Crashing

A lot of people have been struggling in lockdown due to the absence of sufficient new comedy/drama from Phoebe Waller-Bridge.  I think we could all do with another series of Fleabag but, as we know, in the long tradition of quality British sitcoms, we will never have as much of it as we want.  It's been proven many times that the UK cannot have nice things (EU membership, competent government, peace in Northern Ireland).  I know there was another series of Killing Eve that I don't think I will watch after falling slightly out of love with things in the second series, and I also don't think Waller-Bridge is involved.  There's literally no way of checking though.  But then, what should I stumble across on Netflix, but an old Channel 4 sitcom from 2016 called Crashing?  Well, I thought to myself, this has been recommended to me several times as a great example of some of our Phoebe's earlier work and so, this week, I'll be telling you all about how smashing these six episodes really are.

We will just pause for a moment to dwell on my seething jealousy of Phoebe's exceptional achievements.  Not content with having two outstanding shows to her name and securing a very well deserved spot in my list of national treasures (alongside Michaela Coel of Chewing Gum and I May Destroy You, and my beloved Julia Davis of Nighty Night and Sally4ever), Waller-Bridge also has Crashing.  I innocently embarked upon the first episode expecting to see a new comic writer honing her craft, trying a few things out, and scoring some gentle laughs in the guise of a rough diamond with limited experience.  How crushed was I to unearth the fact that Crashing is one of the funniest things I have seen in a very long time?  And it's not just playing for laughs; the humour is clever, built around relatable and likeable characters, and it propels the very neat plot forwards.  Either way, I laughed out loud so loudly at some of these jokes that I was worried about disturbing my neighbours.  They may already think I am a madman.

The theme of the show is property guardianship.  There's nothing terribly sexy about this and, to the best of my knowledge, it's not an area that has been mined for comedy gold before now.  That's because there's nothing that funny about young-ish people who cannot afford London rents opting to squat-with-permission in dilapidated vacant buildings.  In this case we have a big old hospital, with the various wards serving as individuals housing units, and shelves falling off walls at inopportune moments.  But the setup is really just a tool to bring together our gang of main characters; it's the Central Perk to Crashing's Friends, only with more electrical hazards.  Our entry into their world is through the eyes of Lulu, played by Waller-Bridge, who has come down to London with her ukulele under the seemingly innocent ruse of catching up with platonic best pal, Anthony.  The will-they-won't-they saga between the two of them forms our central narrative, much to the irritation of Anthony's fiancée, Kate.  But around this there swirls further relationship complications that link the rest of the residents together.  From Melody's obsession with painting Colin to the intense bromance between Sam and Fred, each episode draws you in to a charming romp up and down the hospital stairs while these people make a hilarious mess of their lives.

Even beyond the world of the hospital, Waller-Bridge creates a richly observed comedic universe.  You will giggle at the silliness of the restaurant where Anthony works, We Don't Give A Fork, themed as it is around the concept of insisting that its diners eat without cutlery.  Lulu's stint as a receptionist at Kate’s office, Something Events, had me in stitches, particularly when it comes to the office flirt (see Cardinal Burns for details).  Every few minutes we are treated to a devastating line that sums up the pointlessness of millennial life – in turn, I think it a crying shame but this script isn't more widely quoted in real life.  This is a show that deserves to be lauded in its own right, but given what comes after it, it's testament to Waller-Bridge’s talent that it was so quickly eclipsed.  Nevertheless, this is one of the cutest British comedies you can treat yourself to on Netflix while wondering if the government will ever let you out of your own house again.  I don't mind staying in if I get to watch stuff like this.  In fact, I might wait in until they agree to make a second series.

Miranda

Sometimes, you need to make sure you have enough silliness in your life.  I don’t mean harmful silliness, like dragging the UK out of the EU because economically inactive pensioners are scared of foreigners, or panicking about a handful of migrants crossing the Channel to be absorbed into a wealthy country of 66 million people.  I mean fun silliness, like being unable to resist the urge to gallop instead of walk down long empty corridors, or pulling rude faces at your colleagues when you spot them bored in glass meeting rooms.  You can probably tell that the silliness evident in these posts is also embraced in most areas of my life.  One environment that gets more than its fair share of my own personal brand of silliness is the office.  There’s something about such a grey, grown-up, corporate environment, all furious typing and professional profile raising, that makes me want to respond with laughter.  After a feral childhood, spending adult daytimes for the last 11 years in the UV-deficient glow of computer screens could have been crushing.  But, if enough silliness happens, the subsequent belly laughs are enough to stave off the threat of submitting to being a full worker drone.  Sadly, one of my closest partners in silliness recently fled our office home after many years of laughing till we cried.  I therefore found myself with a silliness deficit in my day-to-day existence.

But there, nestling among multimillion dollar new content on Netflix was the old BBC sitcom Miranda.  I was helpless, working through all three series in no time at all.  I hereby announce a new genre of TV: comfort telly.  In my friend’s absence, and in the face of other things in life I would describe as bad (Brexit, gluten, people who sit behind me on the bus at 6.30am after smoking so many cigarettes that I am unwillingly bathed in their tobacco-riddled breath, misplaced apostrophes throughout the media industry), watching Miranda brought cheer to some dreary January evenings.

Most importantly of all, I have to stress that my friend is nothing like Miranda.  They are polar opposites.  She has a high-powered career for which she has to wear roll necks, whereas Miranda pootles about in a joke shop she set up with some inheritance.  My friend has a top-notch husband, whereas the main joke about Miranda is her disastrous love life.  While Miranda’s idea of a good meal is to catch crumbled chocolate biscuits in her mouth while using a hair dryer to blow them off the table (biscuit blizzard), my friend has promised me one of her famous weekend roasts (not a euphemism).  I could go on.  The main point is that their only common trait is their love of silliness.

We’ll go into the exact ingredients of this silliness, but we should dwell for a moment on the polarising nature of this sitcom.  Most people’s responses to my evangelising about the joys of rewatching Miranda have been wailing indignation that I could subject myself to something so unfunny.  I’m happy to be told I’ve got bad taste, but I think Miranda’s perceived unfunniness is more complex than that.  I’ll grant you that you can see some punchlines coming a mile off, but it’s that predictable payoff, with Miranda Hart’s silly charm, that can be so reassuring and comforting.  The show came about at a time when comedy was moving away from the obvious sitcom (like The Office).  Conversely, Miranda embraced the format, adding to the presence of the live studio audience by ending each episode with the cast waving at the camera and dancing before their fans like an amateur village panto.  Two words: such fun.

Right then, here’s how Miranda is silly:

She is a show off

One of our hero’s celebrated foibles is her awkwardness in social situations, but her response to sensing a faux-pas is to behave worse and worse until the awkwardness is exacerbated beyond the human ability to cringe any further.  If a throwaway sentence stumbles into a song lyric, she’ll launch into the next verse and chorus, veering between shyness and attention seeking.

She looks at the camera

Perhaps the biggest sitcom crime of all, but the one that makes me laugh the most.  The knowing glances she shares with us when her mother, Penny, is being awful, or when she is quite pleased with how she has handled something elevate a standard joke to something much more hilarious.

She enjoys how words sound

Cusp.  Thrust.  Moist.  English has a vocabulary in the hundreds of thousands, so it’s inevitable that some of those words are more fun on the tongue than others.  Miranda will pause mid-argument to enjoy the repetition of such words, always finishing with a final flourish of saying it directly to the audience via the classic look to the camera.  Cue laughter from me which I am not sorry about.

She falls over

I laugh every time because it’s silly.  It’s not big, it’s not clever, but this is my level.  I also crack a smile every time she pushes best friend, Stevie, off a stool.

She breaks wind

See previous comment about my level of humour.  It’s not so much the parp that gets me, but her surprise at having done it.

She is posh

Posh people are silly – you just have to hang around a Waitrose to realise this.  And their expectations of each other are even sillier.  Miranda might never be able to escape her boarding school days, but it makes for a pleasant stream of nonsense.

She is from Surrey

I suppose this is linked to the above, but this county really is ridiculous, and I therefore glory in any lampooning of it in popular media.  Being so close to London (making Surrey the patio of England to Kent’s garden) the million people that occupy its four-bedroom homes are often overlooked in culture, but their silliness deserves the spotlight.

But her friends are sillier

We’ve mentioned Stevie, owner of the allure, the Heather Small cut-out and very diminutive proportions.  There’s soulmate Gary, whose own stupid inability to commit to Miranda contrives to give the various series some dramatic tension, as it can’t be all about falling over and accidentally farting.  Sally Phillips gets the best lines as Tilly, the boarding school pal who peppers her passive aggression by spicing up all her words with suffix flourishes that nobody needs, declaring things tremendulant or exclaiming about major disaster and his friend, colonel cock-up, all while demanding others “bear with” when reviewing text messages or ending conversation by declaring “c’est fini.”  See, if you had someone to make eyes at now, you’d be doing it.  So much of Miranda’s silliness comes from laughing at her friends’ behaviour.

So, hello to you, Miranda Hart, and kind regards thank you caller (this is a reference to in-show dialogue, not me padding out the words).  You are a champion of the many, those of us who know our real life can’t be filtered, so we might as well embrace its silliness.  I’ve loved her ever since I saw her cameo in Nighty Night (not a euphemism again) and having her back in my life as a vegeta-pal has been just the dose of silliness I have needed.

The Inbetweeners

Growing up a Brit can sometimes be a bit shit, but it’s also hilarious as a result.  Until The Inbetweeners came along in 2008, no show had captured this accurately.  We British teens were forced to try and translate our lives into American high schools, as that’s all there was available at the time.  The people on screen were too attractive.  They didn’t wear uniforms.  The climate looked reliably sunny.  They were played by people in their thirties.  They didn’t talk like us and so on and so forth.  I should point out this didn’t stop me watching this stuff, but then The Inbetweeners showed up and highlighted the stark contrast between US TV and UK real life: with all its ugly people, school uniforms, drizzle, awkward young people and British banter.  Sure, we only managed three series of six 30-minute episodes (plus two successful films) but that’s really what passes for a season in the UK (rather than 22 hours of mind-boggling plots that cost you the will to live).

This programme still has a special place in all of our hearts.  Not a week goes by in my adult life when someone is described as a wanker for liking something.  They might say they like hummus and get called a hummus wanker, or tell everyone what a great weekend they had in Ibiza and get called an Ibiza wanker.  Nor is an opportunity ever missed to tell someone they are being feisty in the famous structure of “Feisty one, you are.”  It applies to all adjectives – try it next time you cuss someone important at work: “Boring one, you are.”  Or “Tedious one, you are.”  The Inbetweeners’ cultural impact was huge because it represented a culture that nobody had managed to bring to screen before: the age of being in between.

At seventeen, you can just about drive.  You’re ready for adult life, but you’re probably at the same school you’ve been at since the age of eleven, when puberty might just have been a rumour that went around the changing rooms after football.  Now, adolescence is a driving force making you want to do all of the adult things (apart from work nine to five, pay taxes, talk about mortgages and get excited about mattress discussions with colleagues).  But one enormous pillar of adult life is denied to you: the legal right to buy alcohol.  Thus, you are trapped in between adulthood and childhood (and not in that Noel Clarke film, Kidulthood).  And you’re not only trapped there, you’re trapped in Britain.

The Inbetweeners revelled in such ridiculous Britishness that it almost dared itself not to get syndicated abroad (despite over 20 other countries broadcasting this glorious nonsense).  It was based in a sixth form college, after all.  Its humour came from the differences between private schools and state schools.  There was work experience.  There were Home Counties boys venturing into London.  There was detailed knowledge of British law around the sale of alcohol (including mead) to minors.  There was the college fashion show.  There was the trip to a potential university campus.  There was even the motherchuffing Duke of Edinburgh Award.  I hope that Americans went “wait, what?” just as much as we do when we hear words like valedictorian and sophomore.

Britishest of all was the humour of teenage boys.  Nobody seemed to have realised that the way we/they talk to each other is disgusting.  I’ve left the pronoun undetermined as I still do this with most of my male friends.  And most of the female ones.  And colleagues.  Especially colleagues, actually.  Anything could be laughed about.  Any insult could be brushed off.  It was only once things had really gone too far that you could finally see you had crossed the line, though you couldn’t in fact see the line as it was about hundred miles behind you.  Let’s look at some of the most disgusting things that were said and revel in the fact that, no matter what we claim, we’re still amused by potty mouths and toilet humour.  My dad, for example, still believes there is nothing funnier than a fart.  Any passing wind in any form of media (and, sadly, real life) will guarantee a LOL from my father.  Why resist it?  Life’s too hard not to laugh at nonsense:

Jay’s dead hand

Jay hears that if you cut off the blood to your own hand by sitting on it, you can trick yourself into thinking a third party’s hand is tugging you off when you are, in fact, masturbating.  However, it’s not ideal if you need to slam your laptop shut when your family barge in and porn moans are being broadcast at full volume into your room…

Any time Jay talks about female physiology

Up to your nuts in guts just conjures such powerful imagery.

Simon talking dirty

Everything he did was beyond cringe, mostly as it was visually punctuated by the most dated gelled quiff ever seen on TV, but no dirty talk for me has ever surpassed “I’m going to fuck your fucking fanny off, you twat.”

Simon’s London shoes

We’ve all been turned away from a terrible nightclub for wearing trainers, but how many of us have paid a tramp to swap shoes with us?  Simon lost £20 but gained a pair of urine-drenched shoes that got him in, but ensured no girl would come near him.  It reminded me of a time a friend was sick in my trainer overnight on a camping trip and I had to travel back to London from rural Wales the next day with only a plastic bag between my sock and chunks of his half-digested burger and chips.  Yes, I really was an inbetweener.  Incidentally, it was a toss-up between this and Simon’s testicle hanging out at the fashion show.

Will’s first exam

He poos his pants.  Tee hee.

It’s this comedy gold that saw the viewership of The Inbetweeners grow from around 400,000 in the first series to a peak of 3.72m for the third – not bad for e4’s first UK commission.  Clearly, word of mouth spread amongst “fwends” that this wasn’t to be missed.  But the gross-outs were complemented by more subtle observations, such as Simon’s hatred for his parents, even though they were totally chilled about everything he wanted to do, or Jay’s genuinely hurt feelings each time his dad bullied him.  Even now, I cannot resist a re-run if I’m ever left with ten spare minutes before bed time.  I always forget how much I can’t abide the headmaster, Mr Gilbert, but then I’m always happy to be reminded of the music of Kate Nash, whose song Foundations seems to score almost every scene transition in series one.

Ah, sixth form.  Don’t take me back.