Comedy: You Can Be Serious – ‘Blackadder Goes Forth.’
With the death of actor Gordon Kaye earlier this year various television channels have been showing repeats of ”Allo Allo’!’ the situation comedy in which Kaye took the starring role.
It was a programme I never found remotely funny so if you were a fan I suggest, in the grand manner of television, you look away now – and I will say this only once.
Recently while watching an episode I soon decided it was just as silly as I remembered and quickly stirred memories of why I found it so annoying back in the day. My umbrage with ”Allo Allo!” (aside from the clichéd characters and ridiculous script) was a situation comedy being made from such an appalling situation. The Nazi occupation of France resulted in thousands of deaths, most in horrific circumstances, leading me to think at the time of its huge popularity where sit-coms would go next – one set at Stalingrad for example?
Viewing the repeat it struck me how ripe this would have been for ‘Carry On’ treatment – it is easy to imagine the roles Sid James, Joan Sims, Barbara Windsor, Jim Dale and Kenneth Williams could have taken, but decided it was unlikely the ‘Carry On’ writers would have based a film on such an emotive subject.
But at this point the word ‘hypocrite’ entered my mind, particularly as I am partial to repeated views of ‘Blackadder Goes Forth,’ a sit-com set against the carnage of the First World War. There is however, I think, a difference. ”Allo Allo!” is pure farce (no torture or firing squads), whereas ‘Blackadder’ often depicts the futility of the situation, albeit in a humorous way. In other words, it’s not what you do but the way that you do it.
Having said that my favourite sit-com of all is ‘Porridge,’ where all the lags in HMP Slade are hapless villains – none are there for crimes against women or children shall we say and leave it at that. But when dissecting comedy you have to be so careful. I find ‘Mrs Brown’s Boys,’ the most unrelenting tripe but ‘Father Ted’ hilarious. One is focused on the private parts and sexual predilections of an extended family, while the other unmercifully lampoons the priesthood.
Whoever said comedy is a serious business had a point.
NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of MONTY’S DOUBLE – an outstanding new thriller now available as an Amazon Kindle Book.