Bob Monkhouse: The Last Stand

Setting:- June 1996: Blogger’s childhood living room. 

Three members of the family sit on a floral print sofa that wouldn't seem out of place on the back of Kensington-born Laurence Llwellyn Bowen, yet here in Watford, opposite the Mothercare factory, it appears a cushioned atrocity; a garden mounting a home invasion. The oldest child lies in front of the fire like a cat from the cold, roasting bourbon centres into mini chocolate fountains. Neighbours, an Australian daytime soap, has not long ended, finishing on a cliff-hanger so spell-binding that people would be within their rights to phone in sick so they could watch tomorrow’s early edition. (Lou Carpenter went to the doctors; it turned out it was just a common cold.) This is why the channel has stayed on One and the family are watching the news.

(Newsreader)

“And finally light entertainer Bob Monkhouse is appealing for the public to help him retrieve his stolen joke book. Yesterday, thieves broke into television centre and took the ledgers from a locked room. Monkhouse has promised £20,000 for their safe return.”

(Youngest son, who will go on to write a critically-acclaimed blog- if ‘Likes’ aren’t critique then what is?).

“Shouldn’t the public promise £20,000 to ensure it’s unsafe return?”

(Family fall about laughing, unaware that this boy will go on to try his hand at comedy, fail at it, then criticise people on TV without any degree of self-awareness, describing them as ‘unfit to hold his mic stand.)

The joke book was eventually returned to Monkhouse. (This fact doesn't seem like a compliment.)

For me- as a teenager without any sense of history- the only joke that Bob Monkhouse’s book could contain was a picture of the man himself. Experiencing him only on game shows I found him insincere and calculated. With his ironed suit and ironed face, he was the very antithesis of alternative comedy – no spit, all polish. Small talk with quiz show contestants is annoying but necessary: like the fantasy narratives of yore, we want to know the characters on the quest for gold. However in the hands of the light-entertainer it is face-in-a-grater excruciating. Even as a teenager I could see through the artifice of the conversation: the comic asks a question about the person’s job; the comic replies with a pre-prepared punch-line; the audience lap it up like it's the cat’s milk. I wasn’t a fan of Bob Monkhouse.

In 2003 Bob Monkhouse died following a battle with prostate cancer. I remember being surprised at the eulogies that greeted him. Comedians were queuing up to talk about his talent and influence. Is this the same Bob Monkhouse who appeared on BBC’s Wipeout, I thought? The answer was ‘No.’ Monkhouse was more than a quiz show host. At the start of his comedy career, he wrote for British icon, Max Miller, and American giant, Bob Hope. In demand because of his precision with language, Monkhouse was the pen that many voices turned to. For instance, Peter Sellers was annoying audiences with the avant-garde until Monkhouse whispered some stardust into his ears. Simply, Monkhouse was a man that had worked hard to be a comedian so knew the mechanics of it better than anyone else.

King of Quiz Shows.

This Boxing Day BBC4 screened Bob Monkhouse: The Last Stand. Hosted in an everyman pub, it was to be Monkhouse’s final gig. Aware that the end was nigh, Bob put on a performance for comedy friends and industry. This isn’t An Audience With Bob Monkhouse though; the comedians in the 2003 audience aren’t the rich and famous. Yes, David Walliams is there- but pre-fame. So too, Reece Shearsmith- but again League of Gentlemen was hardly mainstream. Rather the invited pack include industry nerds: Have I Got News For You writer, Kevin Day; comedy circuit stalwart, Adam Bloom and sketch comedy master, Fiona Allen.

The gig begins with a twenty-minute stand-up routine. Some of the jokes are a little end-of-pier; however there are some near the knuckle ones which may surprise you. (I’m from Kent… People keep reminding me of that whenever they see me walking down the road.) Perhaps his best offerings are ones on mortality. Last year Tig Notaro received praise for her bruising routine on breast cancer: diagnosed on the day, she stepped out and bared her soul to the audience. Being from an old tradition of joke first, sentiment later, Monkhouse is more glib with his illness, getting a laugh out of ‘faecal impaction’ and life's expiry date. Watching Bob move seamlessly through his one-liners, you can see his influence in Jimmy Carr: both high status comedians- more from the American than British tradition- who use language with a brevity that shows all good comedy is in the edit.

Contributors and the gig itself.

More revelatory though is when the show moves from stand-up into autobiography. Monkhouse opens up in this section of the show about his friendships and rivalries. Here, Benny Hill is re-cast from idiot misogynist into television visionary, seeing the potential for the medium by trialling the split-screen. Peter Sellers, on the other hand, isn’t so favourably spoken of: a man that would take help and not return it seems to be the damning epitaph.

 After this look behind the curtains, Monkhouse brings out a friend from behind it, Mike Yarwood who remains a virtual recluse. Once on Christmas Day, Yarwood’s impressions show got more viewers than Morecambe and Wise. People loved his take on the zeitgeist, gently skewering royals, politicians and entertainers, over a warm satirical fire. Yarwood, however, didn’t move with the times and the alternative comedy boom quickly put pay to his career. Falling into alcoholism and stage fright, he wasn’t able - or willing - to restart his comedy career. Talking with Monkhouse he is naturally funny, doing a more than passable impression of a comedian. Together their conversation is redolent of the kind Stuart Goldsmith’s Comedians Comedian Podcast specialises in, as it shines a torch on the darker sides of comedy.

Yarwood was doing impressions long before your dad.

The talking heads that end the show remind us that Monkhouse had a legacy beyond the quiz show. Despite being handsomely paid for hosting you get the sense that he would have been happier on the circuit with the comedians he cherished. His invitation to the younger generation could be seen as an act of humility- him passing on the baton- but maybe also a bid for approval, that despite the bronze tan and gold watch he could work the coalface too.

All in all, a thought-provoking hour of comedy that shows one man joking against the dying of the light.

Bob Monkhouse: The Last Stand is available on iPlayer.

Lovesick

It was a tough choice this week. Did I go with The Crown, Netflix’s £100 million pound drama, or Lovesick, a modestly produced sitcom? I’m halfway through The Crown and I have to say it’s wonderful. Even as a republican I can see the merit in it. Unlike this year's Victoria, it treats viewers as grown-ups, prioritising drama over romance. Whilst the ITV miniseries suffocated the viewer with an inordinate focus on Victoria and Albert, The Crown, in making Churchill a primary point, sweeps beyond the palace walls to illustrate how elected democracy co-exists with bestowed privilege. Reaching the halfway point of The Crown, I see a show that highlights the burden of monarchy without succumbing to hagiography. It’s a triumph.  

For all of that, this week I have gone with Lovesick. I’ve gone with it because sometimes you just need a show that’s entertaining. For all the good The Crown is for my historical knowledge, it’s not until Edward VIII gets involved that it truly fizzes. With its intense Hans Zimmer score and pitch-perfect acting, it rightfully earns the title Serious Drama; yet for all its worth, I’ve enjoyed something less artful.

Lovesick wasn’t always known by that name- its first series was titled Scrotal Recall. Like the Hollywood sirens of yore, the studio has made an earthy name more palatable – a decision, judging by interest and reviews, that’s paid dividends. It’s easy to see why Scrotal Recall was not the preferred nomenclature: it’s crass and bawdy, signalling lowest common denominator comedy. For all of its negative connotations though, it was perfectly apt: apt because the pun encompasses the premise. Dylan, a twenty-something, is told that he has chlamydia; consequently, he has to inform his ghosts of girlfriend past. The writer Tom Edge has since claimed that the title was at the bottom of a long list, which producers then selected from. Either way Netflix haven’t seen the funny side and have successfully re-branded it. 

In its earlier incarnation.

I have to go on record and say this isn’t the funniest sitcom you’re going to watch. I would, however, argue that this is indicative of the modern sitcom. Where once laughter was the thing; now pathos is. The great comedies of this year, Fleabag and Flowers, have been dark and bleak; characterisation has taken precedence over punchline. For me, this is something I prefer: as much as I love the precision engineered comedy of Fawlty Towers and Dad's Army, I favour ‘dramatic’ comedies. Purists might say that contemporary sitcom writers couldn’t hold a candle to their forbearers - that they wouldn’t know a joke if it knocked on their door twice – for me, good modern writers achieve laughter within verisimilitude; their writing less artificial, arriving at – not chasing – the joke. In all honesty, Lovesick doesn’t have the comedic clout of say Catastrophe, which deals with similar themes and tones; but it’s recognisably funny.

Re-issue, re-package, re-package. (Do you know the lyric?)

If the joke writing is sometimes found wanting, the structure of the show isn’t. In a novel move, Edge has produced a sitcom that bends narrative in a way few dare. Episode 1 opens with Dylan being diagnosed; he then draws up a list of girls that he must contact. On top of the list is Abigail. From there, the show flashes back three years to when they first met. Ostensibly the episode is about Abigail; ingeniously though, Edge manages to interweave Dylan’s friendship with Evie. Over the course of the season, we see within the flashback format Dylan’s girlfriends change with Evie remaining a constant. Impressively, because the time travel eschews chronology, the viewer never settles into a rhythm, meaning you have to do a bit of work to plot a timeline of Dylan’s past.

Edge puts this into his narrative.

It’s worth adding that the tone of the show belies its original title. Yes, it’s a sitcom that deals in sex and relationships, but it’s a far tamer than Channel 4’s Catastrophe. You won’t have to evacuate the living room fearing the C Bomb, nor wash yourself clean after a dirty sex scene. In many ways it’s the younger, more romantic sibling of the brilliantly lewd Catastrophe. A Romeo to its Mercutio, if you will.

At the start of the blog I said I found it hard to choose between The Crown and

Lovesick. Well, since doing some research I’ve found Edge provided additional

material for the royal drama. Edge really is a writer to watch then, a title even

Netflix can’t take away from him.

Lovesick is available on Netflix.

Sunny D

A few months ago I wrote about the BBC’s latest batch of comedy pilots. I said how Home from Home wouldn’t be out of place on BBC1, and Motherland would be a perfect fit for BBC2. Since that review Home from Home and Motherland have been commissioned for a full series, begging the question: am I the most influential blog writer in the country? It’s a good job this blog’s raison d’etre is to exalt and champion; otherwise I fear my humble type could diminish and destroy.

Cross me and I'll write your obituary.

This week I’ve been watching Sunny D, a show that started off as an iPlayer pilot and is now about to conclude its first series on terrestrial. Written and created by Dane Baptise, an Edinburgh Best Newcomer nominee, the title is somewhat ironical: with Dane’s life clouded by work, family and relationships his disposition is a long way from sunny.

Different to many comedies, the show is populated by black characters. This is significant, since black voices have been ignored in sitcom for a long time. The Desmonds, a black sitcom, remains Channel 4’s longest running comedy, but that finished over 20 years ago. Can anyone remember a successful one since? This whitewashing of a much-loved genre is troubling, given how good television can communicate other experiences and stop prejudices from developing. Admittedly, bad sitcom can perpetuate stereotypes – see Mrs Brown’s Boys- but the point still stands. From the interviews I’ve heard with Baptiste you get the feeling that this responsibility weighs large; as a consequence, he wants to create something that does his culture justice. Many of his stand-up shows deal thoughtfully with issues of race and identity; fortunately his sitcom is no different.

The Desmonds.

The trust the producers have been put in Baptiste, allowing him to be the sole writer on the show, means the comedy feels completely idiosyncratic. Baptiste establishes what his comedy isn’t in the opening minutes, having his characters parody The Cosby Show’s cheesy credits. This then builds to the voice-over coda, “Sunny D is filmed in front of a live audience”, which Baptise undercuts with a forth wall sneer, “No, it’s not.” The moment is redolent of The Young Ones tearing a hole through The Good Life, an act of agitation designed to reject cardigan coziness for something more daring. We then segue into the next shot via J-Kwon’s Tipsy where a pissed Dane, backdropped by posters of Jay Z and Biggy, launches into a diss battle with his twin sister, Kadeen. The use of Hip Hop music juxtaposes Dane’s persona brilliantly; its brash energy serving as a blasting counterpoint to the character’s 9-5 drudgery.

The show is set within the four walls of Dane’s parents house – a place he has long outgrown. The fact that his sister still lives there only makes matters worse. If it wasn’t bad enough Kadeen took nutrients from him in the womb; now she sucks oxygen from his life too. Seeing two grown adults argue like children is hardly the stuff of comedy revolution, but here it’s a joy to behold. What’s funnier than a grown man belittling his twin sister’s baby plans with, “Who would want to fertilise you?” Only for the aforesaid to comeback, “Your breath stinks of fertiliser.” If these children weren’t cut from the same womb, they would resort to “your mum” jokes.

Sunny D

The head to head battles between Dane and his sister do offer fun, frothy laughs; but when Dane turns his head to the camera he has much to say about the issues that affect Generation Y. In one brilliant routine his character questions whether the domestic life is for him, updating Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man into a bitter reverie on household existence. Further, Baptiste’s former career of selling digital advertising makes him well-qualified to attack a capitalism system that puts a wall around your dreams. When his boss threatens him with human resources, he decries, “I’m not a resource. I’m a human being.” This Orwellian lament of being stuck in an environment that depersonalises, turning DNA into data, is something most can empathise with. In seeking to evade the responsibility of work and marriage, the sitcom asks the big question: is it running away if you don’t like what you’re running towards?

Sunny D is a special type of sitcom: it’s funny but it has something to say too. Only last year’s Master of None did as good a job at distilling ideology into entertainment. If Baptiste can follow up this series with another good one, then those  ‘Voice of a Generation’ articles might just hashtag him. Whatever happens, Baptiste is one to watch – in both senses of the word. 

On the rise.

Sunny D is available on iPlayer.

The Missing

There used to be a time when television was an event, where people would huddle around the office water-cooler (regardless of whether their workplace came with one or not) and discuss the previous night’s TV. A time when even living alone wouldn’t negate TV’s social power: you could simply discuss it the next day in work. Now in the age of Netflix, there is to cite Margaret Thatcher ‘no such thing as society.’ The programme that you watch might not even be the one the person sitting next to is watching. With our iMacs, iPhones and iPads we’ve become a nation of ‘I’s,’ slavishly following our own interests at the expense of shared experience.

It’s something that I feel people miss. It must be, otherwise Twitter wouldn’t be such a phenomenon. I mean, why do broadcasters footnote their shows with hashtags? Because they know that people want a forum to opine, to trade, to disagree. As choice segregates culture, we’re forced online to find strangers to share it with. Should it matter that as a nation the only time we sit down and watch television together is the Strictly final or an England defeat? Don’t we become more interesting by doing our own thing? After all, we’re tribal with our music tastes, why shouldn’t we be with our TV? My argument would be that some common ground is a good thing. Music has always has been the thing that’s made us different, but television’s been the thing that kept us the same. In an era of limited choice, 30 million people once sat down to watch Morecambe and Wise’s Christmas special. Isn’t it remarkable that a whole cross-section of society united in laughter? At a time of political divide there was still cultural togetherness. Now in today’s era of isolationism, we’re culturally separated too. So many of our opinions are becoming ghettoised online because there’s no one to collaborate with in the physical world – isn’t this a bit sad?

Laughing all the way to viewing figures.

The reason I’m banging on about this is because over the last eight weeks there’s been a television drama that has got people talking – and not just online. Yes, people have using their actual mouths to do something other than eat. Up and down the country millions have been watching something that isn’t reality television or sport; but a sharp, intelligent written drama. Perhaps only Broadchurch can say that it has captured the nation in the same way The Missing has (and that show went so far off the boil in Series 2 it’s debatable whether the hob was ever on). For The Missing to retain its viewers over eight episodes and create weekly talking points is such an impressive achievement. Yes, Victoria had better ratings this year, but no one around the country was theorising on its plot developments.

The Missing, if you’re uninitiated, is a drama that centres on child abduction and the investigation that follows. In the first series, the procedural oscillated between two frames, 2006 and 2014, to tell the story of a missing boy. From the start, the programme grabbed us by the throat and refused to relinquish its hold. Seeing a father’s realisation that his son was missing is agonising in the extreme. Witnessing then his hunt to find his child is an obsession that we the viewer comes to share. For all of that though, the last episode was a bitter disappointment with the denouement lacking conviction and commitment. Writers Jack and Harry Williams, inveterate Twitter users, admitted they had read the backlash and vowed to be more conclusive and emphatic in their second series.

The Williams brothers.

The second series of The Missing is more ambitious than the first, straddling four key time frames. Also, whilst the first series criss–crossed the channel taking in France and England; the second goes further taking on Bond-esque proportions by traversing multiple countries. Initially, this is a little bewildering and in lesser hands it could prove jarring; however the Williams brothers handle it with aplomb, negotiating the time shifts with excellent clutch control.   

This series centres on Alice Webster, a young British schoolgirl, who goes missing in a German army town. Eleven years later, she collapses back to her home city nursing abdominal pains. When she is reunited with her family they cannot believe their eyes. Sam, a Captain in the local base, is overcome with emotion; his blessed daughter has returned. Gemma, a teacher, is similarly overwhelmed: how incredible to have her baby back. In time though she becomes confused, doubting whether this girl is really her girl. When erudite detective Julien Baptiste appears to raise his suspicions, the incredulity she feels only deepens. Baptiste believes the girl is another missing person, Sophie Giroux, a girl who went missing in France. But why would she lie about being someone else? When questioned by Brigadier Adrian Stone, she seems prompted to give up the name of a local butcher as her abductee. Is Stone complicit in the lie? Why would a Gulf War veteran want to ‘fit’ another person with a crime? Alice Webster may have gone missing in a small German town but the origins of this disappearance tale dates back to Britain’s involvement in Iraq. Just like The Killing, the Danish crime drama that must have inspired the show, series two gets behind enemy lines and uncovers the secret tunnels of corrupt morality.

Stone and 'Webster.'

Touching on The Killing, I have to say one of the things I most enjoyed about the show was recognising its reference points. When ‘Alice’ first returns it’s redolent of French zombie-drama, The Returned: her icy demeanour similar to the undead that populated the show. With Baptiste on the receiving end of a tumour, he begins to resemble Breaking Bad’s Walter White, physically in appearance and mentally in desperation. Further, the idea that the Websters may have taken in a fraud may seem absurd, but if you watch The Imposter, as I’m sure the writers have, then you will see that it isn’t so far-fetched. As Oscar Wilde said, ‘Good writers, borrow; great writers, steal.’

Walter White/ Julien Baptiste

The Williams brothers in taking from the best have produced this year’s great art heist. Now let’s get off our laptops and start talking about it.

The Missing is now available on DVD.