Cardinal Burns

After going for broad appeal with last week’s homage to Made In Chelsea, I’ll be taking things in a much more niche direction this week.  Cardinal Burns was a sketch show that ran on e4 in 2012 and then Channel 4 for its second series in 2014.  Why on earth would I be talking about it now?  Well, it too had a sublime parody of scripted reality, which I almost included last week, but instead decided to branch out into its own post this week (see, I do plan).  Secondly, and this takes us back to the niche point around the show, the only other person who loved this show as much as I did is a dear former work colleague whose response to a number of years in the same office as me was to move as far away as possible to Australia.  I’ve got a guilty conscience as he messaged me this week just as I was running out the door to a wedding, so hopefully he reads this and forgives me.

I’ve talked about my love of the sketch show before when covering Little Britain and Come Fly With Me.  Even Bo’ Selecta! has been fondly remembered in this blog (and, after little to no interest from readers at the time, that post has been gathering clicks like nobody’s business and is now my second most popular piece of content – no idea why, or why now).  Every two minutes, you’ve got something new to look at.  It’s either a new set up where you’re wondering what humour will strike next, or we’re given returning characters that are nice and familiar.  If a scene doesn’t work, it’s over before you know it, and if it does, you can chuckle into your microwave meal or Ottolenghi sides, making a mental note to remember the best lines for work tomorrow, safe in the knowledge you’ll have forgotten everything by the time you reach your desk.

Below I’ll run through some of Cardinal Burns’ top characters, but the selection is merely incidental.  Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns, the namesakes of the show in question (though it’s not actually called Cardinal Demri-Burns) have acute skills of observation which they couple with an ability to enact incredibly accurate mimicry.  Each character has a root in the banal and everyday, but the lads’ amplification of behaviours we might otherwise miss, exposing them with comedic acid for the silliness that they are, elevates their scenes and characters to the exact level of wit you need when you only know one other person who watches a show.  My highlights are as follows:

Camp Ghost Hunters

Phil and Jase channel their inner Yvette Fielding from Most Haunted and dive into dark spooky houses in search of the paranormal, accompanied by a film crew.  Their passive-aggressive bickering, “Someone’s a bit tetchy,” soon escalates until they fully miss each and every ghoulie they would otherwise come across among the shadows, which is bound to happen if you’re worried about texts from Steve asking to borrow your juicer, or if you fancy the priest at an exorcism.

Banksy

In real life, it’s universally agreed that Banksy is cool.  But in Cardinal Burns, he is a big old saddo.  He’s agreed to be filmed, but only if he can wear a really naff disguise.  We see him interviewed by local radio or struggling with his satnav, all with underlying currents of casual racism and a deep underestimation of the meaning of his own work.  Things ramp up as he tries to get his stepson on side, but nothing comes close to his announcement that he has taken the last nana from the fruit bowl.

The Office Flirts

Flirting is a huge part in the world of doing business.  People do deals with people they fancy.  I wear skin-tight shirts so nobody realises I have no idea what I’m doing.  In this series of sketches, the culture of flirting is given a Microsoft Outlook approach, with a dreary office temp scheduling quick flirts with various office females, telling them they look nice, which shows his distinct lack of game in this area.  Suddenly, the New Guy enters.  Seb Cardinal with bouffant hair and a leather jacket projects a give-a-shit attitude that has all the girls losing control and giggling coquettishly.  At one point, he parades about on a motorbike.  The original office flirt is impressed and signs up for a masterclass in this artform, but nothing beats New Guy’s departure from each scene, which typically involves punching a random square-on in the face.

Young Dreams

And so to the Made In Chelsea link, but this also has an air of The Hills about it.  Young Dreams is a spoof scripted reality vehicle following three girls, introduced with some saccharine pop music while we get the roll call of the girls.  Cardinal is Rachel, the alpha queen with immaculate hair and pronunciation so affected that you won’t recognise a single vowel.  There’s Olivia, a dogsbody for Rachel who mostly just hides her giant mole, and, lastly, we have Yumi, a Japanese transfer played by Demri-Burns.  All are convincing.  Each segment plays out around some scheme of Rachel’s to do whatever she pleases, typically prefaced with her declaring that “this little fishy is about to” before announcing her self-serving intentions.  Inadvertently, Yumi always manages to ruin everything with some sort of faux pas.  At this point, the emotional music scores in, Rachel storms off, and Yumi is left shouting out in a racially insensitive Japanese accent: “Raaaachel, pleeeeasse.”  I don’t know why this line has stuck with me, but I’m unable to address any Rachel I work with without replicating her emotional whine.

I won’t go on anymore – there’s no time for Vomit Cops and I daren’t describe the Fiery Hawk sketch (where an enthusiastic young actor obediently follows a casting director’s ever more sinister directions) – oh, I just did.  Either way, if you’ve not heard of Cardinal Burns, get to watching it.  It even comes with the epithet of award-winning.  I don’t what awards these are, and I can’t be bothered looking it up, but I can give it my own award: the award for the show that my friend and I really liked.  I hope the chaps turn up working together somewhere else soon (though I did spot Demri-Burns in an episode of Peaky Blinders), but until then, this little fishy is going to have to think of shows that more people have watched (help).