"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Thursday, January 16, 2014

The All New Alexei Sayle Show: Series 2, Episode 4 (1995)

 
Another episode, another “Drunk in Time” adventure.  In this sketch, the smashed twosome – I’m seeing how many synonyms I can use for the word “drunk” over the course of these reviews – land in Britain during its Roman occupation.  They offer themselves as highly unreliable builders for the construction of Hadrian’s Wall.
 
It may be possible that I harp on Fry and Laurie’s comedic superiority, but it’s really true, and after my fourth “Drunk in Time” sketch (along with a number of other recurring gags throughout the series,) the difference couldn’t be more obvious.  Those two understood that, while recurring sketches can riff on the same idea multiple times, they have to do it in different ways, and first and foremost, they have to funny throughout.  Take the John and Peter sketches from A Bit of Fry and Laurie.  It’s easy to write them off as “intense businessmen saying ‘Damn!’ all the time,” but the sketches stretch over the course of the series.  John and Peter are put in increasingly outrageous situations, first running the health club and later branching out into the men’s lavatory and the archdiocese.  Beyond that, every single one is packed with jokes.  After having seen each of these sketches numerous times, it still makes me chuckle to think about “Damnit, Peter, he’ll be in Australia by now!” or “Yep – it’s from God, all right” (and I realize that these lines mean nothing to the uninitiated; I weep for you.)
 
The lesson, of course, is “no one does it like the masters,” but we already knew that.
 
Looking ahead to what is sure to be a far, far better time-traveler role, PC is officially filming series 8 of Who right now.  This means it’s only a matter of time before the BBC releases photos of the Twelfth Doctor in costume, to get the jump on the diligent Whovians trolling Cardiff with smart phones.
 
Accent Watch
 
PC has a couple of longer lines in this sketch, and I think he is doing a Scouse accent.  Seems like he’s going for that Scouse cadence, anyway.

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