Robert Newman Posted Sat Nov 4 13:02:46 GMT 2000 by 'Anonymous'

Robert Newman has just been on The News Quiz. Fairly amusing


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Radiator Head Child' on Sat Nov 4 14:00:11 GMT 2000:

I know, how weird was that, kept expecting him to say something in a funny voice. he didn't. Thank biscuits


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Unruly Butler' on Sun Nov 5 09:16:51 GMT 2000:

Oh, bum. You mean he isn't dead?
Didn't he used to be "the best-looking comedian in Britain". I could be the best looking comedian in Britain if I spent all day standing next to David Baddiel...


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'MJ' on Sun Nov 5 11:04:27 GMT 2000:

He has a reputation for being a 'smart comic'. Is it deserved, do you think? Seems he does like to concentrate on international affairs a little more than typical Jongleurs comics.


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Ewar Woowar on Sun Nov 5 11:39:53 GMT 2000:

He did a report on the Seattle anti-capitalist riots for Channel 4 news.

Wasn't very funny...


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Anonymous' on Sun Nov 5 14:42:45 GMT 2000:

He's not all that different from before really,but for smug, aren't-I-cool references to Ride and The Smiths substitute smug, aren't-I-cool references to Eric Hobsbawm.....


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Anonymous' on Sun Nov 5 15:08:33 GMT 2000:

Does this mean that Frank Skinner is now the best-looking comedian in Britain?


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Jake' on Sun Nov 5 22:31:33 GMT 2000:

There's a very self important, to my mind, website for him.
http://www.robertnewmancorp.fsnet.co.uk/


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Jake Thingy' on Sun Nov 5 23:56:23 GMT 2000:

Once on Loose Ends, just after his first novel came out, Newman said, "I don't know whether I want to be Leavis or Butthead."

It was a real effort not to eat the radio, or smash it at any rate.


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Janet' on Mon Nov 6 02:14:34 GMT 2000:

>He did a report on the Seattle anti-capitalist riots for Channel 4 news.
>
>Wasn't very funny...

We had a World Economic Forum in Melbourne in September - it was a bonanza for comics over here, especially for my friend Toby Sullivan who specialises in economics-based stand-up. He took the side of the capitalists. Damned funny, and frighteningly convincing.
He recently did a show during Melbourne Fringe on Price Theory. It was some of the smartest comedy I've ever seen, and if I learned nothing else I now know about price bubbles (especially in relation to 18th century Holland).


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Anonymous' on Mon Nov 6 10:47:50 GMT 2000:

>Didn't he used to be "the best-looking comedian in Britain". I could be the best looking comedian in Britain if I spent all day standing next to David Baddiel...

>>Does this mean that Frank Skinner is now the best-looking comedian in Britain?

No, it means David Baddiel is.


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Jeanette' on Mon Nov 6 20:52:01 GMT 2000:

>Does this mean that Frank Skinner is now the best-looking comedian in Britain?

No, just the best singer...



Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Ewar Woowar on Mon Nov 6 23:14:23 GMT 2000:

God, Charlotte Church is scary. Nobody is that self-possessed at 14!?!


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By TJ on Mon Nov 6 23:25:42 GMT 2000:

Eh???

I thought this thread was about Rob "Where Are They Now?" Newman...


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Squidy' on Tue Nov 7 01:19:22 GMT 2000:

Still, seeing Joan Collins dressed as a Thunderbirds puppet with a cat on her head made my night.


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Unruly Butler' on Tue Nov 7 01:25:12 GMT 2000:

Janet - just a tangential point. Is anything funnier than comedy from the unexpected standpoint of the big fat capitalist bastard? In response to your earlier posting I just got reminded of P.J. O'Rourke. After years of unquestioningly left-wing comedy there's some filthy pleasure in reading / listening to a THINKING right winger. Well he makes me laugh.


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Jon' on Tue Nov 7 08:43:06 GMT 2000:

I'm not particularly left-wing myself, but I don't reckon O'Rourke is much cop. Very obvious, very cheap, just playing for the gallery like the shittiest stand-up trying to be 'controversial' rather than funny, yet never having the nerve to really push over the playground boundary. He's a git, in other words.


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'janet' on Tue Nov 7 13:08:58 GMT 2000:

>Janet - just a tangential point. Is anything funnier than comedy from the unexpected standpoint of the big fat capitalist bastard? In response to your earlier posting I just got reminded of P.J. O'Rourke. After years of unquestioningly left-wing comedy there's some filthy pleasure in reading / listening to a THINKING right winger. Well he makes me laugh.

Haven't read/seen enough PJ to make an informed comment on his stuff, but I must agree that such an unexpected viewpoint IS a filthy pleasure. Half the audience had been down at the protests that very day, and thus the comic was incredibly brave and incredibly clever to get away with it.
Also good to see my message board alive with dense, political debate.


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Dr. Hackenbush on Tue Nov 7 18:13:23 GMT 2000:

REad PJ O'Rourke's books. Hardly "playing to the gallery" - better researched than most of the Mark Thomas Product, for example. He makes a lot of good points although I don't agree with his principles.
He's also a lot funnier than Mark Thomas ever was and Michael Moore has become. It seems like left-wing comedians start off funny and eventually become news reporters. Not saying that's a bad thing, just an observation.


Subject: Re: Robert Newman [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Unruly Butler' on Tue Nov 7 19:25:48 GMT 2000:

Yeah. And he did the only funny Lads' Humour book years before Loaded (The Bachelor Home Companion) without being offensively sexist, just very funny.


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