It's been a while since I've done a Chortle headlines roundup. I used to do them more regularly, then I did a couple in a row where it was heavy on the post-documentary Russell Brand headlines, and that was so depressing that I cut them out for a while. Let's do a new one. I'll make this one shorter.
Oh for the love of God, Chortle. Please do not make me look at weeks of Ricky Gervais headlines in the leadup to/aftermath of the video release of Armageddon. He could not possibly need the publicity less, for so many reasons. Obviously you shouldn't be a cunt. Everyone who's going to think that already thinks it, everyone else isn't going to change, don't make us fucking read about it.
This looks like a headline that would appear on some sort of parody show. You know, if the BBC hadn't cancelled all its news/topical parody shows in the name of the exact balance mandate that I assume is the subject of that article, though I don't actually know, I'm not clicking on that.
You are doing New Year's Treat wrong, guys. It's supposed to be on New Year's and it's also supposed to have people who are famous (sorry, I'm sure it'll be fun and the people they've cast will be fine, I'm just still mildly annoyed that this year was their one chance to cast John Oliver while he was striking, the stars aligned with him having recently worked with Alex on the Horne Section show, it's gone forever now).
If anyone has the opportunity to see Pierre Novellie's Why Are You Laughing when he tours it next year, I cannot recommend it highly enough. I'm now wishing I had recommended other things less highly in the past, so I could lend more weight to this one. It's amazingly funny, and amazingly well written. It should... I mean, I was thinking it should be a strong contender for the best show (of Edinburgh 2023) award until I heard Ahir Shah's show, and I do now think they made the right choice in giving it to Ahir Shah. But it was the second best Edinburgh 2023 show, of the 40-ish I've heard. It should at least have been nominated.
Can I say something mildly sacrilegious? I'm not sure about this. I am obviously a devotee of Sam Campbell, and my view of Lucy Beaumont has wavered slightly as I've come to realize just how much she's maybe not kidding most of the time, but I do find her very funny. I just think... the proverbial straight man in a comedy group exists for a reason, you know? I don't know how well it'll work to put those two together without someone else to balance it out, they won't have anything to play off. It feels a bit too heavy on Avalan throwing together two fan favoruites from a popular TV show, more than thinking about what pairings would actually work well together. Especially since there doesn't seem to be a planned format or anything. I also don't really think they're as similar as people have suggested.
Having said that, obviously I'm going to listen to this, and I can absolutely picture a scenario in which I finish the first episode and write a glowing post about how I've been proven wildly wrong and concede that I should never have doubted their brilliance. I hope it happens that way.
I know I'm mildly annoyed at him right now, but this show is very good and people should see it if they can. One of my favourite things out of all he's ever done. He did a little preview of bits he's added to it on the latest Bugle episode, and I enjoyed that a lot.
Oh fuck off. No, come on, fuck off. You are not going to force me to engage with whatever the fuck VR is by having Mae Martin do it. It won't work.
...Having said that, is there a way to take a VR set and turn it into nice normal 2D video so I can watch the Mae Martin set? I have no idea if that's possible and I refuse to Google it, no one needs to encourage Mark Zuckerburg. But obviously I want to see what Mae Martin's doing.
I quite enjoyed this little clip. I've never been to Scotland, but this is exactly how I imagine the Edinburgh Festival, I'm currently planning a probably-actually-for-real-this-time trip for Edinburgh 2024, and I will be wildly disappointed if the festival isn't exactly like this.
Weirdly, there was nothing on the Chortle front page about Benjamin Zephaniah dying. He wasn't a comedian or anything, but he had connections to British comedy. I can't lie and say I was incredibly familiar with his work, but I really liked the poems of his that I'd heard and read (I did seek a few out and read them after seeing him on TV, as I quite liked him), and thought he came across very well every time I saw or heard him. And, obviously, 65 is too young and that would be a tragedy even if he weren't a very talented poet.
6 notes
·
View notes