I lost the will to live about half way through....what the hell was it all about? I completely agree with you, chet. It was like discovering that Mike Leigh was going to remake Nuts in May with Lenny Henry and Dawn French as Keith and Candis.
All the extra characters were 'strange' when the joy of the ten minute episodes was that everything was so normal. The scene where Marions Dad had a word with Keith about getting a job ruined the whole idea that keith was just a hard done by opptimist - it seemed to suggest that he was partly to blame. And how come they just shot upstairs for a shag after the speech - I imagined a big party that allowed the couple to slip away unnoticed.
It wasn't 'arty', because half the camera angles didn't make sense, it wasn't emotional because it just made Keith look like a nob (which the ten min. episodes didn't) and it wasn't funny. At all.
Please someone tell me that It was all a horrible dream..........

I thought it was pretty boring and we could have done without a lot of the self indulgent camera work.
I am getting fed up with this comedy that is so real that it is no longer comedy.
I think the people who popularised this kind of thing (Tap and Coogan) still put in jokes and the characters will still "comedy" to some extent.
I am yearning for some overacting and over the top comedy (so I suppose it's lucky I'm writing another series of TGP)

I haven't really seen Marion and Geoff,(maybe that would ahve helped) but although Brydon is a good actor I didn't enjoy this show at all.

Now everyone sees why Marion & Geoff was in 5 minute segments.

I'm glad none of you lot seemed to like it. I caught the last 20 minutes of it through an alcoholic daze and thought it was just me that couldn't find the jokes.

At the moment the only thing that makes me laugh on terrestrial telly is Small Potatoes.

Some good acting and some good writing, but relatively poor in general.
The first 'kid with camera' bit was so fucking annoying that I was incensed to the point of fridge gazing. Upon returning to the lounge with a Dairylea triangle, I found we were to be treated to more, and yet more, and still more of these 'kid with camera' scenes.
They were occasionally important to the story (such as seeing the bedroom door close behind Coogan), but mainly just irritating.
Dear Herring, why don't you get some good actors like Brydon in TGP?
He could do so much more with the words than those buffoons you currently employ.
Also, you should have a gangster who controls the fruit machines in the area. It's big business these days. Call him 'Fruity Dave' and make him a suppressed queer like Al Murray's character. They could exchange questionable glances every few weeks.
You can use that.
No, go on, I don't mind.

Someone inform the media - their reviews were wrong.

Let's just send out a blanket press release saying that let's face it the reviews usually are.
Did you like it then Mike?

It wasn't that funny, but I enjoyed it to start with. I liked the opening where he beckons the usually car-bound camera into the house. (Again, the usual question with these quasi-docusoaps - who the hell is working that camera? It's clearly not just a style of filming since he talks to the cameraperson. Very odd.) I thought Marion's relatives were funny. Towards the end I found the multiple cameras and spacesuited kids got a bit annoying and a lot of it didn't make sense - ie Geoff and Marion's ludicrous behaviour as hanktherapper pointed out.
If you pretended it was an experimental comedy drama rather than a comedy, it wasn't bad. Not as good as Marion and Geoff though.

i missed this, and most of marion and geoff. i miss most things these days, cos im always in the pub. whats TGP?

>Did you like it then Mike?

I've yet to see it, but I trust SOTCAA readers over journalists. When I'm reunited with my VCR, I shall take a look.

from what i remember of marion and geoff there was a bit where keith went into detail about how he put kitchen roll on his arm after he burnt it on the bbq and spent ages trying to pick it off, is it just me or did they miss that bit entirely in a small summer party?

It is inconsistent with lots of bits in the original - I'm sure he says "I don't see it so much as losing a wife as gaining a friend - if she'd never run off with Geoff, I'd never have met him" or something. But clearly he knows Geoff long before the affair in 'ASSP'.

Who cares though, as long as it's funny. Which it wasn't that much, but still.

I hope they drop Marion and Geoff and do another character. The original M+G was great but I think trying to spin it into a franchise would spoil it.

>from what i remember of marion and geoff there was a bit where keith went into detail about how he put kitchen roll on his arm after he burnt it on the bbq and spent ages trying to pick it off, is it just me or did they miss that bit entirely in a small summer party?

I thought it was really DULL. I was hoping 'angry Mummy' Marion was going to stab someone, at least just to relieve the boredom. There weren't any locations for me to spot!

I didn't find it appalling, luckily. If only they hadn't kept using music... The most charming scene was the strange man who didn't talk who's in everything throwing the camera back and forth with the small boy. Not a pointless exercise and a nice way to put an end to it all, then again I only watched it because I heard Brydon was Welsh.

Case in point, it was sad to find out that someone was in the car with Keith, but equally good to discover he wasn't a taxi driver as I had hitherto believed...

>
>Case in point, it was sad to find out that someone was in the car with Keith, but equally good to discover he wasn't a taxi >driver as I had hitherto believed...

What???

I wanted to like it more than I did. It wasn't funny enough to be comedy and not moving enough to be drama, it just kind of sat uneasily in the middle. What was the point of that bit when Geoff got stung in the eye by a wasp? Steve Coogan put no effort into his guest appearance at all, just standing around mumbling his lines as he was ashamed to be there. Having the scene filmed by a camera crew and a camcorder just seems silly and overcomplicated.

Oh dear, that's kind of negative isn't it? I did like the line "I will not permit anarchy in my garden! Please form a line by the barbecue where I will dispense the meats." But the best I can say about it really.

I couldn't help thinking this would have been funnier as an episode of Fawlty Tower's, with John Cleese stomping around shouting "Right! I say when we start the barbecue..."