Winne-The-Pooh

Once a week, every week, I take my class to the library. For some pupils it’s something to enjoy. For others it’s a trial to endure. For me it’s as necessary as water. Without it, I doubt I'd survive.

Teaching takes its toll on the quiet. The job demands that one stands and leads, despite the opposite being at times preferable. Typically, I live my life as if I'm on Twitter. A 140 character limit on my interactions. I’ll say a few witty comments here and there, but then I’ll keep my counsel and retire to the daydream room.

Yet in the classroom talk is king. I can’t turn to my class and tell them to join me in silent meditation as we seek answers to literature’s great truths. No, I must use words as igniter fuel, hoping beyond hope for something to catch fire. I must hold court. Be an agent of talk. Take to the floor. Ask question after question. Interrogate the answers in response. Root out bias. Demand claims are evidenced. Question. Question. Question. All to try and answer life’s big question: Why on earth did George, a man of pragmatism, leave Lennie, an accident waiting to happen, completely unsupervised? The fool.

Why did you leave him, George?

But in the library I don’t have to talk. Court is in recess. I sit in the middle where my two eyes can keep an ear out for thirty mouths and I get my book out and read. Given that students will from time to time act in opposition to my hopes and dreams, I never choose a book that will demand 100% concentration. I still need to be alert to whispers and distractions. As a result, I’ll often pick a children’s book and get stuck into that. In the last year I’ve read Paddington, Matilda and War Horse. Yes, you the taxpayer have been paying me to read. You’re welcome.

Teenagers be quiet: Boss Man needs to read.

This week, I’ve been hearing a lot about Winnie-The-Pooh. This is because the story of its impact is the subject of a new film Goodbye, Christopher Robin. I haven’t seen the film, but I’ve heard the great Mark Kermode pronounce kindly on it. Whilst hearing him, I got to thinking: I’ve never actually read Winnie-The-Pooh. Sure, I’ve heard extracts from it: a Head of Year in my last school liked to illustrate her assemblies with Milne references. Yet I’ve never read a story all the way through. In fact, up until I sourced the book, I never knew it was so vast and wise. I just assumed it was a short picture book that could be turned and consumed in seconds.

Winnie-The-Pooh was a huge commercial success in the 1920’s. Like its author, the world had just come out of war; consequently, people were in desperate need of escape. Milne, a playwright and satirist, conceived the idea whilst at his East Sussex retreat. Seeing his son blur reality and fantasy while playing with his toys, Milne was inspired to create a world where he too clouded the truth: his beating heart of a boy Christopher would be transposed into a fictional world where his stuffed toys would be brought to life. In turning fact into fiction, Milne profited from his son. The balance sheet though would forever read loss. Unhappy with his childhood being made into a business, Christopher dissolved the partnership, shunning his parents in adulthood.

Milne and his son.

So the postscript of Winnie-The-Pooh is a sad one, but the tales themselves are far from depressing. Set in Ashdown Forest, where Milne and his family lived, the stories revolve around Christopher Robin’s toys, and the tales his father invented about them. There’s Pooh, the loyal, clumsy bear; Piglet, the shy, timid pig; Eeyore, a depressive donkey; Rabbit, a practical leader; and Owl, a learned creature. Over the course of the chapters, the characters get themselves into some classic scrapes, which typically end in Christopher Robin consoling his best friend Pooh.

Reading it, I see its DNA in the Toy Story franchise. Andy’s relationship with his toys change, just as Christopher’s does in the book's sequel, A House in Pooh Corner. Witnessing how a child neglects their toys can either be seen as a symbol of maturity or a shattering of innocence; whichever way you look at it, it's a moment of real power. Also, Pooh’s paw prints are all over Julia Donaldson’s superlative tale The Gruffalo: as Piglet’s head-to-head with the Heffalump is akin to Mouse’s confrontation with the Gruffalo. These are just two children’s stories that I can think of; I’m sure Milne’s inspiration is felt in many others.

Andy is like Christopher.

To dismiss the work as lightweight because it’s for children would be churlish though. The book is one adults find themselves reading to children, as opposed to the other way around. There is an economy to the writing, typifying all good children’s fiction; yet there is also a level of poeticism and profundity that would embarrass most adult writers.

Take this description of the Forest recovering from a flood:

ONE day when the sun had come back over the Forest, bringing with it the scent of may, and all the streams of the Forest were tinkling happily to find themselves their own pretty shape again, and the little pools lay dreaming of the life they had seen and the big things they had done, and in the warmth and quiet of the Forest the cuckoo was trying over his voice carefully and listening to see if he liked it, and wood-pigeons were complaining gently to themselves in their lazy comfortable way that it was the other fellow's fault, but it didn't matter very much; on such a day as this Christopher Robin whistled in a special way he had, and Owl came flying out of the Hundred Acre Wood to see what was wanted.

Milne has teased and tantalised an idyll from his pen. Just savour that language for a moment. Luxuriate on those verbs ‘tinkling’ and ‘whistling;’ bask in the hazy idleness of ‘complaining gently’ and float downstream with the ‘little pools’ that lie ‘dreaming of the life they had seen.’ This is the paradise Steinbeck painted at the beginning of Of Mice and Men; however, this is one that doesn’t succumb to the meanness of man; instead it represents the best of humanity, for man (Christopher) and nature (Winnie et al) work alongside one another to create a refuge of love and harmony. It’s a story that promoted peace and quiet at a time when people really needed it.

If you missed the book during your childhood, I recommend you pick it up now. To lift Milne's style: It’s a Sustaining Book that will bring you Great Comfort at a Time of Trumpian Upheaval. In a world of Terror and Cruelty, Pooh and his Forest are needed now more than ever.

Winnie-The-Pooh is available from all good bookshops.

The Good Place

What happens when we die?

It’s a question that has plagued men and women since the dawn of time. For observers of religious dogma, life on Earth is simply a rehearsal in the great theatre of existence. If they’ve been humble attendees: waited patiently in line, put money in the tip tray, sat slouched for the people behind; then when the curtain's finally peeled they’ll witness something truly special, an eternal production titled Bliss and Euphoria. If on the other hand, they’ve pushed their way to the front, put gum in the tip tray and brought a cushion to obscure the view of others; then when the curtain's finally peeled they’ll be greeted with something truly awful, an interminable production titled Pain and Suffering.

If, on the other hand, you’re an atheist and consider God a lousy work of fiction, penned by an ancient ancestor of Dan Brown, then you believe life categorically ends in death. That the soul does not continue its journey; rather one's flesh is made worms meat until the corpse is nothing more than glorified dog bone. For the atheist, life isn’t a moral talent show, an audition for an Almighty judge; it’s the real deal.

The Good Place is a sitcom about what happens after we die. It begins with Eleanor meeting a mysterious bow tie figure. He informs her that her time on Earth has come to an end. She has died and continued her journey. Understandably, she has questions to ask: how did she die – she can’t remember? Well, she was buying a cocktail mix for one when a line of shopping carts struck her, causing her to be thrown into the path of an erectile dysfunction marketing truck. Hence, why she’s now a stiff. She has another question to ask: how close were people’s theories on the afterlife? Well, the major religions were about 5% close, but “a stoner from Calgary named Doug Forcett blurted out a theory while high on mushrooms and it turns out to be 92% close.” Eleanor’s next question: am I (points to up) or (points to down)? Happily, she has made it to what is called ‘The Good Place.’ It isn’t what people traditionally would conceive paradise to be, but it’s somewhat close. Relieved, Eleanor looks forward to the next stage of her existence.

Eleanor at the gates.

Welcome to The Good Place, a wondrous sitcom devised and created by Parks and Recreation co-writer, Michael Schur. Typically, I prefer naturalism in sitcoms; therefore, it’s something of a treat to be thrown into something altogether different. On first sight, this might seem a world away from Schur’s previous work set in local government, but a closer look at his career says otherwise. For example, the last series of Parks and Recreation fast-forwarded to a future where corporations had taken over towns, leaving its inhabitants in thrall to products and marketing. The Good Place is also an imagined future. Further, his work on Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror episode ‘Nosedive’ feeds into his current sitcom, dealing as it does with datafication. In Black Mirror people were knowingly being rated on their every deed and action. However, in The Good Place, people aren’t judged in life by one another, but by an organisation in the sky: good deeds are totalled up, with the best players being rewarded with a bonus life.

Eleanor is in The Good Place because she has led a good life of moral virtue. Where so many have succumbed to the self, she has forsaken all ego for others. Her place in paradise is reserved alongside the few that have put their own interests to one side in the name of selflessness. After her preliminary introduction, she is invited to a welcoming talk with other excited inhabitants. Michael, the bow tied creator, explains how their performance in life led them to this place. His talk is backdropped by a screen that features blink-and-you-miss behaviours that caused their reward.

Hosted Refugee Family, Rehabilitate d Abused Pit Bull, Donated 16.35% of Lifetime Income, Anonymously, to Charities, Gave Out Full-Size Candy Bars at Halloween, Ate Vegan, Never Discussed Veganism Unprompted, Held Door for Person Behind You, Installed Solar Panels, Let Someone Merge in Traffic, Brought Own Bags to Grocery Store, Donated Blood, Self-Monitored Potentially Nauseating Mouth-Sounds While Chewing, Carefully Put Spider Outside, Helped Mom With Her Printer, Gracefully Ended A Conversation About the Weather, Attended Cousin’s Friend’s Child’s Jazz Dance Recital, etc…

Look at all the gags in there. The juxtaposition of the charitable: hosting refugee families, alongside the laughable: helping mom with her printer, demonstrate a master craftsman at work. And the crazy thing? These jokes happen so quickly you might miss them. To get all the gags you have to rewind, re-watch and, in the case above, freeze-frame the screen to enjoy the full benefits. Other sight gags include restaurants named ‘The Good Plates’ and a pasta store branded, ‘Hokey Gnocchi’ in tribute to the participation dance routine.

Michael (Ted Danson) welcomes people to The Good Place.

After Eleanor has got her head round her new existence, she is introduced to Chidi, who it’s claimed is her soul-mate. He doesn’t look like Eleanor’s type. He’s diffident and earnest, oblivious to his geek chic. But this is a new life for Eleanor, a fresh start so what does she know. Aware their souls are wedded beyond death do them part, she decides to confide in him. Her confession: she doesn’t belong here. Earlier Michael had said she had earned her place based on her work in defending innocent people on death row. The truth: she sold fake medicine to elderly people. Someone has made a mistake. Chidi begins to hyperventilate. He lives his life by a strict code: to hide Eleanor’s true nature threatens to send his moral robot into malfunction. What’s the alternative though? Confess her sins and throw her to The Bad Place?

Chidi can’t play God with Eleanor’s soul so instead tries to save it through philosophy. There’s not many sitcoms that have a character complain, “Who died and left Aristotle in charge of ethics?” Only for another one to point at the board and reveal Plato's name. Over the course of the series, Utilitarianism and Contractualism feature: all there to drive Eleanor towards goodness. In many ways the sitcom is My Name is Earl set in the after-life, where the protagonist must make amends for their past life in the hope of finding salvation.

Eleanor and Chidi.

Alongside Chidi and Eleanor, there are two other main characters that occupy the space. Tahani, played by ex-T4 host Jameela Jamil, and Jianyu, a Buddhist monk who persists in living a life of silence. These two are paired as soul-mates, but there’s trouble in paradise when they struggle to connect. A bigger problem is Eleanor though. Her failings on Earth may have gone unpunished. But here in The Good Place her sins are made manifest. At a party she rudely describes the skyscraper Tahini, a giraffe: the next morning a tower of giraffes run through the neighbourhood. She is a Beelzebub in heaven. If she isn’t turfed out, she threatens the very fabric of paradise. Kristen Bell’s portrayal, however, is wholly sympathetic, causing the viewer to will her on to redemption.

For a show that encompasses philosophical theory, its value is perhaps best argued using William Paley’s teleological argument. In it, Paley uses the analogy of the watchmaker, arguing the very intricacy of a watch points to intelligent design- a watch couldn’t have just fall into existence like a rock. So it is with God and the universe. The world's complexity proves a godlike creator. In the Analogy of the Sitcom, Schur is the watchmaker and The Good Place the watch; a comedy so brilliant it proves divine writers really do exist.

The Good Place is available on Netflix.

Back

In 2015 Channel 4’s longest running sitcom Peep Show ended. With its point-of-view filming and emphasis on internal monologue it revolutionised the genre. Starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, the two played Mark and Jez, warring flatmates that hated and needed one another in equal measure. Like Steptoe and Son for a modern generation, the pair live the squalid life of cheap lager, expensive crisps and self-loathing. Mark, a white-collar worker, is ostensibly more moral than Jeremy; although darkness lies beneath. Jez, a work-shy freeloader, lives like the world owes him something- despite never once contributing anything to it. The two are interdependent: Jez needs Mark to sustain his unemployed existence, and Mark needs Jez to maintain his social superiority. Like the medieval court, Jez plays the fool to Mark's nobleman: the fact that Jez frequently makes jokes at his friend's expense, perversely makes him master. Throughout the run, the pair become increasingly amoral, dragging one another down in a way that only bad friends can. At the show’s conclusion, Mark is still sitting alongside Jeremy, contemplating how to get rid of him: a pox he’s been scratching for ten years, one that shows no signs of abating.

Jez and Mark.

Fans of the show then were upset when its creators Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong called it a day. The peerless repartee between Mitchell and Webb had been confined to the museum of sitcom, only to be dusted off for retrospective viewing on 40D. Fear not though, because the boys are back, albeit in a different guise- but back nonetheless. To paraphrase ACDC, they’re back in Back: a new Channel 4 sitcom written by Simon Blackwell.  

Now Blackwell is a name I hadn’t heard of before. Normally, I keep an eye out for writing credits because I always feel writers – quite wrongly – have lesser status than actors. But Blackwell was a name I didn’t recognise. I should have because he has written episodes for Peep Show, The Thick of It and Veep ­­­- that's quite a CV.

In Back he’s created a sitcom where Mitchell and Webb resume their roles of uptight loser and immoral bully, only in the less oppressive setting of a village pub. At the start, Andrew (Webb) is giving advice to a taxi driver about relationships: initially, it appears he's advising the man on how to reconnect with his wife; this though is a pull-back and reveal. Moments later, we find Andrew is the devil on the driver’s shoulder, invoking him to cheat on his spouse with a younger woman. Stephen (Mitchell) meanwhile is in town, gathering groceries for his father’s wake: he’s bought sausage rolls – one up from the economy range – ensuring his dad’s buffet will have adequate catering. Andrew is en route because as a once-upon-a-time fostered child of the family, he wants to pay his respects. With the taxi ride indicating malevolence though, we’re not sure of what Andrew’s motivation is. For instance: why, when he only stayed with the family for a few months, does he insist on calling Stephen’s father “dad,” ? How come, if dad meant so much to him, he's only just turned up? Why is he muscling in on their dad's pub?

Stephen and Andrew.

Andrew is the ghost of Banquo, a threat to the dead man’s heir. His appearance feels like a haunting, forcing Stephen to confront his childhood. Whilst Andrew recalls their days together in euphoric technicolour, Stephen perceives them in drab monochrome. Director Ben Palmer does an excellent job in splicing the past and the present, allowing us to see how these memories diverge. Fans of the excellent Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place will also be happy to see Matthew Holness star as “dad” in these pivotal hallucinations.

In terms of the writing, it has the articulacy you would expect from a person that has penned the best of 

sitcom. Stellar lines of dialogue frequently permeate the programme. 

When Stephen's sister Caz is trying to impress Andrew by boasting about the local music 

festival, she effuses, “It’s got four stages.” Stephen’s pithy aside? “Like cancer.”  As well as brevity, 

Blackwell can do baroque. With the will leaving Andrew with  5% of the pub, he pushes through 

modernisation plans. Plans that lead to an increase in footfall and five-star TripAdvisor reviews. 

This worries the paranoid Stephen: they’ve been a three-star  pub for years, what are people 

going to think when they’re suddenly getting critical acclaim? His response is 

beautifully articulate: 

Seriously, you don't stick your head above the parapet with the TripAdvisor guys because you will call down a tsunami of shit. A sudden flurry of five-star reviews, they get suspicious, send the black-ops reviewers in, there's a string of zero-star write-ups and then you're fucked. It happened to The Plough in Harescombe, they flew too close to the sun.

Given that the BBC have been airing their recent sitcom pilots on Wednesday and Friday, and Jack Dee’s Bad Move has just seen the ITV light of day, there is a surfeit of comedy at present. Out of all of the new offerings, however, Back is the best by some distance. It isn’t just a worthy successor to Peep Show, but a great comedy in its own right. Bain and Armstrong may have called last orders on Mitchell and Webb’s biggest hit, but in Simon Blackwell they have a landlord worth every bit of their predecessors. Here’s hoping that when the sitcom ends, Channel 4 raise their glasses and call, “Same again.”

Back is on Wednesday, Channel 4 at 10pm. Past episodes are available on 4OD.