When discussing the television comedy of today, it is fair
to say that the sitcom has changed hugely from decades ago and that the
situations are no longer physical but social. There are very few comedies where
the setting may be identified by location; most of today’s comedies are simply
defined by their characters that are of a group of people: Peep Show, Friends,
How I Met Your Mother, Spaced, My Family, Mrs Brown’s Boys, Not Going Out etc.
I don’t necessarily care for all or any of these but none of these are
dominated by their setting.
I think my own taste in comedy favours those shows with a
well-defined location or situation, typically, these are shows from the past. When
the setting is more prominent, the comedy is stronger as the characters do not
only interact with each other, they also react against their situation or
plight.
Father Ted would be nothing if they weren’t three priests
isolated on an island. Like the pub of Early Doors, its incongruent characters
would never meet. The Office is dominated by strong characters but the
competition that exists within the workplace is at the root of most of its
laughs. The Royle Family is really just a group of people but the crowded room
and the fact that its characters never leave the glare of the television is its
essence, this is similar to The Smoking Room (a comedy series that was sadly
curtailed by changes to the law), where the characters are placed on top of
each other in a single room (could it ever be revived at an outdoors smoking
shelter?).
Once the setting is in place, the characters take over. One
of my favourites is Dad’s Army, as it is set in the past, it can never go out
of date and so it proves week after week on BBC2. The characters have no modern
day equivalents; no comedy boasts a Mainwaring, a Fraser or a Jones. The comedy
of Jones is simple: rambling, irrelevant yarns, mistaken choice of words, his
catchphrases and bungled drill and exercises. There are no Joneses today, the
best similarities might be limited to sketch shows. The mistimed coming to
attention never fails to raise a laugh, the direction is quite stunning; the
timing of the late stomp always interrupts Mainwaring’s next announcement.
Beyond the main cast, The Verger is the unsung hero of the
show. As little more than the church caretaker, his gimmick is a misplaced
sense of importance. After uttering his gratuitous statements, he puffs out his
chest and pulls a face that suggests that he thinks the conversation is over
because he has spoken. One such example is in The Royal Train, the platoon are
trying to keep the king’s arrival secret, yet the vicar, the mayor, the warden
and the verger descend. The Vicar starts, ‘I represent the church, his worship,
the mayor represents the council. The warden says, ‘I represent the ARP’,
leaving the verger to boldly state with pride and to pull his face, ‘And I’m a
sightseer.’
Who are the vergers of today? The bit-part players, who
appear in every episode, but would be missed considerably if they didn’t exist.
The Janitor or Ted from Scrubs might be considered prime examples: of course,
these two are from a sitcom dominated by its physical setting, the hospital. In
conclusion, the best comedies, to me, are in well-defined settings, removed
from my reality. The alternative is that the comedy is close to reality,
involving a bunch of people - I can join a bunch of people and I am the
funniest person I know, so why would I need to watch any other show?
