Well, as an unashamed fan of LB, I feel I should chip in...
Original Article said:
There’s Daffyd, “the only gay in the village”, who is based on one endlessly repeated comic premise: there is no prejudice against gay people in Britain any more, but shrieking gay miser-queens like Daffyd are so obsessed with being victims they obsessively see prejudice where there is none.
Well, he or she got slightly more sensible toward the end of that. The Daffyd joke is that he uses homophobia as an excuse not to be, well, a happy homosexual. I recognise it because I've done it myself (as has Matt Lucas, if you listen to the DVD commentary) I still do to an extent. How many times must I have posted on Urban and elsewhere about what a homophobic hellhole my home town is? I have, many times, used it as an excuse as to why I don't have a boyf, or any non-online gay friends. Whether Littledick or his ilk use Daffyd as a figurehead for their rightwing rants or not, I don't care, frankly. If it wasn't Daffyd it'd be Graham Norton, Julian Clary or some other high profile 'gay stereotype.'
Original Article said:
Dozens of sketches hinge upon the ugliness of female flesh, and barely a woman is shown without the actors playing her being padded into monstrous fat-suits.
Half of this time, I suspect a fat suit isn't needed, seeing as how whichever character Lucas plays in a sketch is gonna appear obese. In fact, I can only think of Bubbles and Deseire (sp) who need fat suits, and the joke for those sketches, so far as I can see, is their grossly indulgent millionaire lifestyles. The fat fighters sketches never focus on the weight of any of the clubs members but on Marjorie's own bigotry and hypocrisy. As for the 'ugliness of female flesh,' nearly all of the characters (male and female) are aesthetically grotesque, they are supposed to be grotesque characters, after all. Either that, or Matt and David just don't make very convincing women.
Original Article said:
Perhaps a tiny liver of this would be forgivable if the show was actually funny, but it is as entertaining as a burning orphanage. Little Britain represents the return of catchphrase comedy, which actually trumps sarcasm as the lowest form of wit. Catchphrases are humour for people without a sense of humour: you can watch a sketch waiting for the dull repeated phrase – “yeahbutnobutyeah”, “I don’t want it” – and feel like you’ve Got It and you are In On the Joke without any mental dexterity or understanding. (That’s why it is so popular with children). The shining light of Noughties comedy is as sophisticated as the British policeman from ‘Allo ‘Allo, guaranteed a laugh for bleating “Good moaning”.
A laugh could always be guaranteed whenever Mainwairing called Pike a stupid boy, or when Baldrick declared he had a cunning plan. I wonder why 'Allo 'Allo (much as I loved it, farscial and unassuming as it was) was used as an example and neither of them?
Article aside, an old lady pissing herself may be childish and puerile and Lou & Andy and Vicky Pollard may get all the attention, but sketches like my personal favourite, Mr Mann and Roy, I feel, can be quite genius.
