Weak as we know I am, the minute I spotted Lunatics I abandoned all prior
commitments and dived into a world I hoped would be built from sick humour and
spot-on human observations. Let’s meet
each lunatic in turn, noting that there is almost nothing linking them together
(whereas the characters of Summer Heights High all attended or worked at the
same hilarious school). We are going in
ascending order, from my least favourite to my most chucklesome.
Gavin McGregor
This lad is a monstrosity at the age of 12, but it’s clear
his awful personality and paunch are both the results of spoiling by his
parents. Raised by YouTube and
Instagram, he can speak only in social media phraseology, with most things
being dope as f*ck. Gavin has delusions
of his current and future grandeur, trying to initiate sexual conquests with
most females as a result of behaviour he is aping. As a creation, he’s a damning indictment, and
therefore unpleasant to watch. His story
arc is even less appealing, transported to England from Australia, where he is
groomed by relatives to become the next Earl of Gayford (not a real place, not
even a funny place) while corrupting his cousins. I was distracted by trying to work out
whether this was filmed on location in actual England, or just a wet, green bit
of Australia. I began to suspect accent
inconsistency whilst working out if the grass looked Antipodean or not.
Keith Dick
Donning a goatee and horrible old-man pony, Lilley becomes
Keith, a long-serving department store worker who opens his own fashion
emporium. While the business initially
falters, Keith’s self-obsession prevents reality from dawning, as does his
sexual preclusion for objects. A vacuum
cleaner and a cash register both come in for his unique love making, but you’ve
got to admire his openness about his preferences.
Quentin Cook
I’m sensing a theme where each character is based on two
jokes. The first about Quentin is that
he, and all the men in his family, have massive arses. This is puerile, but that’s fine by me,
especially when his bottom knocks things over.
He is a tacky real estate agent who, like Keith and Dick, is deluded
about his talents in other areas, and I mean any other areas: art, music,
DJing. His parents’ blind support and
favouritism add a subtler dimension, while you can enjoy the two actors playing
his brothers adlibbing. His rivalry with
Harrison, an employee who is better than Quentin at everything, also sizzles
well.
Jana Melhoopen-Jonks
Cue the jokes: she is Zimbabwean, she is a lesbian whose
love for her assistant is unrequited, she is a pet psychic. Only one of these, though, is a ridiculous
thing to be. Potentially the most fun to
play, she lets Lilley laugh at the pretentions of those who provide pointless
services to the stupidly wealthy, becoming stupidly wealthy in the
process. She also harbours all the
character traits of humans who are obsessed with dogs, something I’ll never
understand (note to other Tube users: get your hound’s wet nose off my fresh
trainers).
Joyce Jeffries
The mock-ups of Chris Lilley as an adult film actress on the
covers of Joyce’s VHSs are almost funny enough in their own right. Joyce, in later life, has become a
hoarder. Her anguish at the loss of her
father (and potentially at the hands of the porn industry) causes her struggle
to deal with reality, using a whiteboard to illustrate other friends in her
home that only she can see. She is
overall the most richly imagined, and we seem only to scratch the surface, but,
deeper down, she is Chris Lilley rolling around and showing off in women’s
clothes while we watch. We can all enjoy
that.
Becky Douglas
There are two things that made me love this character. She becomes a YouTuber, specialising in craft:
pointless, ghastly craftwork voiced over with excessive enthusiasm. Having watched hours of CookieSwirlC unboxing LOL
Dolls with my niece, I believe there is a special place in aural hell for these
people, and Lilley captures their inanity perfectly. Secondly, she pursues boys with clearly no
interest in her. Lilley plays the
fawning, hair-twirling, hint-ignoring determination with full dexterity. And this is no mean feat when Becky’s biggest
quirk is her big legs, causing her to be seven foot three and get her hair
stuck in ceiling fans.
It’s a motley crew, then.
Do we root for them, or are we laughing at their misfortune? It’s called Lunatics, though: a pejorative
term of the past denoting those with mental health issues. For some of the episodes, the humour veers
dangerously close to mocking others’ emotional and physical differences. As Joyce’s eviction looms, her panic’s
urgency piques and elicits genuine sympathy, yet each moment is still played
for laughs.
Criticism of Lunatics has compared it to a cheap freakshow
that redeems itself only inasmuch as a token effort requires, with a final
episode of relatively happy endings. I,
for one, am torn. An awakening is
occurring in how we treat those whose brains work differently to ours. While my department is predominantly jazz-handsing
attention seekers, we are actively recruiting for brain diversity. In wider society, we are welcoming open
conversations about mental health, rather than pointing, laughing and locking
away. In this context, then, these
character creations feel at times insensitive.
I’m all for bad taste and believe humour can genuinely be found in
anything, but my view would be that Lilley is capable of more than simple
cruelty. We just shouldn’t have to look
so hard for it.
Make your own mind up.
I’m taking it in the vein of what he is known for: dressing up in silly
costumes, letting the cameras roll and showing off. To borrow the improper term, each lunatic is
simply looking to be accepted for who they are.
And this makes us all lunatics.
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