Nathan Barley: most cringe-worthy "comedy" ever? (boxed spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

Has anyone here seen this UK TV series [del]and continued to love life[/del]?

In a fit of masochism, I watched all six episodes on YouTube over the weekend and, I just have to say, holy shit. I thought “The Office” was hard to take, with all the cringing and writhing in embarrassment it inflicted on me. This far, far surpassed “The Office” by leagues. There were moments when I honestly had to get up and walk away from my computer for a bit before girding my loins and finishing an episode. The end of episode one, during and after Dan’s job interview, was particularly hard to watch. Any scene with Nathan and Claire, as well. (I thought it was a smart choice, not to give Claire an entirely sympathetic character, thereby making the audience alienated from everyone. Even Dan, maybe even especially Dan, since it was his own doing that kept him trapped where he was.)

And yet, it was really good. It was really well done, and frighteningly real. Julian Barratt’s portrayal of Dan’s absolute, soul-crushing misanthropy and self-loathing was itself sheer brilliance. (Although as soon as episode six ended, I had to go watch Barratt smile and laugh and groove to some hot jazz in “The Mighty Boosh” to get the bitter taste out of my mouth.)

And speaking of episode six, Dan didn’t…actually…die, did he?! I mean, it would make sense and provide the show with the blackest of black endings, which is what it seemed to want, but…my God. That ending would never fly in the States, yo.

I read this blog review and was shaken to the core:

Maybe I’m a lightweight, but I can’t conceive of a comedy spectrum in which “Nathan Barley” is on the “fairly tame” end. I say again, holy shit.

That review does a great job at illuminating what it was that made the show so sharp, though. Here is the first part of the first episode, if anyone is interested in seeing this creation for themselves.

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I watched it - well most of it - and it did make me shudder a little, but I did like it very much. My big problem I had was the disconnect between Morris’s version of Nathan and the one I had in my head from reading tvgohome. (Which, if you haven’t come across, by the way, I thoroughly recommend if things like Chris Morris’s work appeal to you at all. www.tvgohome.com - shame they haven’t updated it for so many years, and it does tend to work best with people who grew up in the UK in the 1970s). (broke the link just in case, it’s aguably NSFW)

It seemed very parochial to me - it’s interesting that they’d even sell it outside the UK. But then, I thought the same of The Office but both versions UK and US seem to have done well, so what do I know?

Of Chris Morris’s stuff generally, I thought the Day Today was fabulous and still has me in stiches, but I’m not sure some of his stuff has aged very well. I saw the paedophile special recently for the first time since it was originally broadcast and my reaction this time around was quite different. I didn’t find it so funny and I found some bits quite hard to watch. I shall always treasure the memory of Phil Collins declaring ‘I’m talking nonce-sense’, though.

3

I saw it and thoroughly enjoyed it - funnier, say, than ‘Extras’ in my mind. And I found I could empathise with Dan, but possibly because I am generally a jaded and miserable bastard, constantly tormented by the cheap facades erected by people in everyday life. Or I do a good impression :wink: .

The episode with the young model was my favourite - what was the name of that song they recorded again?

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An appallingly bad show which has lost Morris a load of fans… Its a real pity, because he’s doing some great stuff (The Day Today, On the Hour, Brasseye, Blue Jam/Jam) and Charlie Brooker too (tvgohome, unnovations, screen wipe) but they turned out a substandard “comedy” about a hackneyed subject five years too late…

Find all the rest of the things they’ve worked on, but avoid that. Apart from acting, Morris hasn’t really done much since…

5

I liked it and regularly play ‘Cock, Muff, Bumhole’ tournaments.
When Claire asks Nathan not to tell anyone they shared a bed, and he immediately says to his flatmate;
‘Fucked her in the arse. Kicked down the brown door and painted it white on the way out’. I laughed a lot.
Brooker and Morris put a lot of spleen into this show and while it clearly isn’t to all tastes, I and many people I know who watched it, liked it. I dont know about losing lots of fans.

Smid - what’s the reason for the '…'s?

Peace and Fucking yeah?

MiM

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Well Jackson!

7

“Bad to Have a Bad Uncle”? Please don’t make me watch it again to find out for sure!

The thing with Dan, though, was that it was his own fault for being so wretchedly miserable, and that kept me from sympathizing with him. (Though not from empathizing – who doesn’t feel like the world is full of idiots?) He didn’t have to go to that party and dress like the Preacher, or participate in cock-muff-bumhole, or do any of what he despised. I could see that he was slowly going mad and his own self-hatred was keeping him there, but still. Dan, you fool.

So he’s really dead then, yeah? Man.

I thought it was interesting that, where “The Office” interspersed laugh-from-embarrassment moments with laugh-from-joy moments, this was unrelenting laugh-from-embarrassment. (At least for me.) I don’t think there has been an American sitcom (if this counts as a sitcom) that has dared to do that, except unintentionally (“Everybody Loves Raymond”? Ugh.).
I’ll check out tvgohome. When I’m feeling secure. :slight_smile:

8

I actually watched this. Yes it’s not up there with The Day Today (or Brass Eye) but it’s sure funnier than the IT crowd or Four Lions.

And honestly if anything it was far-fetched in its day but pretty terrifying accurate onow… The bibble types as Broker would put it have produced a lot darker form of idiocy than envisaged here (of which Black Mirror was a realisation I suppose).

9

Jam is what I would think of as being further to the other end of that spectrum.