twat

alternatively, that was fucking brilliant. discuss.

Of course it's crap! It wouldn't be hip and trendy to rush to your PC 2 mins after it finishes to declare otherwise!

I thought it was great. A bit like Down Your Ear, but with pictures.

Well, not much like it.

Did anyone recognise others in the twat book?

I quite liked it. A couple of pretentious things and an over reliance of childish swearwords (using the line '"We're all twats!" as a punchline) and some puchlines I could spot three weeks ago, but it had a few good giggles in it.

But, oddly, thinking about it now, I can't remember any of it.

Chldish swearwords - i.e. 'jobbies' - more of this please (with descretion).

the whole pie anecdote/mechanic cuecards thing slipped your mind? more goldfish than squid...

sorry, tht was cheap. i'm quite nice really. can i have your pie?

I missed it, but the daft git I am.

Is there a repeat coming soon, just so I can make my own mind up about it?

The funny bits i can remember: the opening "Paper house"; the running away "like Seb Coe" to avoid kicking a football back; the many repeats of the word "twat"; the pie dinner party; the mention of Peter Andre; the use of the word "jobbies"; the traffic warden running away.

The not so funny bits: the football talk in pubs, done by The Fast Show fer christ's sake.

yup, a success, and no mistake.

Better than the trailers made out, I thought. The trailer with the old man seemed a bit 'Look! Joke interviews with an old person!' aimed at the Dom Joly lovers.

Well, the "Derby County" line was quite funny. And "15 bald men fighting over a honeycomb"... me likee. But maybe he should just have put it in his column instead - very funny writer guy, but never quite at ease as a performer, I always think. Always? Well, sometimes.

we used to log on to letsbuyit.com to buy gas masks and tripe - that made me piss myself laughing.

Very enjoyable. Nice to see Iannucci dispel the myth raised around him as the shadowy all-producing, all-writing puppeteer. Besides his anchoring of Armistice, I think this is his first central role in a series. His performance was enticing; a cross between Paul McGann and Woody Allen on magic mushrooms.

In interviews Iannucci has been describing the show as a mixture of 'weirdness' (ooh .. that'll be the dark stuff then) and dealing with his personal phobias. For all the Corpses' condescending criticism, I agree with them about the needless black humour so evident in recent shows. The word 'weirdness' immediately brings this to mind. What's more, by intending to assume a personna ridden with phobias, fears and misconceptions, Iannucci threatened to become a hapless sitcom character - the bastard lovechild of Mr Bean and Lee Evans if you will.

However, neither of these fears were proved true. He carefully avoided drawing our sympathy as the witless protagonist with a hefty dose of surrealism (not simply dark monged tunes and little girls saying 'fuck'), mixed with a Mamet inspired sense of miscommunication. At times this didn't work of course; the cultured football supporter making the joke about foreign cuisine for example - simply a case of look at him, look how different he is. Don't you understand? HE'S TRYING TO FIT IN! The dinner party sketch too; hardly a step above Mark Williams in the Fast Show getting his coat.

There were elements of carelessness in the episode. The words of contempt; knobtree, cockwitch etc, was weak Morris, and echoed the equally passive wordplay in the BES when we were gifted an a array of MorrisSpeak paedophile slang. It smacks a little of laziness and panders to the 15 yr old late night audience. But these are not so much faults as they are glitches; lapses we must be confident are remedied in later episodes - it is the only the first show, after all.

Personally, I found many a laugh. The steak pies, the "please help me, help, please" to the mechanic. The ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome joke was particularly excellent. Moreover, I think the concept of the show, its structure, timing and tone were all well judged. There was a strong sense of character and continuity running through what is essentially a sketch show. I'd heartily disagree should the Corpses embark on a grisly dissection of the show a la IAP - there was no conflict between the style and the content.

Looking forward to the rest of the series.

>Very funny writer guy, but never quite at ease as a performer, I always think. Always? Well, sometimes.

I think that's part of his appeal.
I really liked the show. Although the IRA bit was a tad predictable, the rest was, by and large, classic Ianucci.
The word twat is indeed a wondrous thing.

Oh dear.
After Labia's critique, my opinion sounds very 'Ceefax'.
See p.595 to see what I mean.

Although the football/dinner party sketches were slightly Fast-Show-esque, I think they were carried out with a good deal more aplomb than they would have been by Wililams, Whitehouse and Weir. AI's wordplay can be truly fantastic at times. Some of the sketches would have been just as funny written down as they were acted out. I'm not sure if the same could be said about the Fast Show.

Yes, there were quite a few laughs in there and I like the uncoolness of it. The world seemed an indifferent and banal place - I liked the fact that it lacked style. It didn't pound pace down your throat.

What the blazes am I on about? Forgive me, I'm still suffering from this weird Edinburgh Leg Flu - legs and throat really hurt, all else fine. My doctor says I should avoid pace being pounded down my throat so I thank you Armando.

>What the blazes am I on about? Forgive me, I'm still suffering from this weird Edinburgh Leg Flu - legs and throat really hurt, all else fine. My doctor says I should avoid pace being pounded down my throat so I thank you Armando.

All the more for Gareth Hale.

I like Armando Iannucci and his new shows - but he IS Alexie Sayle without the mod suit though... isn't he? Similar style. Similar face. What's going onnnn?

>
>>the IRA bit was a tad predictable, the rest was, by and large, classic Ianucci.
>The word twat is indeed a wondrous thing.

Could someone please tell me what the ira bit involved? I would be most grateful

Merci!