Vicious comedy--What is wrong?

[KhorTose]

With the exception of the slapstick comedians like Benny Hill or Mr. Bean, I have always thought the the United Kingdom has the best and most sophisticated comedy in the world.  I have enjoyed immensely the various comedies and comedians that the UK has produced from Monty Pylon, to you have been served,etc. (too many to name) to all the original and American spinoffs of your TV series etc.  The UK has given us genius like Peter Sellers, Graham Chapman, John Cheese, etc. etc. etc. In other words way to many really great comedians and comedies to name.

     The other day I found a new one called "Vicious", and I adored it.  So, it seems, did the live audience.  It is about two old gay men who have been together 46 years and it is very campy as the actors (Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi, Joan de la Tour) go back to those campy days when gays acted like that.  I laughed continuously, and I was completely surprised to find that  the program received mixed to very poor reviews.  I love this program and the actors and the characters and think it is something that will help humanize gays more in the eyes of the people who watch it. I am at a lost to see what is wrong with it, nor can I agree with the reviewers analysis of what is wrong with it.  So I would appreciate your thoughts as I think I am looking at one of those strange cultural differences.

[Guest scottishguy]

I have been watching "Vicious" live since it started (I think we are now around episode 4 or 5) and I agree with KT in that I find it extremely amusing, mostly because I know people exactly like the two old queens.

 

I am also dismayed by the critics negative reviews and I listened to a radio review with a panel of critics who roundly panned it - but given that these are the same people who told us that "The Office" was brilliant cutting-edge stuff, then I'm not entirely surprised.

 

The criticisms I would make of "Vicious" is that it's pretty stagey - there are only 4 central characters and when 3 are in the room you just know that within 5 seconds the 4th will knock on the door.

The characters are pretty one-dimensional - especially the Frances De La Tour character, and the boy - Ash

The sets are pretty awful - the "menswear store" set was cringeworthy with the fixtures moving about when the actors brushed against them.

All in all, it's all a bit 1970's - a bit "Rising Damp" - but I still enjoy it for the camp performances of McKellern and Jacobi.

 

I think I would sum it up by saying that had the BBC done this series, rather than ITV (who have a poor history with situation comedy) - it could have been much better.

[Guest anonone]

I searched around the net just a bit, and was only able to find some "clips" on youtube...such as

 

 

Does anyone know if entire episodes are available on-line? 

[Guest fountainhall]

Like anonone, I have only seen snippets. Is the criticism, I wonder, because sex – and especially gay sex - in many of the British classic sit-coms of the 70s was merely a succession of suggestive, pun-filled double-entendres in exaggerated, almost unreal settings? Sure, it was obvious – to those looking for it. But Mrs. Slocum and her “pussy” and Mr. Humphries being “free” were not real characters. They were caricatures of how the great British public perceived sex-starved middle-aged ladies and gays to behave.

Even though the classic era of British television sit-com only arose out of the more accepting mores of the 1960s, ‘gay’ characters on TV continued to present a problem: they almost always had to be ‘camp’, bitchy – always figures of fun.

Much of TV sitcom came from the same writers and situations which had flourished in comedy on radio. So Mr. Humphries from “Are You Being Served” is a direct descendant of the outrageously camp Julian and Sandy sketches on radio’s hilarious “Round The Horne”, fronted by the genius Kenneth Horne. Kenneth Williams' catty, camp mannerisms were a natural follow-on. For the British public at that time could accept gays provided they were effeminate and queenly. Such antics were lapped up and enjoyed precisely because they presented a perceived stereotype. Was there even a handful of straight-acting gay parts on TV at that time?

 

In “Vicious”, McKellen and Jacobi, it seems from what I read, revert back to that old glittering, bitchy pantomime dame type stereotype. But the world has moved on since then. The general public is now far more used to the far different and often harsher reality of the gay persona, through TV programmes like “Queer as Folk” and movies like ”Brokeback Mountain”.

Indeed, one review in the Telegraph puts much of the blame for the Series' lack of popular success on McKellen and Jacobi themselves for overacting, when a more restrained approach would have worked better on TV today -
 

it's delivered by McKellen and Jacobi as if they're playing in Wembley Stadium and only the upper tiers are occupied, with a heavily semaphored effeminacy that seems to belong to an entirely different era.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/tv-review-vicious-itv-starring-sirs-ian-mckellen-and-derek-jacobi--the-only-laughter-it-provokes-is-canned-8595474.html

[KhorTose]

I searched around the net just a bit, and was only able to find some "clips" on youtube...such as

 

 

Does anyone know if entire episodes are available on-line? 

Yes, you can download it from torrents.

 

http://torrentz.eu/search?f=vicious

 

In “Vicious”, McKellen and Jacobi, it seems from what I read, revert back to that old glittering, bitchy pantomime dame type stereotype. But the world has moved on since then. The general public is now far more used to the far different and often harsher reality of the gay persona, through TV programmes like “Queer as Folk” and movies like ”Brokeback Mountain”.

 

 

Yes, but that was my initial point.  These characters are from that day and age when many gays did act like bitchy queens.  Especially in the USA where we had the court with its incredible backstabbing, bitchiness, and ridiculous pomp and ceremony. Like Scotty, I know people of an age that are just like these two.

[TotallyOz]

I have been watching this since the beginning and find it extremely funny.

 

Unlike Khor Tose, I don't care for British comedies too much and have rarely gotten into them but I do love Ian and when I saw he was in it, I tried it.

 

I found it thoroughly delightful and engaging. Yes, some work needs to be done to develop the characters but IMHO, the show keeps me laughing and that is what comedy is supposed to do.