 1 ho, ho. Something to look I forward to eh? Something to be avoided at all costs, | more like.” However, the cheek of i MacPhail and Payne has ■ paid off, justified by the ( contents of their programme.

There was one very good sketch, the parody of "Pot Black" entitled "Pot I Luck", and one good : sketch, the marching girls' j dressing room sketch, al- . though I can’t for the life i of me see why they went j to the trouble of 'organI ising a pointless guest I appearance by Graham I Thorne. And although I j did not enjoy either 1 sketch particularly I was j pleased by the savagery \ with which the Mensden j sketch ended, (Samuel riddied by musket fire) and I the bad taste with which I Malcolm McNeill’s sketch ■ was concluded with the ; furniture removal man i about to ravish the sleepl ing girl. I Violence and bad taste ' are two of the principal j ingredients of comedy, although if you have nothI ing else to offer, as with | "Blerta” you won’t achieve comedy. But any comedian worth more than

i a polite titter from an j audience full of friends l and relatives must be pre- . pared to risk being offen j sive for the sake of a i laugh, and MacPhail and i Payne, 1 am pleased to I see, are not overburdened ■ with scruples in this regard. Not everything worked. ; Payne was far from amusi ing as William Webb j Foot, the controversial referee; his interview with MacPhail covered ground already well worked over by Marty Feldman. And the interview with MacPhail as a film director was in a vein mined to exhaustion by “Monty Python”. Not that it would be possible to do a satirical comedy series which did not plainly acknowledge a debt to Feldman, Python, Cook and Moore, et al, but if you are going to do their kind of sketch you have to do it as well or better than they do, and that was not the case here. Nevertheless, over-all, ; and indeed I would go so j far as to say, by and large I a sterling effort. Let us all I fervently hope the proI gramme continues to be I good enough to enable us i to forget once and for all ■ the question of whether or I not we can produce comI edy series, and instead ’ simply get on with the job ; the principal . authors of of doing so.