Pussay Patrol

Cine Review: THE INBETWEENERS MOVIE
15 – 97mins – 2011
Written by: Damon Beesley and Iain Morris
Directed by: Ben Palmer
Starring: Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley, Blake Harrison, Emily Head, Laura Haddock, Tamla Kari, Jessica Knappett, Lydia Rose Bewley, Theo James
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Will (Bird), Simon (Thomas), Jay (Buckley) and Neil (Harrison) – those four lovable bumders from E4’s hit high school sitcom – have graduated from the small screen and from Rudge Park Comprehensive. But before these hapless boys become men and either take themselves off to Uni (in Simon and Will’s case) or set up a business alongside Rio Ferdinand selling car stereos to the rich and famous (as perennial bullshitter Jay outrageously suggests), there is still one more rite of passage for them to complete: a lad’s holiday.

It’s almost a cliché, such is the expectation that every big screen spin-off (or holiday special) of any TV soap or sitcom simply must make the most of the larger budget and longer running time by taking its clutch of well known characters out of their familiar suburban comfort zone and giving them a new lease of live abroad: Bigger. Better. Bawdier.... err: brighter?

Series creators Beesley and Morris deliver just that by packing the socially awkward teens off to Party Island central - the throbbing coastal resort of Malia in Crete - for two weeks of sun, sand, sex, booze, girls, sex, girls, sun, booze and… sex. With Jay’s recently deceased grandfather’s inheritance in their pockets (and other less accessible places), it’s time for the self-appointed “Pussay Patrol” to leave their school-day reputations behind them and go on the prowl – pity their hotel is a shithole, then, and mopey Simon is still hung up on on/off sweetheart Carli (Head).

They may now be eighteen, but don’t expect these vulgar oiks to have grown up since their disastrous camping trip at the tail-end of series three. The Inbetweeners Movie is still rammed to the gills with more crass, vapid banter than you can shake your love stick at (well, except Jay, who’s somewhat less than gifted in the trouser department – as we all very visibly discover). There’s also a fair helping of heart to cushion the off-colour but harmless humour as the unlucky-in-love quartet try their best chat-up lines on a group of British girls who, much to their astonishment, don’t run away at the first opportunity. Get in!

The karmic conclusion does strain credulity somewhat – there’s clearly a female equivalent for each member of the group; the likelihood of that happening in real life incredibly slim, while the supporting characters (including Carli and hotel rep James) are all made out to be obnoxious arseholes to make the core four more likeable – but you’ll be laughing too much to care. The broad gags are pleasingly consistent throughout (highlights being the sorry attempt at dancing up to the girls in an empty nightclub and head of sixth Mr Gilbert’s less than poignant farewell speech) as, rather worrying, is the amount of male nudity on show…


In a CR@B Shell: If you’re a sensitive soul then this riotous swear-fest is not for you, but beneath the boasts and bravado, these uncool kids are an endearing bunch and it’ll be a shame if this feature length adventure really is the series’ final send-off – but a least they made the most of a holiday from hell and doggedly refused to go home miserable. Chances are you won’t either.
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The Jovial Network

TV Review: 30 ROCK – SEASON TWO
12 – 15x22mins. Approx. - 2007-2008
Created by: Tina Fey
Executive Producers:Tina Fey, Lorne Michaels, Joann Alfano, Marci Klein, David Miner, Robert Carlock
Starring: Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracey Morgan, Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer, Lonny Ross, Scott Adsit, Judah Friedlander, Keith Powell, Katrina Bowden, Maulik Pancholy, Grizz Chapman, Kevin Brown, John Lutz, Chris Parnell
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There simply aren’t enough hours in a day to watch every television programme you enjoy – even if it is only 20-something minutes an episode. And so you find yourself with a backlog of “must watch” series’ you promise yourself you will catch up with one day, perhaps on DVD. After all, it’s so much more time efficient to speed through a bulk of say, four episodes at a time, instead of waiting a whole week for each new bitesize instalment.

Thank heavens, then, for television service BT Vision (you can mail me the cheque, guys), which offers such a vast back catalogue of programmes that you can easily – and cheaply – catch up with all the shows that got away. It certainly beats shelling out for boxsets which you may only watch once.

And so it is that I have finally revisited the second season of the Tina Fey masterminded, network-based situation comedy 30 Rock, which first made me chuckle when I caught Season One episode “Up All Night” late at night on Channel 5 some three years ago. For those that have yet to watch the show, imagine Aaron Sorkin’s brilliant-but-underrated Studio Sixty at the Sunset Strip mixed with the quirky tomfoolery of Scrubs (at its Zach Braff-starring peak, not in its heinous Med School reinvention), and you’re in the right general studio lot.

Creator Fey – who loosely based the series on her experiences working on popular variety show Saturday Night Live – takes the lead role as live sketch show TGS's head writer Liz Lemon, who must daily contend with a myriad of inflated on set egos and studio interference from network executive Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), whilst trying to bring her vision of light entertainment to the air. Inevitably, things rarely go to plan, but it's hilarious and compulsive viewing all the same.

The offbeat sitcom’s ensemble cast really hit if off well, with most of the humour derived from their larger-than-life character clashes. Tracey Morgan plays Tracey Jordan, an extreme and demanding loose-cannon extension of himself, whilst Ally McBeal’s Jane Krakowski plays Jenna Maroney, the fame-hungry original star of the show whose nose is put out of joint by Tracey’s arrival. Special note must also be made of downtrodden page Kenneth Parcell (Jack McBrayer) whose innocent and undeterred joy at carrying out the most mundane tasks is a delight to behold.

The 15 episode sophomore season (cut from 22 because of the 2007/8 Writer’s Strike) continues in much the same light-hearted vein as the terrific first run, with the opening handful of episodes proving to be the most side-splittingly successful, as the team get back into the swing of production following the summer break and Jenna has to contend with shedding the excess weight she gained whilst continually eating pizza during a theatrical run of “Mystic Pizza: The Movie” she starred in.

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Far and away the highlight of the season for me was the David Schwimmer-starring episode “Greenzo”, which saw the former Friends star become the face of Jack’s latest eco-friendly campaign as the eponymous green-suited mascot (see pic, above), but when the star-power goes to Greenzo’s head and his planet-saving message becomes a little too preachy, it is up to Jack and Liz to nix his out-of-control ego.

Alongside David Schwimmer, Season Two sees a raft of famous faces guest-starring in the high-flying show: Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Buscemi, Carrie Fisher, Will Arnett and Matthew Broderick all plant their tongues firmly in their cheeks to take a swipe at the ridiculous industry in which they work. Unfortunately, as a result of this impressive guest cast, the pack of writers who work alongside Liz to script the fictitious TGS are all too often pushed into the background to afford the ballooning cast breathing space, with Josh Girard (Lonny Ross) in particular handed scarcely more than a couple of lines all season.

Disappointingly, I found that the comedy didn’t quite hit its mark as frequently in the latter half of the season, with episodes focusing on Liz’s hideous ex (Dean Winters) becoming a life-saving idol (“Subway Hero”), station owner Don Geiss (Rip Torn) having a stoke prior to naming his successor (“Succession”), and an unexpected pregnancy scare (“Cooter”) favouring stressy spaz-outs over snarky satire, while Tracey’s endeavour to produce a porn-themed video game (“Succession”) seemed far too implausible, even for juvenile-minded Tracey.

This is not to say that the series became less watchable – I was particularly fond of the humanizing arc which saw Jack secretly date business rival “CC” (Edie Falco) – but ultimately, 30 Rock is most successful when it leaves the drab and worrisome real-life drama to Aaron Sorkin et al and concentrates on the bright and wacky hyper-reality of working in an exaggerated industry of divas and drama queens. Combining the two contrasting styles in such a compressed space of time feels unnaturally bi-polar.


In a CR@B Shell: A second half tendency towards the serious means that 30 Rock Season Two falls just short of the frequent heights of its debut year, but at its wacky best, Liz Lemon’s adventures in TV Land still provide a bright and chucklesome antidote to all the depressing dramas which litter our screens.
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A Lesson in Children's TV History

DVD Review: SAVED BY THE BELL – SEASON ONE
12 – 6 hours, approx. - 1989
Created by: Sam Bobrick
Executive Producer: Peter Engel
Directed by: Don Barnhart (15 episodes), Gary Shimokawa (4 episodes), Dennis Erdman (1 episode)
Starring: Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mario Lopez, Dustin Diamond, Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, Elizabeth Berkley, Lark Voorhies, Ed Alonzo, Dennis Haskins
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It can sometimes be a mistake to revisit your favourite programmes from childhood as an adult, as the years – and your maturity – may not be kind to what you once revered. Thankfully, this is not the case with High School comedy series Saved By The Bell, and I thoroughly enjoyed my reunion with the gang from Bayside School, California. It fact, it was amusing how strong some of my memories of the series were: I could still give a verbatim rendition of the pop-tastic theme song, and some of the episodes were as clear to me as if I had only seen them a week ago, rather than over 15 years.

This is not to say that I am blind to the shows flaws. As likeable as the characters are, they are unashamed, hyperbolic stereotypes: Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) is the cool rebel in permanent detention, Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani-Amber Thiessan) the pretty cheerleader of his dreams, Samuel “Screech” Powers (Dustin Diamond) is the robot-building, ant farm-keeping dweeb, perpetually rejected by socialite fashionista Lisa Turtle (Lark Voorhies). Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley) is the straight-laced, politically-minded feminist at loggerheads with new kid on the block, hunky muscle-man “AC” Slater (Mario Lopez), who also puts a crimp in Zack's style by taking a liking to Kelly. A buddy rivalry is born.

While young-at-heart school principal Richard Belding (Dennis Haskins) is the only member of the Bayside faculty to be a main character, the 25-year-old me can now fully appreciate the humorous ticks and traits indebted to the other put-upon teaching staff: hard of hearing English Lit. professor and Shakespeare enthusiast Miss Simpson (Pamela Kosh), monotonous and dryly sarcastic mathematician Mr Dewey (Patrick Thomas O'Brien), fast-talking, pop quiz-obsessed Mr Testaverde (John Moschitta). Such quirky idiosyncrasies really help to flesh out these reoccurring bit-part players, even if the purpose is generally cheap gags.

Given its youthful and impressionable target market, Saved By The Bell is also guilty of not so much presenting its lessons in teen life, more wrestling you into a locker occupied by its clear-cut morals: pranks never succeed, bullies never prosper, geeks are humans, too (even if they are named Nerdstrom, Poindexter and Geekman – bit of a contradiction, there), and honesty and friendship should be upheld over greed and fame. It's mawkish, predictable stuff.

But if you can withstand the compulsion to groan, this late 80's kid-com is also something of a mould-breaker, at times it is way ahead of its time: Zack frequently breaks the forth wall to deliver narration, exposition or witticisms to the audience at home, occasionally calling a “time out” on the action to alter the continuity by moving people and objects, usually in his favour. As if he wasn't big-headed enough, he also gets to play God!! The pink-framed dream sequences are also impressively surreal – Slater dressed in a giant lizard costume handing out ironic punissssshments to his neglectful friends following the death of his pet reptile Archie, is by far the most trippy – showing the writers were capable of thinking outside the box while delivering regimented plots.

The best episodes – “Beauty and the Screech” and “The Election” – are those with the most emotional gravitas, the least successful - “Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind” and “Screech's Birthday” – are those that stretch credibility to snapping point in order to deliver a message. The pilot episode, “King of the Hill”, detailing the first day of High School and Slater's first day in a new town, is jarringly held back until 16th in the season with only a voice-over sentence from Zack indicating it as a flashback. I am not sure why this anachronism isn't remedied for this new release.

Curiously, this 2010 boxset comprises just 16 of the 20 Season One episodes, spread across 3 discs. Given the show's age, the picture quality is hardly great, and this set – episode synopses and stills gallery aside – is basically vanilla. But what irritates the most is that the Region 1 release from SEVEN years ago contains both Season One (complete) AND Two – and is available from Amazon Marketplace for half the price of this belated Region 2 rip-off.

CR@B Verdict: Blunt, predictable and groan-illicitingly moralistic, yet cheesy enough to still provide a guilty snigger. 20 years on, fashion and trends have changed dramatically, but teens are still teens and Saved By The Bell has seen off all imitators to its crown to still rule the school sitcom genre. Just import the bargain R1 collection instead.
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Not Persuaded To Laugh

Picture the scene: you're at work/the pub/a picnic, nattering away the hours with colleagues/mates/some family whose al fresco luncheon you've just gatecrashed, when conversation inevitably turns to the weeks' TV. Invariably, no matter how clever/entertaining/cool the programme being dissected by this informal focus group is, some arrogant so-and-so will spew forth the hyperbolic claim: "I could write a better show than that". Well, I generally think to myself (when it isn't I who has made said claim), what the 'eck are you doing wasting your days in Morrisons/the Hungry Horse/this fly-infested field in the Lake District, mi laddo? Get back on your laptop and email this hallowed, mould-breaking script to the BBC, post haste!

The reason they are wasting their days in Morrisons/the Hungry Horse/this fly-infested field in the Lake District, 99.9999999999% of the time, is because they HAVEN'T written a hallowed, mould-breaking script at all (in fact, they don't even have a laptop), they were merely bragging to impress the girl in the bakery/the barmaid in the low-cut top/stop the father of the family from calling the police before they've finished their scotch egg. The other 0.00000000001% of the time they were drunk/drunk/drunk.

Tonight I watched the first episode of a new BBC sitcom called The Persuasionists, starring a throng of recognisable comics from recent TV projects (I won't name and shame them, but you can see them in the pic above). I went into the programme with high hopes, not only because of the cast, but because it had been advertised and hyped as one of the big new comedies of the new year. A sure-fire hit, surely?

29 minutes later I switched off the TV, shaking my head and powerless to stop my lips from uttering the cliched phrase: "I could write a better show than that". I wasn't even being immodest, I KNOW I could write a funnier comedy than that. I'd even go as far as to say I HAVE written a funnier comedy than that, but you'll have to take my word for that, for now (it is currently being judged in the Sitcom Mission competition).

The Persuasionists was cluttered with hideous, stereotypical, borderline racist characters who were totally untrue to life, doing stupid, outrageous, unfathomable things just because somebody with a low-brow sense of humour may giggle as a boss throws a bread bin at his failing underling, or a “foreign colleague” uses a giant pencil to seduce random girls by making a lot of poor taste cock jokes. Even the nicest/tamest/most boring character is a lazy no-hoper. How ironic that a comedy based around advertisers attempting to sell absolute tat to gullible saps, made such a fine mess of persuading me to give this shit-com another chance. Clearly some tat stinks worse than a quart of out-of-date cockney cheddar.

My question is this: WHO at the Beeb had the bright idea of not only resurrecting this 2-year-old dud from the annals of TV history (it first piloted in 2007, with Chris “A.J. Rimmer” Barrie on board; he was wise to jump ship), but also thought it worthy of a promotion from digital BBC Three to terrestrial BBC 2*?!! Was it the same genius who turned down the chance to screen a new series of Red Dwarf, but thought Big Top was comedy gold?

To quote the show for the first/last/only time: “Sort it aaaat!!!!!!!!!!” BBC! If I know I can do better than The Persuasionists, then surely YOU know you can do better than The Persuasionists?

Now, where's that scotch egg I was rudely prevented from finishing?


* I could make a biting joke about scum rising – given that the pilot was originally named The Scum Also Rises – but that would involve be going back over my blog and editing in that titbit of information. Can I be arsed? Does the fact you're reading a post script answer your question?