Little Britain

Woebot

Well-known member
Saw the few tiniest snatches of this and was quite amused. I've missed almost all TV over the past 4 years so I picked up the DVD wotsit before xmas.

Anyway I stuck it on once and managed about three quarters of an episode before succumbing to a glazed-eyed misery. What depressing stuff. Haven't picked it up since.

Everywhere you go, taxi-drivers, shop assistants, people in the street will quote it at you.
 

PeteUM

It's all grist
I think its success has added to its general wretchedness, definitely. I think Walliams and Lucas are potentially amusing comics but the writing just doesn't seem to be there. A groundswell of backlash seems to be building however, possibly stemming from depressing Christmas shopping experiences involving ugly amounts of LB product. I saw some teen in Borders pressing the talking Only Gay In The Village over and over again, for instance.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I haven't got a tv but I have still managed to see bits of this programme. I've also read a lot about what a phenomenon it has become. From what I've seen it appears to be occasionally funny but that is all, lots of comedy programmes are like this but I they're not thrust so much into your face so maybe they are not so irritating. However, one thing that does seem more annoying about LB is that, although it goes out after the watershed a lot of the humour is clearly aimed at (very) young children who find it very easy to latch on to catchphrases and repeat them in the playground or wherever, I find this pretty cynical.
Over Christmas I was surprised to see a South Bank show devoted to LB, it seemed to be completely lacking in any kind of analysis of LB's popularity or even LB itself and concentrated on Matt Lucas and David Walliams talking about what they eat while they write the programme.
 

bassnation

the abyss
PeteUM said:
I think its success has added to its general wretchedness, definitely. I think Walliams and Lucas are potentially amusing comics but the writing just doesn't seem to be there. A groundswell of backlash seems to be building however, possibly stemming from depressing Christmas shopping experiences involving ugly amounts of LB product. I saw some teen in Borders pressing the talking Only Gay In The Village over and over again, for instance.

its a bastard having a welsh accent since that programme started! needless to say, the pisstaking has been immense ;)
 

bassnation

the abyss
PeteUM said:
Note to self: all Bassnation posts to be read in ludicrously over the top Welsh accent.

lol, well in my defence its more of a lilt mixed with some essex nowadays - people catch me doing the glottal stop from time to time ("beh-ah" instead of "better") but the accent will always be there. i have a theory that if you live somewhere for at least the first 15 years of your life, you can't really lose it without elocution lessons.
 
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matt b

Indexing all opinion
bassnation said:
lol, well in my defence its more of a lilt mixed with some essex nowadays - people catch me doing the glottal stop from time to time ("beh-ah" instead of "better") but the accent will always be there. i have a theory that if you live somewhere for at least the first 15 years of your life, you can't really lose it without elocution lessons.

luckily, oxford doesn't have an 'accent', although in the outlying villages you do get a weird yocal twang going on.

however, i've lived north of watford for the past 15 years and now say 'grass' rather than 'graass', but still say 'garridge' rather than 'garage'.

as a birthday present the girlfriend half of my only friends in the village (boom! boom!) has bought her boyfriend tickets to LB as a birthday present. i kept forgetting this (they were bought six months in advance) and whenever we were in the pub i would inadvertantly slag LB off, until i got an angry text threatening me with physical violence if i ever mentioned the programme again.
 

bassnation

the abyss
IdleRich said:
"luckily, oxford doesn't have an 'accent'"

Yes it does.

its all relative, but if your comparision is the "mainstream" southern english accent - then no it doesn't - which is what i think matt meant.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
IdleRich said:
"luckily, oxford doesn't have an 'accent'"

Yes it does.

thanks for telling me!


i defy you to be able to tell that someone is from oxford by their accent alone, unlike, say, manchester, leeds, liverpool, birmingham, wales, bristol, the east end etc etc etc
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
OK, may not be as pronounced as those you mention but I think that you can tell someone is from Oxfordshire or thereabouts. In the same way, I can't really tell the difference between someone from Liverpool and someone from somewhere near Liverpool so I think it's pretty similar.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
IdleRich said:
OK, may not be as pronounced as those you mention but I think that you can tell someone is from Oxfordshire or thereabouts. In the same way, I can't really tell the difference between someone from Liverpool and someone from somewhere near Liverpool so I think it's pretty similar.

well, in my 33 years no one has guessed where i'm from, beyond 'the south'.
the 'rural' oxford accent is pretty indistinguishable from the whole M4 corridor. but hey ho.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Well, maybe you're right. My girlfriend has just started a phd at Oxford and she told me that she doesn't recognise an Oxford accent, but at the same time whenever I go back to the area (I grew up in Uffington but live in London now) I'm surprised at how much I notice the accent.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
IdleRich said:
Well, maybe you're right. My girlfriend has just started a phd at Oxford and she told me that she doesn't recognise an Oxford accent, but at the same time whenever I go back to the area (I grew up in Uffington but live in London now) I'm surprised at how much I notice the accent.

uffington has the rural west country twang, but then so does banbury, which is 50 odd miles away, not to mention swindon, bristol etc, so its not place specific.

your girlfriend must be a strange one- an oxford student talking to locals! ;)
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
That's kind of what I meant I guess, a bit west country but somehow "rougher" if I can say that. It gets more west country in Swindon and more still in Bristol (of course I haven't got the accent myself).
Maybe she doesn't talk to them as much as she thinks, would explain why she hasn't noticed the accent.
 

jenks

thread death
i think LB suffers from that catchphrase comedy - blame the fast show, but at least they had a high turn over of characters and a larger cast of writers.

LB has the habit of repeating the same gag in smaller and smaller situations and the comedy becomes thinner and thinner. puking WI women when black people are mentioned - the 'joke' is on the WI mindset but after a while, twice, it's not funny.

i watched the first series and thought it funny, must've watched two episodes of the second and none of the third - i don't need to it's reached cultural saturation level.

how many of the characters are now actually funny rather than merely grotesque - humour based on'they wouldn't would they' scenarios.

it seems also the chance to dress up, spend more money on production, costumes, silly extras - foam body suits etc has lead to a decrease in the sharpness of the writing - everything paddded out until the catchphrase arrives to save us and then we can laugh.

i saw an episode of catherine tate the other night - much the same.

(i think the vicky pollard creation may well be their master stroke though)
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
IdleRich said:
That's kind of what I meant I guess, a bit west country but somehow "rougher" if I can say that. It gets more west country in Swindon and more still in Bristol (of course I haven't got the accent myself).
yeah, spot on- the main thing i've found (heard) about the oxford 'accent' is that its very flexible, in that people who move away pick up, very quickly, defining vocal features of the people around them. the biggest thing i notice when back in oxford is not the 'accent' but the speed of speech- its very fast/lazy.

anyway, little britain- excellent on radio, downward spiral on tv.
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
In the end, all catchphrase comedy is bollocks, no matter how good the set-up. LB's were better than some, but still it's a lazy way to write gags that very quickly stops being funny. The Fast Show has so, so much to answer for.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I'm in complete agreement about catch-phrase comedy, I think that's part of what makes it so attractive to children. Regarding the dressing up (and talking in stupid voices), they look as though they are having a lot more fun than I do when I watch it.
Glad we're kind of agreed about the accents.
 

benjybars

village elder.
IdleRich said:
(I grew up in Uffington but live in London now)

WTF!! u grew up in uffington?? no way!!! my grandad lived there for years and was some wierd local character (his house was called baulking towers) and he was scottish and everyone called him Jock.. does that ring a bell??!! haha.. i can't believe i found someone on dissensus who grew up in uffington! you know the fox and hounds pub? is it still there..??!!

sorry..this has to be the most off-topic post of all time. but c'mon...
 
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