Post by Teddy Bear on Apr 27, 2013 19:43:56 GMT
Haven't seen it myself, and judging by the criticisms below, nor am I likely to. I can see it would tick all the BBC boxes though, which is why it would never be creative or funny,
Ben Elton's new sitcom is 'political correctness gone bad'
Ben Elton's exhaustingly unfunny new sitcom, The Wright Way, feels like the work of a socialist Richard Littlejohn, says Michael Deacon.
Some who start out on the Left stay defiantly where they are; others, as they age, drift grumbling to the Right. Ben Elton, 54 next month, has managed something unique. He’s done both.
Or so it seems, judging by his new sitcom, The Wright Way (Tuesday, BBC One). It’s a fist-shaking farce about Elf ’n’ Safety, pointless bureaucracy and council pen-pushers – yet at the same time it features lesbian lovers, mocks the posh and pays obeisance to the NHS. It feels like the work of a socialist Richard Littlejohn, or a reactionary Polly Toynbee.
The Wright Way stars David Haig as a health and safety official called Gerald Wright (yes, the old surname-pun-in-the-title trick – you’re chuckling already). Fussy, stuffy and irritable, Gerald is meant to be annoying, but actually the main reason he’s annoying isn’t his fussiness or his stuffiness or his irritability. It’s the fact that, whatever the circumstances, he appears to be reciting a Ben Elton stand-up routine.
Here he is, complaining about an electric hand-dryer. “I’d get more hot air flow if I stood behind a flatulent hamster!” Splutteringly irate observational humour about mundane inconvenience, with gobbets of crudity tossed in (middle-aged men’s hairy ears look “a bit pubic”): Gerald speaks fluent Eltonese. A divorcee in suburban Essex, Gerald lives with his daughter and her lesbian lover. The lesbian lover has a posh voice and is therefore, naturally, both selfish and dim.
“Tax is evil!” she honks. “Actually,” explains Gerald’s daughter, with a look of teacherly superiority, “tax pays for the NHS, Vic.” Lil bidda politics, laze an’ gennelmen. She must have picked up Eltonese from her father.
For the most part The Wright Way is creakily old-fashioned: the parping knockabout brass of the theme tune, the jokes about women taking a long time in the bathroom, the desperate innuendo (“I’ve discovered a rogue erection!”blurts Gerald. He’s referring to a speed bump.) But Elton is at pains to show us he’s in touch with the modern world. The posh tax-hater describes a quarrel as “so a YouTube moment”. Gerald celebrates a small victory by hooting, “Stick that on your iPod and shuffle it!”
Ben Elton is the man who rescued Blackadder. For that he deserves eternal gratitude. But not The Wright Way. Formulaic, hackneyed, exhaustingly unfunny… It’s political correctness gone bad.
Ben Elton's exhaustingly unfunny new sitcom, The Wright Way, feels like the work of a socialist Richard Littlejohn, says Michael Deacon.
Some who start out on the Left stay defiantly where they are; others, as they age, drift grumbling to the Right. Ben Elton, 54 next month, has managed something unique. He’s done both.
Or so it seems, judging by his new sitcom, The Wright Way (Tuesday, BBC One). It’s a fist-shaking farce about Elf ’n’ Safety, pointless bureaucracy and council pen-pushers – yet at the same time it features lesbian lovers, mocks the posh and pays obeisance to the NHS. It feels like the work of a socialist Richard Littlejohn, or a reactionary Polly Toynbee.
The Wright Way stars David Haig as a health and safety official called Gerald Wright (yes, the old surname-pun-in-the-title trick – you’re chuckling already). Fussy, stuffy and irritable, Gerald is meant to be annoying, but actually the main reason he’s annoying isn’t his fussiness or his stuffiness or his irritability. It’s the fact that, whatever the circumstances, he appears to be reciting a Ben Elton stand-up routine.
Here he is, complaining about an electric hand-dryer. “I’d get more hot air flow if I stood behind a flatulent hamster!” Splutteringly irate observational humour about mundane inconvenience, with gobbets of crudity tossed in (middle-aged men’s hairy ears look “a bit pubic”): Gerald speaks fluent Eltonese. A divorcee in suburban Essex, Gerald lives with his daughter and her lesbian lover. The lesbian lover has a posh voice and is therefore, naturally, both selfish and dim.
“Tax is evil!” she honks. “Actually,” explains Gerald’s daughter, with a look of teacherly superiority, “tax pays for the NHS, Vic.” Lil bidda politics, laze an’ gennelmen. She must have picked up Eltonese from her father.
For the most part The Wright Way is creakily old-fashioned: the parping knockabout brass of the theme tune, the jokes about women taking a long time in the bathroom, the desperate innuendo (“I’ve discovered a rogue erection!”blurts Gerald. He’s referring to a speed bump.) But Elton is at pains to show us he’s in touch with the modern world. The posh tax-hater describes a quarrel as “so a YouTube moment”. Gerald celebrates a small victory by hooting, “Stick that on your iPod and shuffle it!”
Ben Elton is the man who rescued Blackadder. For that he deserves eternal gratitude. But not The Wright Way. Formulaic, hackneyed, exhaustingly unfunny… It’s political correctness gone bad.