Royle Family special tonight
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_angel_
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Wookey said:I think you have to be working class to appreciate a great deal of it.
It's not your fault your mam never sent you to the corner shop for 10 B+H and a Crunchie.
So all the working class are reduce to some cliched ridden incidents. Like a monkey eating its own shite.
Bag of even more wank.
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
indeed - my family is nothing like the royles, but it's just the same.killer b said:i wouldn't say so - i'm not particularly w/c.
the royle family addresses universal themes.
my mum was besotted with the trailer, where denise asked if david could stay over friday. what time until? til monday. She was surprised by how accurate an observation it was of what my sisters do with their kids - where i don't think thought she had anything in common with TRF before.
it is beautifully observed.
Observational comedy usually trades on broad strokes and stereotyped generalisations. This is really specific observation - very true. Because of that, there are no gags, per se.
The truth is in the writing, and also the acting / direction.
Erich Zann
I am what you are
so's your bandrutabowa said:
Wookey
Muppet is not a slur
No, not bollocks. There's lots of elements in the Royle Family that working class people will have experienced first hand, and better-off middle class people won't have. This makes seeing them depicted on-screen all the more bitter-sweet for working-class people.
I'm not saying middle-class people can't enjoy it, or can't like it, or can't appreciate it. But there are certain elements within it, certain references that they will only ever be appreciating as tourists in another type of culture, rather than as people who have actually experienced it first hand as a regular part of life.
I'm generalising to make a point, naturally, but most of the middle-class people I know have not experienced the black market in their living rooms, they haven't experienced catalogue culture and the phenomenon of paying your weekly monies to the GUS agent, they haven't experienced the nature of subbing other family members their fags until their money comes through, they haven't experienced the way in which extended family is used as a primary source of care for younger and older family members as opposed to using nannies/creches/paid help, they haven't experienced the phenomenon of the pub as social hub for the community in the same way, nor alcohol the social signifier it is in working class communities, and all these are elements I recognise in the Royle Family direct from growing up as a working class person.
I could go on and on and on as to why The Royle Family is a working class comedy written by a working class woman which will hit certain notes with working class people in a way that people not of that class can appreciate, but only secondarily, rather than primarily.
But I won't; I've made my point.
Didn't see it last night.
The episode when Denise goes into labour when Jim and Denise are in the bathroom- that was brilliant. I'll have to admit I cried a little. So often sitcom/comedy characters are one-dimesional, and whilst 95% of the time Jim Royle conforms to being this one-dimensional arsehole - its touching to see a different side to him.
It think its been great.
The episode when Denise goes into labour when Jim and Denise are in the bathroom- that was brilliant. I'll have to admit I cried a little. So often sitcom/comedy characters are one-dimesional, and whilst 95% of the time Jim Royle conforms to being this one-dimensional arsehole - its touching to see a different side to him.
It think its been great.
_angel_
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Wookey said:No, not bollocks. There's lots of elements in the Royle Family that working class people will have experienced first hand, and better-off middle class people won't have. This makes seeing them depicted on-screen all the more bitter-sweet for working-class people.
I'm not saying middle-class people can't enjoy it, or can't like it, or can't appreciate it. But there are certain elements within it, certain references that they will only ever be appreciating as tourists in another type of culture, rather than as people who have actually experienced it first hand as a regular part of life.
I'm generalising to make a point, naturally, but most of the middle-class people I know have not experienced the black market in their living rooms, they haven't experienced catalogue culture and the phenomenon of paying your weekly monies to the GUS agent, they haven't experienced the nature of subbing other family members their fags until their money comes through, they haven't experienced the way in which extended family is used as a primary source of care for younger and older family members as opposed to using nannies/creches/paid help, they haven't experienced the phenomenon of the pub as social hub for the community in the same way, nor alcohol the social signifier it is in working class communities, and all these are elements I recognise in the Royle Family direct from growing up as a working class person.
I could go on and on and on as to why The Royle Family is a working class comedy written by a working class woman which will hit certain notes with working class people in a way that people not of that class can appreciate, but only secondarily, rather than primarily.
But I won't; I've made my point.
All this covered by Only Fools and Horses ten billion times better and funnier.
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
but fools and horses isn't like real life. anyone can get a laugh through exaggeration.Maddalene said:
to get laughs through telling it just how it is is much harder.
Wookey
Muppet is not a slur
Au contraire....imo, Only Fools and Horses was about Thatcherism, and wanting to better yourself, striving to get out of the working class, and into the spending classes.... The Royle Family is (aptly if ironically named) more about revelling in the beauty that IS family, the ties that link family, and the fact that none of us need a flash car, or a business opportunity in order to be happy.
No-one in the Royle Family is a cartoon, imo, I have people in my family just like Jim, just like Nana, yes, I'll admit it - I was Anthony, it was me who made all the brews....
We had no one like Trigger, or Del Boy, or any of the Fools and Horses characters in our neighbourhood...
The point about the Royle Family is it doesn't revolve around unlikely plots and set pieces, and falling chandeliers, and Batman outfits...it relies on the humorous ebb and flow of family life in front of the telly...it's in an entirely new class of comedy, and, in my opinion, knocks Only Fools and Horses into a cocked hat...
Only Fools depicts the working classes as characature, as the middle classes think they exist....The Royle Family is told by, and informed by, a working class perspective, they're chalk and cheese.
_angel_
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Wookey said:
Think it's other way round actually. Royle Family sneers at working class and all those characters sound the same and are depicted as being as thick as pigshit.
People who compare it to Alan Bennet make me want to weep he takes this piss out of middle class ladies from roundhay (posh part of leeds).
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
the reason it's compared to alan bennet isn't the subject matter - it's the subtle humour.Maddalene said:
Wookey
Muppet is not a slur
I think they're depicted with warmth and humour; we as the audience are meant to like them as characters...they remind me of the Larkins, very loving, and mutually supportive, and with a close eye on the important things in life such as being there for each other, and enjoying each others company...
OK, so they aren't sitting there discussing Stalinism and Botticelli, but then neither does my family...my family sit and fart and watch Antiques Roadshow with their stack of pennies on the table...
_angel_
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Wookey said:I think they're depicted with warmth and humour; we as the audience are meant to like them as characters...they remind me of the Larkins, very loving, and mutually supportive, and with a close eye on the important things in life such as being there for each other, and enjoying each others company...
OK, so they aren't sitting there discussing Stalinism and Botticelli, but then neither does my family...my family sit and fart and watch Antiques Roadshow with their stack of pennies on the table...
Patronising.
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
example?Maddalene said:
Wookey
Muppet is not a slur
What's patronising about a working class writer and working class actors depicting working class characters as realistically working class?
Who said Aherne has to write an advertorial for the very best the working class can come up with?
I don't think it's a political treatise - it's just class informed.
I'm not embarrassed by it, are you?
_angel_
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Wookey said:What's patronising about a working class writer and working class actors depicting working class characters as realistically working class?
Who said Aherne has to write an advertorial for the very best the working class can come up with?
I don't think it's a political treatise - it's just class informed.
I'm not embarrassed by it, are you?
You're missing the point it's bad writing.
All the characters speak and sound the same. If there ever is a joke they milk it for about fifteen minutes.
I couldn't care less if it really is working class writing and acting. I dunno that it is anyway but that isn't the point.
I've seen better than this and that's what irks me.
Oh and it IS patronising.
Wookey
Muppet is not a slur
I don't think that's true, I think they all have very individualistic characterisations; catchphrases even, which people do have in real life...Jim says 'My arse', Mum says 'Awww,' Denise says 'Mum, tell Ant'nee', etc. I think their voices are very distinct.
I think it has a different pace to traditional comedy, which is mostly tightly scripted on a 'set-up, pay-off, laugh, back to set up' kind of basis - so the jokes come thick and fast...the point about the Royle Family is they aren't supposed to be delivering 'laughs' as such, they're just being themselves, and that's what's funny... I remember watching the first episode and thinking 'What the hell is this, they're just watching TV...' and then it dawned over the duration of the show that the whole rythym and meter of the comedy was different... it was much more like sitting in your own front room, with pauses for your favourite advert, and lines that go nowhere, and characters spinning off into their own comedic moments (like Jim, especially..)
This is very hard to write, and very hard to act too, much harder than the traditional comedy we're used to it this country.
I think comedy's subjective a lot of the time, and if you don't laugh you don't laugh. Fair enough. But saying it's badly written shows me you might not really know what good writing is, tbh.
_angel_
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Wookey said:
Wookey said:
The way it looks is unfortunately, laugh at the thick working class council flat people.
Just 'put it in real time' ain't good enough I'm afraid.
I've seen loads better plays by working class writers and short pieces they never see the light of day never mind bbc commissions.
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