THE UNSETTLING BRILLIANCE OF BRITISH COMEDY
I've found that being disabled is usually accompanied by a rather twisted sense of humor. It’s pretty much a requirement in order to endure all the absurd, humiliating experiences that come your way from both ignorant and well-meaning people, and society in general. I mean, you gotta laugh or go insane, right? Cartoonist John Callahan, a quadriplegic himself, addressed many of these issues in his work with unflinching, aggressive humor, until his passing in 2010. Critics labeled him politically incorrect back in the 1980s and 90s and now he’d no doubt be quickly canceled. His reaction would probably be to laugh and make his next cartoon even more offensive. I miss Callahan. We need someone like him more than ever these days.
Perhaps this is why I love British television comedies so much. Many of these programs take more risks than their American counterparts. I've also discovered that British shows are less squeamish about depicting disabled people in uncomfortable comedic ways. Remember the original UK version of The Office when a paraplegic employee is abandoned in a stairwell during a fire drill after her coworkers find her wheelchair too difficult to lift? (A similar situation happened to me at work post-9/11, believe it or not.) This hilarious, pitch perfect situation could have come right out of a vintage Callahan illustration.
In the early days of Netflix, I discovered Steve Coogan's television comedies Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge and I'm Alan Partridge, which aired in 1994, 1997 and 2002. Coogan plays a clueless talk show host that manages to insult guests and say the wrong thing at every turn. Partridge even accidently shoots and kills a guest at the end of the first series. I'm Alan Partridge follows his attempts to revive his career as he works the late night shift at a local radio station, while the 2002 second season sees Partridge living in a mobile home after recovering from a mental breakdown. Dark stuff to be sure. but brilliantly comical. Partridge may be a misguided narcissist masked in false confidence, but he tries so hard, time and time again, that you can't help feeling some sympathy for the guy. (Coogan would later create the even more sympathetic and heartfelt Saxondale, about a former 1970s rock band roadie who can't quite let go of his glory days as he reaches middle age. It's one of my favorite sitcoms ever and a must view for any music nerd.)
Another Netflix discovery was Nighty Night, written by and starring Julia Davis, who appeared in several Alan Partridge episodes. Davis as Jill, tells everyone that her husband Terry, who is being treated for cancer, has died to garner sympathy and manipulate those around her. She volunteers to care for neighbor Cathy, who has Multiple Sclerosis, in hopes of seducing her husband Don. The abuse Jill heaps on Cathy and the lengths she goes to hide the fact that Terry is still alive are hysterically disquieting. The second season is more outrageous still as Jill's ruthless ways spin out of control, destroying everyone and everything in her wake. Her only ally is her gullible, bumbling coworker, played by Ruth Jones, Steve Coogan's Saxondale costar. Jill finally gets Don (what's left of him anyway), yet in the end, it's meek, overly-compliant Cathy that takes the fall for everything as a result of a wheelchair accident.
Another Davis series, Human Remains, interviews six couples, all played by Davis and Rob Brydon (Coogan's buddy in the gourmet travelogue comedies The Trip, The Trip to Italy, The Trip to Spain and The Trip to Greece, which effortlessly blur the line between documentary and fiction). Each episode of Human Remains reveals discomforting undercurrents for these quirky relationships, such as psychological abuse, swinging, kinky sex, depression, entitled classism, and real and feigned illness (which seems to be a favorite subject of Davis'). All are handled with wicked humor, along with a good dollop of pathos. There are broad comedic moments, but it is the subtle interaction between Davis and Brydon that carries the series. Her most recent series, 2018's Sally4Ever, follows the titular character, who is weary of being reminded of her ticking biological clock and decides to lose herself in a frivolous affair. When she falls for Davis at a club one night, what begins as an exciting new romance soon invades her entire life. Rather than a lover, Sally realizes she now has a stalker. One side story involves Sally's coworker (Felicity Montagu, best known as Alan Partridge's harried assistant), who says she became disabled as a child when her mother backed a car over her, thinking she'd hit a small dog.
Davis is also part of the stable of actors featured in much of Chris Morris' groundbreaking work. Radio and television writer Morris launched his radio newscast spoof On the Hour in 1991. Its lighting-fast-paced format features bizarre headlines that foreshadow our current fake news, and was brought to television as a six episode series titled The Day Today two years later. Steve Coogan appears as various characters, including a pre-Knowing Me incarnation of Alan Partridge at the sports desk. A few of the surreal reports include a train delay that incites Lord of the Flies-style carnage among passengers; hackers altering the Catholic doctrine on the Vatican's website to read that Jesus died of food poisoning at age 19, and that Lou Reed is now a patron saint; and Morris as the news anchor igniting a war between Australia and Hong Kong to generate the requisite sensational news coverage.
Morris pushed the limits of the newscast concept a step further with 1997's Brass Eye, a current affairs satire covering subjects such as addiction, animal rights and AIDS. Politicians and celebrities were often interviewed, some thinking they were participating in a real news program, which caused some controversy. A special episode aired in 2001 remains the most notorious program in British television history, receiving more audience complaints than any other broadcast. Paedogeddon takes on the disturbing subject of pedophilia. The special is at once shocking, over the top and absurdist. But Paedogeddon is also a brilliant, multi-layered swipe at how the news media turns human tragedy into titillating entertainment. Some might accuse Morris of doing the same, but that's what makes his work so fascinating. He employs the same broadcast news methodology in order to indict itself and its audience. The sight of a clueless Phil Collins earnestly donning a ridiculous, obviously spoofed anti-pedophile t-shirt, only proves how complicitly gullible we all can be as information consumers.
Then there is Jam, which deconstructs the very concept of what broadcast entertainment is. . .
This Morris project also began life as a BBC Radio program. Blue Jam featured short sketches, but not in the conventional sense. Imagine British sketch comedy filtered through a dark David Lynch ambience at its most extreme. Dialogue taken directly from the radio vignettes were lip-synced by the actors when Jam reached late night TV screens in 2000, imbuing it with an hallucinatory, otherworldly quality. Each episode has no opening or closing credits and no commercial breaks (sponsors didn't want to advertise on the program anyway). Adding to the show's dream-like atmosphere is heavy use of audio and visual effects. Changing picture aspect ratios and slowing down of the audio track constantly keep the viewer off balance. DVD extras for the series add yet another layer of surrealism. One episode is reprised with its video image a tiny rectangle in the center of the screen, another has the reduced video bouncing around like a vintage screensaver. Other episodes are repeated with pixilated scenes and distorted audio.
Jam's subject matter also confronts the audience with the question of what makes comedy. Some scenarios are weirdly amusing, such as one where a couple call a repairman to report a steady stream of lizards coming out of their TV. In another, a man rants about arriving to pick up his car from the mechanic, only to find his vehicle is now four feet long. Others border on the horrific, the most notable being a sequence that has a mother asking a plumber for help concerning her deceased baby. The plumber is rightfully perplexed, but is offered a thousand pounds an hour to "fix" things. The results are not seen, only imagined, though the mother seems very pleased by his handy work.
I find it amazing that such an avant-garde, nightmarish program like Jam was ever allowed to air, but I'm glad it did. In today's hyper-sensitive climate, we seem to be losing the art of satire for fear of offending anyone. (I think it was John Cleese that once said, "Some people deserve to be offended." Or was it Mojo Nixon?) Like John Callahan's work, the jolting mockery of Chris Morris and friends reminds us how enlightening a little sardonic lampooning can be.