Bringing you slightly more upto date, I'd like to talk to you about an early Channel 4 comedy called 'Nightingales'
On the face of it, it should be just another situation comedy. 3 security guards on permanent night shifts in an office tower block. Carter dreams of bettering himself, Bell is a little on the 'stupid' side, and Sarge going through the motions as he's close to retirement. Cue 13 episodes of repetitive jokes about 'loneliness', 'boredom' and 'lack of females'....
....well no actually, nothing could be further from the truth.
Written by Paul Makin (who also wrote Goodnight Sweetheart) you really would have expected a light-hearted comedy, but Nightingales summed up exactly what made Channel 4 so good in it's formative years. It was surreal, over the top and was the very definition of 'quirky'.
Take episode one for instance. Any new comedy usually spends the first episode setting up all the characters and the premise for the show, so we can enjoy future episodes to the full. The first episode of Nightingales?....A new recruit called Eric turns out to be a werewolf, and Sarge kills the company inspector with a hammer. Get the idea? In future episodes they are joined by another co-worker called Terry Oblong (who is actually a gorilla), but he eventually leaves for a new job at Heathrow Eric the werewolf returns to perform open-heart surgery on Sarge, Carter and Bell begin quoting Shakespeare as they are caught up in a re-make of King Lear, All three of them turn out to be the illegitimate father of the same thief, Bell undergoes psychiatric therapy because he raped a horse, Carter and Bell compete for a broken egg cup by building a dry-stone wall and writing a play and Harold Pinter (along with the Pope) attend a carol concert on the top floor......following any of this yet?
The script is wonderful. You never quite know where it is going next, something that is sadly lacking in most comedies. The three main actors were well cast. Robert Lyndsey plays Carter (whilst still be famous for 'Citizen Smith' and before he sold his soul to the devil to make 'My Family'). David Threlfall before he became the father of the Shameless family and James Ellis (when anyone aged over 50 sees him, they instantly start whistling the theme from 'Z Cars').
This is definitely a thumbs up for me. It's such a shame it didn't get the recognition is deserved and get seen by a wider audience, but then again, if it had appeared on ITV or BBC I can guess the whole thing would have been washed out and died a death. There isn't a dull episode at all, every single one has it's merits and classic moments.
p.s. Listen out for a funky version of 'Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square' as the theme tune, sung by Lyndsey himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment