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'Gavin and Stacey' just isn't funny

12/7/2009

9 Comments

 
   'Gavin and Stacey' isn't funny. For a romcom , it has lost its 'rom' and has very little 'com'. As a sitcom , it doesn't even approach anything by Galton and Simpson.

   I've tried to like it ever since my son recommended it. He directed me towards  'The Thick of It' and I've found that hilarious at times, though he has been suspicious of 'Outnumbered', which is one of my favourites, with its usually interesting storylines, witty script and seemingly spontaneous exchanges between adults and kids ( in fact, a lot are improvised).

   I ought to like 'Gavin and Stacey': I rate Rob Brydon highly as a stand-up and in quiz shows ; it's partly set in Barry where I used to live and on the Island, where I worked. Above all, it's a Welsh comedy which has actually crossed the border ( like the central romance) to ensure popular success.

   Yet, the last episode with that appalling scene with the Welsh-speaking woman on the caravan site only vindicated my opinions further. It was truly insulting, prejudiced and also completely beyond credulity.The woman shouted out - 'Beth ydych chi'n meddwl chi'n wneud?' and then insisted it was her parking spot. To which Bryn answered ' Rdyw i'n hoffi coffi', obviously his only phrase of Welsh. What Welsh-speaker would come out shouting at English-speakers in such a way? It was absurd for all the wrong reasons.  To make matters worse, when Gavin and his family arrive at the site later and he talks too loud, Bryn tells him to be quiet or the 'Welshies'
might hear an Englishman and want to lynch him. In the credits, this Welsh-speaker is defined as 'Welsh nationalist'.

   All this is pandering to the English visitors' stereotypical view of Welsh-speakers i.e. they are being offensive in the native tongue just by using it and they are anti-English to the point of racism and are basically akin to the KKK! Does Ruth Jones have to ingratiate herself so much to English audiences in order to get a BAFTA or even an OBE?

   Apart from these dreadful scenes, 'Gavin and Stacey' has little going for it. Its plots are non-existent, its script rarely witty and its catchphrases repeated far too often. Only the acting raises it above the many failed sitcoms produced in Wales over the years. Not since 'Ryan a Ronnie'......

   Though we now have first class stand-ups like Rhod Gilbert and Rob Brydon, I really believe that we should look elsewhere for our comic talent.
The lyrics of the Super Furry Animals can be weirdly hilarious and the four funniest poets Mike Church, Peter Read, Peter Finch and Ifor Thomas are up there with those stand-ups. It's just a shame that poetry hasn't got its own programme on BBC Wales to prove it.

   When I booked Ifor Thomas to read at my school in Merthyr in the 90's, it was his first ever gig at a school. They'd studied some of his work, including the 'cling-film classics'. In those days he was a full-blown performance poet, using all the props. I warned him not to go over the top, as he prepared for an audience which included all of Year 11, including one Smiffy (no relation) a fan of his, who also happened to be a National Front following Animal Rights obsessive.

   Ifor soon got into his usual routine, tearing up Mills and Boons and taping them to a chair only to chainsaw it in half ( imagine getting that through Health and Safety nowadays?). Later, he launched into 'I like my clingfilm tight' and Smiffy was chosen to wrap Ifor in clingfilm as he recited. I thought he was going to pass out , as Smiffy wrapped it round his mouth and Ifor frantically tore it off!

   Afterwards, Smiffy must've made a comment, because Ifor made out to throttle him and muttered the words 'You bastard!' The new Head of Upper School was there by now and looked ready to close down the whole proceedings. But Ifor carried on  and the kids loved it, especially the finale
when he did 'Life is like a toilet roll' and Year 11, in tiered banks, were instructed to fling bog rolls at each other. The Deputy's face was something like Ifor's chainsaw had been earlier.

   Welsh literature has produced many fine comic writers, including Gwyn Thomas, Alun Richards and Dylan Thomas (of the short stories), not to mention the wryness of Dannie Abse in both prose and poetry. However, this poem was influenced by Chaucer, who relished innuendo -

 
Wooing the farmer's
widow


My friend contemplates chat-up lines

to woo the farmer’s widow.

 

‘Can I milk your cows?’

‘May I shave your sheep?’

He does say ‘shave’ not ‘shear’!

 

Better still – ‘Can I pick

the ripe cherries from your branches?’

‘Can we ride together,

or merely sit astride a gate?’

 

‘Can I examine your wheat

to see if it’s ready for harvesting?

‘Perhaps I can gather the eggs

from your cosy coop?’

 

‘Can I see the blossom

on your apple orchards?

‘Is it possible that we

could muck out together ?’

is his grimiest opening yet.

 

What about – ‘Do you keep a cockerel?’

I pertinently suggest.

 

‘No!’ he dismisses me,

‘I don’t want to be obvious!’


9 Comments
Peter Finch link
12/7/2009 12:58:21 am

Thanks for the mention, Mike. Ifor chainsawed books, I ripped up Mills & Boon. The passage of time makes it all blur.

Reply
Ifor
12/7/2009 04:17:42 am

Mike
Brilliant blog - predicitive texting is the way I'm afraid, I'm almost up to two thumb speed.
What a gig that was! I remember stepping back at the end, chainsaw in hand, wearing shredded cling film, contemplating a mound of chainsawed books scattered around a sawed chair, as the kids threw bog roll back and fore. (It was all based on a Mallarme quote ma chair est triste...) and thinking - THIS is what literature is all about. Pete's right about the Mill and Boone unless i had one by mistake - I used to get bags of unsold second hand books from the market.

Reply
Bernie Matthews
12/14/2009 07:21:02 am

To suggest that they were racist in making jokes about the Welsh language is absurd. Isn't the language a joke by definition? Surely no-one can possibly regard that custard-gargling as a pleasant sound?

Reply
sarah
12/26/2009 09:23:58 am

Saying that gavin and stacey has little going for it is quite harsh besides 7million tuning in for the xmas special can't be wrong can they??

Reply
Mickey Mouse
12/29/2009 07:09:29 am

Mike, you are a cock!

Reply
Alex Payne
1/9/2010 08:06:31 am

It should be all taken in a light hearted manner. Gavin and Stacey is neither political nor serious and never aimed to be so, it is just a bit of self depreciating, light-hearted humour. The programme is in no way racist against the Welsh, and does not seek to pander to English stereotypes about the Welsh any more so than pandering to the stereotype that all English people are slightly chavy and speak with an Essex accent. It should be taken in the manner it was intended. We should be allowed to laugh at ourselves and it's exactly that which makes Gavin and Stacey so funny.

Reply
me
3/7/2010 07:22:56 am

pretentious idiot.

Reply
carrikp
5/10/2010 11:24:19 am

I agree - Gavin and Stacey is not funny. Vastly over-rated and certainly won't last.

Reply
Patrick White
4/23/2017 08:05:25 pm

Oh, Mike. You are so right.

I finally got the box set, and this is one of the nastiest, unfunniest and ugliest things I have ever seen on television.

I hope James Corden has a coronary soon. And Ruth Jones.

Reply



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