Hungry? C4 to create comedy series...about the famine

Allyall wrote: »

Who's idea was it to comission somebody to write it in the first place?

Someone in Channel 4 presumably.

I dunno.

Mr. Channel 4?

buried wrote: »

Those subjects would never be touched with a barge-pole by any 'sit-com' TV executive, but its acceptable for the British to make one about a disaster that was orchestrated towards the poorest of Irish people and the grim situation made even worse by the then British authorities during it?

Irish writer and Irish co-production company. The idea came from the Irish writer not from Channel 4 so really it's just the money that is coming from the British whereas the rest is coming from Ireland.

Allyall

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Irish writer and Irish co-production company. The idea came from the Irish writer not from Channel 4 so really it's just the money that is coming from the British whereas the rest is coming from Ireland.

The writer is not Irish.

pickarooney

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Irish writer and Irish co-production company. The idea came from the Irish writer not from Channel 4 so really it's just the money that is coming from the British whereas the rest is coming from Ireland.

I hear Turkish TV are interested in investing ten times the British amount.

Allyall wrote: »

The writer is not Irish.

Really? Where's he from so? You keep saying he's not Irish but don't seem to know where he is supposed to be from.

The Times calls him a Dubliner.

pickarooney wrote: »

I hear Turkish TV are interested in investing ten times the British amount.

The Turks love suffering.

efb

Blackadder anyone?

wendell borton

AnonoBoy wrote: »

The Turks love suffering.

The ottoman sultan was supposed to have sent aid here during the famine.

buried wrote: »

What would the response in America be if a sit-com was made with "wit and sensitivity" about 9-11?.

Yeah, about that...

...and...

wendell borton wrote: »

The ottoman sultan was supposed to have sent aid here during the famine.

I can see a whole episode about that alone.

Cracking stuff.

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Irish writer and Irish co-production company. The idea came from the Irish writer not from Channel 4 so really it's just the money that is coming from the British whereas the rest is coming from Ireland.

I couldn't give a damn if it was The Clancy Brothers that came up with it AnonoBoy. Its totally ignorant. A poor ignorant premise for a TV show. What if some Liverpudlian production company came up with some sick notion for a sit-com about Hillsborough? Would that make it ok? No friggin way

Billy86 wrote: »

Yeah, about that...

...and...

A sketch from South Park is your argument? Hardly like for like is it? Where is the 12 episode American made sit-com series making fun of 9-11? Show me that and you might have a point

philstar

is this really going ahead or it just an internet rumour??

buried wrote: »

A poor ignorant premise for a TV show.

All we know is that it's set during Famine times.

In the same way that a sitcom set in the trenches of WWI sounds like a terrible idea but was executed brilliantly in Blackadder Goes Forth this too could be done well.

Now it might be sh*t but the fact remains that it hasn't even been written yet so we don't know.

I for one don't think there's any subject that you absolutely cannot tell jokes about. It's all down to how it's done.

Pwindedd

It's not really comparing like with like when you bring up examples from living memory and try and make the famine seem somehow current.

philstar wrote: »

is this really going ahead or it just an internet rumour??

An Irish writer has been commissioned to write the scripts by Channel 4. No guarantee it'll be greenlit.

buried wrote: »

A sketch from South Park is your argument? Hardly like for like is it? Where is the 12 episode American made sit-com series making fun of 9-11? Show me that and you might have a point

There's a whole South Park episode about 9/11. It's not just a sketch.

So if it was just one episode of a show about the famine you'd be ok with it? It's just a whole series you're objecting to?

AnonoBoy wrote: »

I for one don't think there's any subject that you absolutely cannot tell jokes about. It's all down to how it's done.

Really? There are no subjects you think should not be turned into a 12 episode sit-com? So by your logic, the famine in Ethiopia is fair game for repetitive ridicule on national TV is it?

buried wrote: »

A sketch from South Park is your argument? Hardly like for like is it? Where is the 12 episode American made sit-com series making fun of 9-11? Show me that and you might have a point

Explain to me how you would get a 12 episode comedy in which you develop and establish characters, create and execute arcs, and see full development of both their journeys and the overall plot from a single day, as opposed to over a seven year span and get back to me. You might get a full film or TV episode out of it though, like as my link in the post you quoted points out, Family Guy (a show I'm not a fan of, but that's because I feel their humour falls flat) already did.

I am amazed how people seem determined to only view comedy as a means of laughing at people as opposed to with them, or finding the light in terrible situations (as has been pointed out with in Blackadder, MASH and Life is Beautiful, as well as in others like Blazing Saddles which is one of the greatest comedies of all time, and Charlie Chaplin's Thee Great Dictator which is one of the few films from that period to hold up quite well 70 years later), or as a scathing critique of their situation, how it came about and how it was tolerated - as I said previously comedy often functions as criticism (edit) masked as entertainment. The day limits are put on comedy is the day we should all just give up.

Pwindedd wrote: »

It's not really comparing like with like when you bring up examples from living memory and try and make the famine seem somehow current.

I brought up the American slave trade concerning Africa too, that's not within living memory. You going to see a NBC sitcom about slavery anytime soon? Don't think so.

Allyall

Billy86 wrote: »

Explain to me how you would get a 12 episode comedy in which you develop and establish characters, create and execute arcs, and see full development of both their journeys and the overall plot from a single day

24.

:pac:

buried wrote: »

Really? There are no subjects you think should not be turned into a 12 episode sit-com? So by your logic, the famine in Ethiopia is fair game for repetitive ridicule on national TV is it?

Well for a start sitcoms in the UK are 6 parts per series - very rarely more than that.

And also as I've stated many times in this thread everything depends on how something is done. The intent and the context are key.

An Ethiopian comedy writer might find someway to set a comedy during the famine of the 1980s perhaps - it's probably too close to that time period to be able to pull it off though. I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand though just because of when it is set. The Irish famine though was over 150 years ago.

You seem fixated on the idea that the show will definitely be mocking the famine.

Billy86 wrote: »

The day limits are put on comedy is the day we should all just give up.

I know this is going to be utterly pointless but could you answer this question which I keep asking? - Would it be acceptable for an American network such as NBC to create a sit-com based on the American Slave trade?

Pwindedd

buried wrote: »

I brought up the American slave trade concerning Africa too, that's not within living memory. You going to see a NBC sitcom about slavery anytime soon? Don't think so.

I thought django had some pretty comedic moments. But I wasn't laughing at the slavery element. I was laughing at the humour that arose from the situations.

Nobody is going to make a program that directly ridicules the suffering experienced by famine victims. That's not funny by any stretch of the imagination, but real life, invariably is hilarious.

buried wrote: »

I brought up the American slave trade concerning Africa too, that's not within living memory. You going to see a NBC sitcom about slavery anytime soon? Don't think so.

Roots was pretty funny. :pac:

Pwindedd wrote: »

It's not really comparing like with like when you bring up examples from living memory and try and make the famine seem somehow current.

That's the other thing - it happened over 150 years ago. Yes it was tragic, and yes if it were to take a "laugh at the starving Paddies" approach with jokes along the lines of "oh, now he's eating turf! Sure we'll freeze in the winter because of him!" it would be atrociously inappropriate, but reading some posts in the thread about how "it happened not even 200 year ago!" is laughable, because let's face it, very few of us would have known anyone who knew anyone who knew anyone who was even an infant in that time. Not to say that should allow us to laugh at it, but it won't exactly be hitting any nerves for us to be unable to laugh with it. Slavery in the US is a good example in terms of the timeline, and several black American comedians have done very well in terms of using that for comedy and criticism in tandem, often linking it to more relevant debates such as civil rights movements, affirmative action, glass ceilings, etc.

Some of the "examples" being given here are terrible too like African famine. Not because that would be shot down immediately over controversy, but because it would be shot down immediately for business reasons. It's harsh to say but also true that so many people don't give a sh*t enough about those types of crises to give a penny, that they would have zero interest in watching it as an ongoing piece of entertainment, whereas the famine for an UK/Irish audience is something everyone is aware of and that many would have interest in. At the end of the day the likes of C4 are creative outlets but they are also businesses, and a comedy programme about Ethiopia in any guise is not going to be making a profit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdIfm2ytOq4

buried wrote: »

I know this is going to be utterly pointless but could you answer this question which I keep asking? - Would it be acceptable for an American network such as NBC to create a sit-com based on the American Slave trade?

Here's a sitcom that aired in America about a slave during the Civil War.

It did get cancelled though..... but they did air at least one episode!

Allyall wrote: »

24.

:pac:

You need to re-evaluate what you deem as comedy.

Billy86 wrote: »

Some of the "examples" being given here are terrible too like African famine. Not because that would be shot down immediately over controversy, but because it would be shot down immediately for business reasons.

You claimed there should "be no limits to comedy", but now your claiming because of "business reasons" there are legitimate limits?