Even A Stopped Clock…
Looks like Johann Hari agrees with Martin about Little Britain. Shame Hari is such a dick about everything else.
Johann Hari: Why I hate ‘Little Britain’
It is disturbing to me that this sadistic, unfunny piece of spite has captured the public imagination
Published: 22 November 2005Let me tell you a hilarious joke. The other day, I saw an incontinent old woman in a supermarket, and she pissed herself. OK, here’s another. I saw a man get up out of his wheelchair, and he was so mentally disabled he just walked into a wall. Wait, I know this might kill you but there’s one more. I saw a teenage single mum who was wearing a shell-suit and she was so thick she barely knew her own name. And she had three children. Did I mention she was thick? And fat? And spotty? Did I say she lived on benefits?
Welcome to the spleen-rupturing hilarity of Little Britain. This is a golden age of British TV comedy – The Thick of It, Chris Morris, Nighty Night, Ricky Gervais, Peep Show, Peter Kay, John Sullivan, David Renwick, Coronation Street – so it is disturbing to me that this sadistic, unfunny piece of spite has captured the public imagination. Little Britain has been a vehicle for two rich kids to make themselves into multimillionaires by mocking the weakest people in Britain. Their targets are almost invariably the easiest, cheapest groups to mock: the disabled, poor, elderly, gay or fat. In one fell swoop, they have demolished protections against mocking the weak that took decades to build up.
I’d have reproduced the whole thing but it’s behind a pay-wall, and I don’t usually pay for online content, particularly not for Hari. I really really hate agreeing with him, but Little Britain is just nasty now.
At first it was daringly hilarious, but as it’s become more popular it’s using a broader and broader brush and is now merely a pale echo of the Daily Sport cartoon pages – cruel, unfunny and catering to the smug self-satisfaction of the petty bourgeouisie. It’s nothing but the comedy of contempt.
But never mind pissing on poor people, they’re making millions from the merchandising – oh well, that’s OK then:
?22M LITTLE BRITISH EMPIRE
By Laurie Hanna
IT started out five years ago as a bunch of wacky characters on Radio 4, with only a few thousand fans tuning in.
But a switch to TV on BBC3 and then mainstream BBC2 has garnered surreal comedy Little Britain a huge army of devotees.
Now, creators Matt Lucas and David Walliams are laughing all the way to the bank as Little Britain becomes Big Money.
With homes, offices and playgrounds still echoing to the sound of “Yeah-but-no-but-yeah-but-no” and “I’m the only gay in the village!”, Lucas, 31, and Walliams, 34, are set to join the ranks of our wealthiest entertainers, netting ?11million each from their creation
Their nationwide tour, which kicked off on Monday, will earn them ?5million each.
On the same day, they scooped Most Popular Comedy Programme at the National Television Awards.
Their third, and possibly final, series of Little Britain will arrive on BBC screens this winter, so with the end in sight, it’s hardly surprising that the double act seem determined to milk the cash cow dry.
On top of a vast array of DVDs, scripts and books, the pair have sanctioned a range of talking dolls, talking mugs and talking key-rings as well as calendars, jigsaws, clocks and games.
Cannily, they’ve retained the merchandising rights, ensuring they reap even greater rewards.
But the Little British Empire doesn’t stop there. Sales of the tour DVD will earn Lucas and Walliams ?2million each and a tell-all biography will add another ?700,000 to their bank balances.
THE talking dolls – including “chavette” Vicky Pollard, gay Daffyd and wheelchair-bound Andy and his carer Lou – will fill thousands of stockings this Christmas, at a cost of ?20 each.
And last festive season they sold more than two million DVDs of the first series, alongside 130,000 copies of scripts from the same series.
While Lucas doesn’t flaunt his newfound wealth – he lives quietly in North London with his long-term boyfriend – Walliams is a regular on the party scene, guzzling champagne and revelling in his extravagant lifestyle. He snapped up Oasis star Noel Gallagher’s old pad, Supernova Heights – a ?3million mansion in fashionable Primrose Hill, North-West London – and is often spotted cruising around in his vintage Mercedes.
Sorry, who is it that’s the parasites on society again?
