Little Britain

Hello and welcome to the fiftieth blogpost spectacular.  Looking back, it’s remarkable I’ve been able to draw this much rambling out of me, and even more remarkable that people have been reading it.  I hope you can appreciate that it’s a rollercoaster each time I press publish on one of these things.  I’ve had posts go wildly popular almost straightaway, like the Love Island one, and I’ve had carefully crafted pieces about hidden gems, like Wild Wild Country, struggle to get much traction.  All I have to ask is that everyone reads everything please.  It’s not worth missing out on my opinions just because you happen not to have seen every series and every episode of Bob’s Burgers.  The good news is that I have, so each post promises the perfect blend of subjective views and overly personal condescension.

But what show is getting this unique treatment for such a landmark milestone on Just One More Episode?  Little Britain.  There are many reasons for this.  The first is that I can’t believe I haven’t covered a sketch show yet.  There’s not really a sketch show I haven’t enjoyed.  You have the dizzying highs of a sketch whose punchlines open your eyes to an elevated form of comedy and you have the terrifying lows of jokes whose flat landings and laboured extractions make you question your will to live.  Constantly whiplashing between such strong sentiments is good for the soul, and it’s better to have a strong reaction than to feel meh about the whole thing and start checking your Whatsapp when you’re barely ten minutes into the appalling second series of Westworld.

The second is that the programme was hugely important in my life.  It was autumn 2003 and I had been packed off to university after seven years in the same school and eighteen years in the same village.  I was not good at meeting new people.  Luckily, my Little Britain DVDs had come with me (yes, DVDS; remember them?  This was the past after all) and rumour soon spread among the first years that I was willing to lend them out.  I was a bit like a Blockbusters of British comedy.  We would watch each episode as if we were discovering a new horizon in laughing out loud.  Then we would compare our impressions of the characters and debate endlessly and aggressively who was better.  Some of these new friends seemed cooler at the time than anyone I had ever come across.  They lived in cities like London and had backpacked through foreign continents, whereas all my stories were about doing the trolleys at Cobham Waitrose.  This BBC comedy united us.

And the third reason is that I recently spotted the show in the Netflix list of programmes that I might like (well done Netflix) and couldn’t resist clicking on it to see if it was a good as I remember and next thing I knew I had worked through all three series at the expense of any of the premium content I was consuming at the time (step aside, The Alienist).  This is where we need to handle Little Britain more carefully, as some of it has not aged that well.  It always trod a fine line, and that line has moved over time.  For example, Emily Howard seems like a harmless character.  She is transgender, but the humour comes from numerous situations where her efforts to pass fall below expectations, exacerbated by her insistence not just on being a lady, but on being a stereotypical lady from a bygone age.  But, all these years later, I have to ask myself if we are just laughing at someone because they are transgender.  In the wokeness of 2018 (with the long way to go that we still have in many of these matters) it’s hard to be sure.

Similarly, Sebastian Love, the prime minister’s aide, is funny because of his badly hidden unrequited love, or are we just laughing at him for being gay?  Daffyd Thomas, the only gay in the village, veers towards a similar sense of uncertainty.  The bad taste doesn’t come from the jokes about rimming, but from the idea that homosexuality is ridiculous and laughable.  On the other hand, we shouldn’t expect single characters to represent whole diverse communities, but it’s good to talk about it, isn’t it?  Having a little chat about contentious issues helps everyone spend more time in a constant panic they are offending someone.  And that’s better than being a bigot.  I think.

From its original home on BBC Three (RIP), Little Britain went from subversive to mega mainstream.  The three series are remembered for their shocking and explicit moments: WI ladies that vomit on minorities, a Fat Fighters group leader spitting on Vanessa Feltz’s face, Bubbles DeVere’s fat suit with flappy tits and a bum crack that spreads realistically on bending over, bitty.  But more than that, it was its quotability that gave it lasting mass appeal.  By 2005 you couldn’t move without someone saying “I want that one” or “yeah but no but yeah nut no.”  Criticism began to stick about its lowest common denominator appeal, relying on catchphrases and offensive willy content to please the great unwashed and the great uneducated, resulting in no great art at all.  “Bring back repeats of Are You Being Served?,” whined the more conservative people, “at least that only had innuendo.”  But had Britain lost its subtlety?

This brings me onto my favourite thing about Little Britain: the lines you don’t remember.  Everything was so well observed, but filtered through a lens of ridiculous absurdity.  Sure, it was quite a chuckle whenever Andy told Lou that he wanted that one, but it was even funnier when Lou would deliver a throwaway line enlightening us on a previous opinion of Andy’s regarding the matter in hand: “And besides, you don't like George Michaels. You said that Jesus to a Child aside, you found his output emotionally vapid.”

Let’s deconstruct an example, with my all-time favourite quotation from Vicky Pollard:

“I know cos we was all down the arcade and Kelly flobbed on Destiny and a bit landed in my hair.  Cos Kelly hates Destiny.  Cos Destiny told Warren that Kelly pads her bra.  It’s true; Nathan reckons he put his hand down there and pulled out a bag of Jelly Tots.”

1.       The names – we immediately imagine the types of people that have names like Destiny

2.       Down the arcade – nothing aspirational ever happened in an arcade, and being down anywhere is the accurate precursor for trouble ensuing

3.       Flobbing – a great piece of British slang that we frankly don’t say enough; we vividly picture it hanging off Vicky’s hair in a big lump

4.       Girls hating each other – remember school, everyone?

5.       Padding a bra – see above

6.       What Nathan reckons – the word of a lad being enough to condemn a young lady’s virtue.  Isn’t the world unfair?

7.       Jelly Tots – oh I forgot about this brand, but thank goodness I am being reminded of it now as its reference is increasing my nostalgia and amusement

Again, are we just laughing at poor people?  Probably.  Sorry.

I’ve already said too much, but I really want to list out some of my most beloved, yet widely underrated characters, so I’m doing it anyway:

Anne and Dr Lawrence

David Walliams in a dress going “eh eh eh” doesn’t sound great on paper, but hearing him answer the phone in a perfectly civilized manner and apologise for being rude before creating havoc is a unique juxtaposition.  But are we just laughing at mental health?  Probably.

Sir Bernard Chumley

Rather than being a national treasure, this retired actor is confined to a council flat with his equally elderly sister, Kitty.  His vile desperation, whether it be for extra Meals on Wheels or for the chance to manhandle aspiring younger men, leads to some harrowingly dark scenes.

Mr Mann and Roy

The concept got done to death, but there was something so simple yet so artistic about this awkward customer and hapless shopkeeper.  I just don’t know if Margaret ever got out of the store room, as she didn’t have any arms or legs.

I’ll stop here.  David Walliams and Matt Lucas, whatever they were making fun of, could turn themselves into such a wide array of believable characters, that each scene felt real despite its absurdity.  The former is now a children’s author whose books I have read to my niece, whilst I once spotted the latter in a café and secretly hoped he had overheard how funny I was being with my friends.  Both are now firmly established in the British comedy hall of fame, and rightly so.  Around 15% of my speech is influenced by the nonsense that they crafted, so it’s only fitting I leave you with a definitive quotation from Tom Baker’s berserk narration of each episode: “Britain, Britain, Britain.”