New Irish Sit-com on RTE TWO?????

starn

Mr Stubbs wrote: »

that RTE will probably never give another couple of young unknowns a chance ever again.

Well who's to blame for that, mate. Had you made a solid quality product. There would be no one here complaining, and RTE would be more willing to invest in new talent.

But to be fair mate, I honestly think RTE stiched you up. No one who has seen this show could possible think it was fit to air.

But keep at it, and best of luck with any future projects

AngelinaJolie

giftgrub wrote: »

Sat down and watched it the other night, i lasted ten minutes, switched over for a while, then back for the last 5 minutes

The main thing that struck me was that it wasnt funny. Deeply, Deeply Unfunny in fact

Even my wife, who would laugh at anything, had a face on her like she kissed the wrong end of the baby

As a licence payer (honestly, i do!) i feel like asking for a refund.

And if the creators dont like criticism they should take their ball and go home.

Just out of curiosity, on a 100 grand budget, does anyone have any idea how much they'd personally pocket?

Looking forward to Liam Fays review..

Just found this as well

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=54737077&postcount=84

note the third para

From reading all the posts on this thread, I reckon I could divide the posters into three camps:

1. People who didn't find it funny at all

To those people I say: Fair enough, it didn't appeal to your sense of humour and you feel aggrieved about (and I'm paraphrasing here) 'the waste of your licence fee on this rubbish' etc, etc

2. The Begrudgers

You all know who you are. This group did not find The Roaring Twenties funny at all, but not only do they rant about RTE and 'wasting the licence fee', they also attack anyone creatively involved in the show. To those people I say: Fair enough, just don't expect the creators or anyone connected to the show to like it.

3. The people that believe that The Roaring Twenties has potential, if given the chance..

To those people I say: Thank you, you viewed the first episode with an open mind. Granted, it was a little rough around the edges in places but bear in mind, it is a pilot. That's why the creators need to get constructive criticism about what works and what doesn't work.

And by the way, 100k is not a lot in television production. Check it out rates on www.filmbase.ie or www.iftn.ie and you'll see how quickly money can be spent on a professional crew.

PS Vixen is not the FAS girl.. She's on this Monday 14th January at 10.50pm on RTE2.

Havermeyer

Dear everybody on these boards.....

And especially this guy/girl,

First off, I want to point out how pilots are generally received: people hate them. No, let me clarify that: people hate what's actually got the potential to be something be good.
Fact: Seinfeld was almost cancelled after the first season because people thought it was crap.
Fact: Arrested Development, one of the best sit-coms to come out of America in years, was cancelled in the third season.
Fact: Family Guy was cancelled.
Fact: Futurama was cancelled.
So......
Do you want RTE do spout the bull that comes from American networks or do you want to support the writers who love the above shows?

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but for this seems to be pissing on something for the sake of pissing on something.

When have you ever seem something like this on RTE?

Better than The English Class?

You mean a cheap rip-off of Mind Your Language meets The Office is the height of comedy compared to The Roaring Twenties?

If you really think this, well, sir, you really don't know comedy, in my opinion.

So are you trying to say that, given the chance, this anti-comedy would become as good as seinfeld or even close? If so, are you mental? You may have some reason to defend this show, but it just was not funny. Only a handful of people are defending it, and quite adamantly imo. Quite strange, don't you think.

And if you think that this show has potential, or was even remotely funny, I fear that you also have absolutely no clue what comedy is, or is meant to be.

skelliser

who is vixen and can she get her own show?
id buy that for a dollar!

about the show, it was rough,very rough although there is some small little bit of potential for it to be good.
its interesting to hear from the writers here begrudgers aside.
how did ye go about making it? the process involved etc?

these pilots or whatever there called should be a regular thing imho someone is bound to get it right eventually and its the only way ppl will get better etc

Mossy Monk

I watched it last night. It was terribly unfunny, brutally acted and the voice over provided by Oliver Carroll was annoying. I will not be bothering with part 2.

kmick

Mr Stubbs wrote: »

Interesting comments, people. Strange how everyone bangs on about how RTE never new give new ‘talent’ a chance. Well you could not have been more ‘new’ than us. If you think it failed, fair enough, but please don’t criticize RTE for trying something new. It actually got higher ratings than expected and a pretty good review in the Evening Herald by PROFESSIONAL critic, Pat Stacey: ”It’s a bit of a messy jumble but there was definite flashes of wit and invention. It’s certainly an attempt at something a bit different.”
And sure I did indeed say “why don’t you write your own comedy and see how good you are?” and I said it because I was one of the ranting nerds up until recently myself — baying for blood with the gusto of a medieval mob — so i got off my fat arse, quit my job, spent my entire savings and made the original pilot — a pilot that RTE liked enough to give us a chance with 2 more Episodes.

The biggest problem with the reaction to this show is not that I’ll have to return to my call centre job and probable eventual suicide — but that RTE will probably never give another couple of young unknowns a chance ever again. So once again I repeat: If you’re not happy with RTE’s comedy output go ahead and try to do better — thats what we did, and believe me, it ain’t as easy as it looks.

On the bright side, the amazingly well written, well acted, well directed, well edited second installment of ‘The Roaring Twenties’ will take place at 10.50pm this coming Monday January 14th. Thanks for watching!!!

PS: RTE will be showing another 'experimental' comedy show next Tuesday called 'Working Girls With Katherine Lynch'. Good luck Katherine, hope it gets a better reaction --- but I'd advise you to avoid Boards at all costs!!!

Heres my 2 cents with not having seen the show...
1) 100k is very little money
2) 6 weeks is too little time
3) Boards users tend to be highly critical but in a yearning for you to be better way rather than a begrduger way.
4) You have had mixed feedback I would say - lots of people have said there is a seed there.
5) The next time you have a pilot why not invite 100 boards users to a screening. Give them feedback cards and a glass of wine and let them do their worst. Then iteration by iteration make it better.
6) Next time someone says can you make two pilots in 6 weeks for 100k say no but I could make 1 good one in 12 weeks and 200k. Sometimes its worth saying 'no but maybe if...' - so that quality can improve
7) Good luck with Pilot II
8) I hope your ambition leads you to getting a short run of shows from the pilot. Dont give up hope.

Wertz

AngelinaJolie wrote: »

PS Vixen is not the FAS girl.. She's on this Monday 14th January at 10.50pm on RTE2.

Ah, would FÁS girl be the fine pair of nipples I spotted poking out of a red jumper in the teaser for the second ep?

Mr E

nummnutts wrote: »

So are you trying to say that, given the chance, this anti-comedy would become as good as seinfeld or even close? If so, are you mental?

Seinfeld is horribly overrated (sorry Jerry fans), and even then, it was rough enough in the early days.

With alot of these comedys, you have to get used to characters over a series of episodes.

Anyway, I'll be watching Fás Girl The Roaring Twenties next week.

AngelinaJolie

Wertz wrote: »

Ah, would FÁS girl be the fine pair of nipples I spotted poking out of a red jumper in the teaser for the second ep?

The very same lassie. Those nipples were requested by many people

Mylow

Annamander wrote: »

Don't give up Mr. Stubbs!

I second that, it's a quirky show...I enjoyed it.

po0k

Mr E wrote: »

Seinfeld is horribly overrated (sorry Jerry fans)

Indeed.

Observe common occurrence.
Announce observation of common occurrence.
Co-star repeats announcement posed as question.
"Well don't you think it's funny that [occurence] [occurred]?"
Pause for canned laughter.

Fnck you and your banality Jerry.

Earthhorse

Mr. Stubbs, thanks for taking the time to post in this thread.

I was just wondering if you could tell us what Crockett is like in real life?

Thanks again.

AngelinaJolie

nummnutts wrote: »

So are you trying to say that, given the chance, this anti-comedy would become as good as seinfeld or even close? If so, are you mental? You may have some reason to defend this show, but it just was not funny. Only a handful of people are defending it, and quite adamantly imo. Quite strange, don't you think.

And if you think that this show has potential, or was even remotely funny, I fear that you also have absolutely no clue what comedy is, or is meant to be.

I did say earlier that I was connected with the show. So you may say that I am bias. But all the same I did guffaw quite loudly when I watched the episode - particularly when Vixen gets her comeuppence, the mini-aldee and spit roasting expose scene, the room-mate interviews, Seamus doing the dishes and spraying 'suds' all over Ray, Seamus enjoying tag rugby...

But hey that's my sense of humour, and if that classifies me as 'mental' in your opinion, then I'm mental.

Emuukha

Mr Stubbs wrote: »

Strange how everyone bangs on about how RTE never new give new ‘talent’ a chance. Well you could not have been more ‘new’ than us.

With all due respect - what you've said above is exactly the problem, that RTE are not giving new talent a chance and that this was demonstrated by The Roaring Twenties. When €100,000 taxpayers money was spent on this show, it's just plain insulting to any young talent in Ireland as well as a fee paying audience.

And quoting one "pretty good review", from the HERALD (?!!) is not exactly the best endorsement, I don't think that's going to shut everyone up or validate the piece.

And the biggest problem with the show? I don't think it's the fear that RTE will be wary of repeating their mistake. But I do see how the license fee payers are so annoyed at how that money is wasted so absurdly. And that this particular show was a serious embarrasment for us. And it just keeps happening...

If you think everyone here is a "ranting nerd" and boards.ie is to be avoided at all costs then stop visiting.

Elmo

When €100,000 taxpayers money was spent on this show, it's just plain insulting to any young talent in Ireland as well as a fee paying audience.

I think if we all watched the Graham Linehan Documentry on RTE ONE the other night you would all know that C4 spent alot of money on his first project which was dreadful it was called Paris.

C4 is a semistate body.

If they had taken this attitude Fr. Ted would never have seen the light of day.

Wertz

Emuukha wrote: »

When €100,000 taxpayers money was spent on this show, it's just plain insulting to any young talent in Ireland as well as a fee paying audience.

So how would that particular €100K have been better spent WRT fostering emerging talent, if you had a hold on the pursestrings?
RTÉ spend/waste relatively vast sums on other projects, high wages and who knows what else....to single out this particular hundred grand is a bit petty considering the total expenditure. Another point; the money spent stayed in the country too, and didn't go to some US production company for airing rights of another samey sitcom...

ianrush

If RTE is serious about its comedy output, here's one suggestion. Right now the head of entertainment has a massive remit covering too many shows (all that "you're a star", "celebrity jigs and reels" garbage etc). Create a head of comedy, someone who's only job it is, is to deal with the commissioning and development of sit-coms/comedies. Have someone directly responsible for the quality of the output and suddenly you might see some proper development and nuturing of new talent for a change. As I have said in previous posts, the quality of the show we saw last monday was as much a result of RTE mismanagement as anything else IMO. Anyone who works in this industry (and I do) would have told you that given the budget, time and experience involved, the odds were completely against them producing anything better than what we saw.

Havermeyer

I think if we all watched the Graham Linehan Documentry on RTE ONE the other night you would all know that C4 spent alot of money on his first project which was dreadful it was called Paris.

C4 is a semistate body.

If they had taken this attitude Fr. Ted would never have seen the light of day.

But they didn't take 'that' attitude with Fr. Ted because Fr. Ted was good. Paris was ****. Simple as. It's not rocket science. Fr. Ted was good from the start, from the first episode till the last. It wasn't a case of it being crap and needing time to develop, which is what is being said of the roaring twenties. It took a while to catch on for the simple reason that it was not a 'safe' situation comedy. A sitcom about three priests on an island. You can see why people may have been apprehensive. Whereas the roaring twenties is a safe option. Four zany, well, supposedly zany friends, living in Rathmines. It's a fairly run of the mill format, which with any real effort should never be so badly done as said program. New actors, writers, direction, producers and editors are sorely needed if the alleged potential of this program is ever to be realized. Losing the ****ty voice over might help too. As was said above, it wasn't funny and the majority of the viewing audience aren't spastics and don't need to be spoon fed the plot/character profiles etc. I also failed to grasp why the arcade fire song was used as the signature tune. It didn't fit in with the theme or what the creators were trying to achieve. That surprised me more than how overacted the show was.

Capt'n Midnight

AngelinaJolie wrote: »

From reading all the posts on this thread, I reckon I could divide the posters into three camps:
1. People who didn't find it funny at all
2. The Begrudgers
3. The people that believe that The Roaring Twenties has potential, if given the chance..

you missed category 4. the ones waiting for this bit of news

PS Vixen is not the FAS girl.. She's on this Monday 14th January at 10.50pm on RTE2.

RTE could do with more comedy shows on the radio perhaps to grow talent that way ?
There is a lot of comedy stuff on BBC Radio 4 , some household names, some more experemental, a lot of the TV shows across the pond started on radio

Wertz

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

RTE could do with more comedy shows on the radio perhaps to grow talent that way ?
There is a lot of comedy stuff on BBC Radio 4 , some household names, some more experemental, a lot of the TV shows across the pond started on radio

Yup, even the late great Dermot Morgan started off on radio and look where that lead him.
The thing you're missing here is that RTÉ radio barely even has any sort of drama output on it's only answer to BBCR4; it's all personality lead broadcasting, public opinion and current affairs. When was the last time you heard an audio book or a home produced play on the station? Where would said comedy shows fit in with their current programming mandate? TV is their chosen medium for drama and comedy...sure the radio is only for music and talking. :rolleyes:
I can think of one instance of comedy on the RTE's airwaves; knob nation....and that was only done in reply to gift grub. Eammon Lowe on TodayFM is about the only bit of radio comedy I can think of that goes beyond political satire and impressions, into the realm of comedy, on the national airwaves.

The system is broken and needs a radical shake up, but that's as likely to happen as a the TV license being abolished...

starn

I quite like the Crazy Dog productions on Radio 1

http://www.crazydogaudiotheatre.com/

Wertz

Wrong link starn but I searched RTÉ's website and see what you're on about. Not heard them myself. Can't really tell but they would seem to be few and far between. Their last airings that I can see were about 20 months ago.

luckat

I missed The Roaring Twenties (hardly ever watch TV... still trying to decide whether to get rid of the thing).

So - fascinated by the car crash that is this thread - I went looking on YouTube in the hope someone might have posted an extract from the show. All I found was a truly awful trailer overlaid with the overture from William Tell.

I'd love to see what people are talking about - is there a 5-minute extract from the show online anywhere?

(For my own comedy taste, which may be strange, RTE has produced good comedy occasionally: the radio show Scrap Saturday, which preceded Father Ted but trained in its writers; the TG4 show CU Burn; another old show, Nighthawks. And also very much an IMHO - Irish writers don't seem to understand that a comedy is based on the audience's liking for the character. Fawlty Towers wouldn't have been funny if we didn't (a) secretly like Basil, and (b) know people just like him. Funny accents aren't funny per se; funniness is an expression of character.)

dresden8

Might have been worth putting FAS girl in the pilot episode. And keeping her there.

Not funny and most of the acting was terrible. The Ray character has a bit of potential and the actor was ok. He probably should have been the main character unless the plan was to do something else with him. The Mary actress was good enough.

The rest was way too "stagey", or "studenty", take your pick. Kevin should be assassinated. I promise that if he is killed off I'll send in a letter to RTE saying the show is great. Even if the show isn't picked up please just say the plan was to kill him. A low key death, nothing over dramatic. That fall should have done it.

Drop the narrator. Narrators rarely work, certainly not this time.

The whole newspaper thing was just crap.

Your man with the strange accent, what's up with him?

The Séamus character needs work. Might be something there.

What I think the show was missing, as said earlier, was somebody to say the above so that the writers/directors could concentrate on what was decent and go back and fix what was wrong.

The fact that it seems the whole production was rushed, with no chance to fix what was wrong, contributed to the whole mess.

Maybe RTE should have done the above and taken the gamble to throw a bit more good money after bad to see if it could be improved. Sacking Plank Kenny and Joe effin Duffy should be enough to free up some money.

Also the fact that I didn't like the show doesn't mean I'm a begrudger. And the "write your own show" argument doesn't wash either. I'm not a writer, I'm a viewer and entitled to any opinion I want.

Better luck next time.

Elmo

But they didn't take 'that' attitude with Fr. Ted because Fr. Ted was good. Paris was ****.

Yes but what I am saying to the people involved in this show is not to give up. Mainly because it could take a while before you have a hit on your hands.

The attitude that many are suggesting here is that RTE shouldn't have spent this tiny amount on an average (imo) comedy rather they should stay clear and let no one gain any experience what so ever and if the lads do come up with an excellent comedy next time round let them bring it to C4.

Paris was Fr. Ted's Roaring Twenties, which is what I am trying to say. And did C4 waste a load of tax payers money on Paris, yes they did.

They could also use their website to develop comedy perhaps this show should have just appeared on RTE.ie. They did it a few years ago.


Just to repost my last post which I feel is far more clear then this one, and I don't understand why anyone would disagree?????

I think if we all watched the Graham Linehan Documentry on RTE ONE the other night you would all know that C4 spent alot of money on his first project which was dreadful it was called Paris.

C4 is a semistate body.

If they had taken this attitude Fr. Ted would never have seen the light of day.

This arguement is purely based on the following types of posts

When €100,000 taxpayers money was spent on this show, it's just plain insulting to any young talent in Ireland as well as a fee paying audience.

Mr E

Elmo wrote:

Paris was Fr. Ted's Roaring Twenties.

Nail on the head, mate. Nail on the head.

GhostInTheRuins

Elmo wrote: »

Paris was Fr. Ted's Roaring Twenties

I presume you mean that you hope Roaring Twenties is what Paris is to Fr. Ted. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched.

Burp Bleugh

Mr Stubbs wrote: »

So i got off my fat arse, quit my job, spent my entire savings and made the original pilot

And when will this original pilot be on? What's it called?? Because there was f.u.c.k. all original about that mess of a show that was on RTE last Monday night.

starn

http://www.crazydogaudiotheatre.com/

They did have a show on Radio 1 last summer called The Stuff of Myth. It was a retelling of the myth of Orpheus. I quite liked it

Elmo

And when will this original pilot be on? What's it called?? Because there was f.u.c.k. all original about that mess of a show that was on RTE last Monday night.

I think he ment the original episode, DVD, Show. Not original as in this was a hugely original TV comedy.