It's so strange to me in this day and age, we promote non-diverse shows in countries where there are very clearly diverse populations. I'm not interested in watching a show about the pandemic (would rather forget it) and definitely not interested in homogeneous cast shows.
3
It's so strange to me in this day and age, we promote non-diverse shows in countries where there are very clearly diverse populations. I'm not interested in watching a show about the pandemic (would rather forget it) and definitely not interested in homogeneous cast shows.
This isn't the first British sitcom dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Dawn French as the Vicar of Dibley has been putting out updates and sermons (in her humorous lack of technical skills way) from lockdown.
5
I predict the show will be deemed racist in some way.
9
The best "joke" episode I have seen on this subject was the Pandemic/Quarantine one added to a truly hilarious series called "The Hookup Plan," on Netflix. It was created well after the series ended and focused on the hilarity that ensued when quarantine hit France. It is so over the top, it makes you laugh out loud. Plastic around doors, one character throwing everything away, making food for caregivers - all done with craziness and of course, a happy ending. The whole series is not to be missed!
6
Remember how you couldn't joke about 9/11, still can't? This one, the pandemic, for seem reason seems joke-able.
4
@MIKEinNYC
The Brits did have a go at a jihadist comedy a decade ago. And like most good satire it exposed the idiocy of its protagonists, something this BBC series may also be able to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew-SrlQ9tlI
@Zen Cat
When you think about it Hogan's Heroes and The Producers were very courageous.
9
I find nothing comedic regarding the photo of the unmasked
cast of the BBC comedy "Pandemonium "standing right next
to each other, nor about a "comedy " regarding a pandemic
that has killed 1,661,396 individuals, thus far, which including
my sister's first boyfriend, and the brother of my childhood
best friend, a radiologist at Mt. Sinai Hospital who died of a
Covid-19 induced stroke.
My doctor remains ill more than nine months after
having gone into Acute Respiratory Distress on March 13th, and having been rushed to the hospital, for the first time. He was kept in theER for several days because there weren't any bed, and was sent home, before being admitted several days later. He remembers only two of three hospitalisations.
No. I can't find any humour in the BBC's head of comedy wearing a mask over his eyes, with eyes and eyebrows drawn on,
when my best friend's brother might well be alive had he had
the PPE that he needed.
Airing a sitcom about the pandemic as the death tolls mounts by the day is about as funny as airing a comedy about the Holocaust while millions of people were being slaughtered would have been.
9
We Brits like to laugh at ourselves and to outsiders. Our sometimes quaint society.
I was chatting with one of my ex-pat friends the other day .
She said, “I never understand why Americans take life so seriously?”
I tend to echo that sentiment . A good sense of humor and the willingness to laugh at everyday challenges, is a mighty tonic for human survival. Especially, during a global crisis.
35
Shows like this that find humor in the pandemic is, actually, how we change the culture to start taking it more seriously. The beauty of humor is that its success depends upon everyone agreeing to the same premise i.e. murder is wrong, people should be kind. What people don't find funny can help reveal fractures in those shared premises. Murder is wrong, except if you are a "suspicious" looking person. Kindness is good, but not if we don't agree politically. When we agree that mask wearing is protecting others, and find relief by laughing about the absurdities of it, we are affirming a truth we believe in. Laughter is the purest form of advocacy: it is by nature instinctual, unfakeable... and wildly contagious.
22
Monty Python used to laugh at the Plague. That was then. Now it's us.
14
If the show is any good, then who cares if some people get offended. We always risk offending others as our Dr Peterson said.
13
A number of points. And I haven't seen this show, which doesn't seem at all amusing.
1) The BBC is NOT supported by taxpayers but by subscribers - in this case anyone who has a television. Yes, you can end up in the courts if you have a TV and don't pay the license. You can still listen to BBC radio without a license. (Recommended - download BBC sounds- the content is an absolute delight. If you like NPR radio you will absolutely adore BBC 4.)
2) 'Staged' - about trying to do a play, halted by Covid, and set in the leading actors' homes, is an absolute hoot. Michael Sheen, David Tennant, Simon Evans, Georgia Tennant, Anna Lundberg, Lucy Eaton (Two famous, terrific actors, their fabulous wives, the writer and others.) It is on BBC iplayer and with a lot of tremendous stuff. I am a BBC licence payer so I can watch it anywhere, even in the USA, where I use a VPN.
3) I won't bore you with writing a third point. Just read 1) and, seriously, do what I have hinted for 2).
8
i know the show is british (i'm american) but an all-white sitcom in this era seems pretty tone deaf. and the irony that the studio is in "white city"
3
@kristian
Do we have to make everything about diversity all the time every time? I am Hispanic with a Hispanic family who watches novelas where all characters are culturally Hispanic. Is this wrong?
28
Maybe when the pandemic is over, but while people are still dying there's really nothing to laugh about.
6
Real life (as what is going on at the moment) in some instances can be funnier than anything that could be dreamed up. Off topic: Maybe the US should charge everyone $210 a year like the BBC gets through taxes, to encourage people (who would be paying for it anyway) to sample PBS News offerings. Some might break their addiction with frothing at the mouth cable news commentary shows when they see matter of fact hard news delivered by PBS.
10
I think this sounds awesome, though I admittedly have a dark sense of humor.
Coincidentally, just last night I was reading my blog (http://thethighmasterroutetokona.blogspot.com/2020/04/), from the early days of the pandemic when I drove down to CA from OR to take care of my mom. "Hijinks" ensued, as I wound up staying down there for 2 months because of the shoddy care she got in the hospital (when we couldn't visit her), and had a very rough recovery. VERY. It was horrible. Yet, one can find humor in anything - at least I can - even while acknowledging the tragedy and loss.
It always angers me when people scorn or denigrate the fact that my CancerChick friends and I laugh at our cancer experiences. WE are the ones who have cancer - WE are the ones who have gone to the many funerals of other young women who'd died. WE get to choose how we want to make our way through these things.
Laughter through tears.
19
We won’t be laughing if Covid 19 mutates to the point where it becomes more deadly and the vaccines won’t be effective against the new strain . This vaccine roll out is far to slow . The virus has already mutated at least five times .
1
See how funny we think people who have lost a loved one to this horrible plague thinks their circumstance were. Ah, capitalism always finding a way to make a buck even at other peoples' expense. We're all like Trump in a way.
2
It's fascinating reading the distaste of many Americans on this thread. Full respect to you for your point of view, but I don't think there's a single Brit who would be offended by this concept (we'll wait to see how it's executed of course).
24
I love British comedy, but this is terrible, terrible form. Maybe give this tragedy a decade or so before you try to capitalize on it, “mates”. Ugh.
1
“ “Well, I wish I’d known that before squeezing it into the suitcase,” Rachel replies. “Leather is extremely difficult to fold, you realize.... This awkward exchange...a half-hour comedy...”
Uh, no.
1
Maybe we should follow Monty Python’s lead and wait several hundred years’ with a buffering period to spoof a medieval Black Plague in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “Bring out your Dead!”.
6
relax guys. Lennie Bruce made comedy out of anything. What subjects are taboo, then ?
8
"and whatever you do, Don't mention the war."
14
Have been listening to Trevor Noah. Didn't think I'd laugh. This isn't funny material. But Trevor DID make me smile and then laugh, especially about wearing masks on an airplane. Such whining I haven't heard in a long time and God bless him for it. The Brits have a pervy sense of humor, so why not? There's only so much crying I can do before my body rebels and wants to laugh again. Not meant to disrespect anyone who is suffering, humans just can't help it. I think that's what laughter is for. Or am I just a sick person?
11
As we have not seen it, perhaps we should reserve judgment? But Mr. Segal gets things wrong when he writes: "Other bits suggest that the United States still has substantial cultural heft here. When Paul tries to convince his daughter, Amy (Freya Parks), that he is woke, he proves it by noting that he read and loved Michelle Obama’s book." I suspect that the Paul character cites Michelle Obama's book because the Obamas showed us all how to act well, with honour, with empathy. Here, we have a mini Donald T leading the country - disastrously - and it is horribly distressing. So Paul's comment might not reflect America's 'cultural heft'; rather, despair. Many of us over here read Ms Obama's book to be reminded of what America once stood for.
4
I look forward to this show. There's no denying that too many people and their loved ones have been affected by death and severe illness during the pandemic. For countless others, the tragedy of the pandemic has been less severe, but also harmful: loneliness, depression, job loss, relegation to an unhealthy lifestyle, loss of joy. If a comedy can help us find relief in this situation, help us smile through these shared circumstances, then great! It won't be for everyone, but no TV show ever is.
9
I'll watch anything with Allison Steadman - She provides fantastic commedic relief in everything from the Mom in Pride & Prejudice to the mom in Gavin & Stacey - when can we stream here in the US?
8
If we cannot laugh at the human condition, even in a pandemic, then we are already dead. Maybe with the insights we have gained from this experience we could do a suitably funny period piece on the black death? No, now I think about it, Monty Python already did that one ("bring out y're dead!").
19
@Ben Hoff
Liberals used to be funny but these comments prove that's no longer true.
6
@Stephen P. I thought conservatives didn’t believe in the virus and that the number of dead people was made up.
7
I wish they made another season of Derry Girls.
6
@ray The third season is in the works but production was delayed due to the virus.
3
nothing to laugh about this one! i always think everything is a big joke but not this when so may people's lives have been ruined by death and people thrown in to poverty .nothing funny; sorry.
2
I must have missed the sentence about where and when this is available in the United States?
9
In Mexico we have laugh about it since day one.
11
@Oka Probably because your ridiculous president hasn't taken it seriously since day one. Thousands of people the world over are dying from this every day;there is NOTHING FUNNY about that. Nothing.
3
Maybe the Brits are ready. I'm not. It's hardly funny, watching the last of many assumptions about civic responsibility and the tenacity of Americans fall to inescapable facts. My main problem is that very, very few people around me seem the least bit concerned about a quarter million excess deaths, as if it's merely inconvenient collateral damage that we avoid bearing any responsibility for. They don't care about nursing home deaths. They don't care about gunning down Black Americans. It's easy to conclude that they wouldn't care about deliberate, mass genocide, either. Has anyone but Mel Brooks ever made comedies about Hitler's Germany? It's not just the failure of a society, it's the transformation of millions of people into criminals against humanity.
4
Talk about bad taste. People are dying, debilitated, impoverished. Nothing funny.
3
“Everything is funny, until it happens to you.”
- Dave Chappelle
6
Yeah, um, the Brits will laugh. Is Aussies will laugh. Most of us in the rest of the western world will laugh. Americans won’t. One thing we all know about Americans is that you are incapable of laughing at yourselves and your massive failures. Leave the whole humour thing to us I think.
29
@Flossymoo
Uggh. Perhaps you ought to stop reading American newspapers, then.
4
Good or dour, I love the Brits for trying this. Too soon? Maybe. We should ask the Python Boys.
3
What could be funnier than a few million people dying?
No amount sophisticated, urbane writing could possibly make this palatable. It is in incredibly poor taste to attempt to make light of this crisis and diminishes the grief so many feel having lost loved ones.
I would equate it to making a comedy about 9/11.
Anyone think that's a good idea?
10
@Emile DeVere I recommend you check out Blackadder Goes Forth, a comedy set amid the mass carnage of trench warfare in World War 1. It was very funny, and the final episode is very touching. Also from the BBC.
28
@Emile DeVere - Actually MASH 4077 was one of the most popular sitcoms ever and it was set in the Korean war. Yes there is death and carnage all around but humor helps, especially humor that strikes at the stupidity that led to the death and carnage in the first place.
36
@Emile DeVere I read this article while unwinding after a twelve hour shift as an RN in our “ COVID wing”. People with a more warped sense of humor than medical people you will never meet. We use dark humor to break the tension, remind us of our humanity, and to help us realize that this too shall pass. It doesn’t mean that we don’t care and that our hearts don’t get broken, it just helps us survive.
38
Nothing is funny about this situation now or later. I don't want a commemorative cap, cup, or funny bumper sticker. I want this over with sane people running things. I don't want to read novels, short stories, or poems about it. I want to survive it and go on.
This idea is like a sitcom about two wacky lung cancer patients. In poor taste and grotesque in conception.
5
@mike Don't knock it until you have seen it Mike. There is humour - or ought to be - in every human situation. As some dead German philosopher might have said (but didn't): "What doesn't kill me might make me die laughing."
4
That's the wonderful Alison Steadman with the walking stick in the cast picture. Definitely worth a watch in that case.
16
Michael Sheen and David Tennant. Staged. (On Hulu in the US.) There is a right way to do comedy about this terrible year. Good luck to this team as well.
16
@Mrs Miggins It was brilliant.
1
I started watching "Connecting...", which more or less takes the same premise that we're ready to laugh about this weird and awful year. I couldn't get past the George Floyd episode. If comedy = tragedy + time, then we are going to need a lot more than six months to get past the events of 2020. I'll catch this show in decade or two when I'm ready.
7
Maybe let's wait until it actually debuts before judging how funny it is? The BBC is a media behemoth that tends to make more conservative moves with programming than, say, the independent and edgier Channel 4 in the UK. I'd be willing to bet that the show won't downplay the severity of the pandemic, nor mock the dead or grieving. We're all going through this together, so why not have a laugh at a (maybe) relatable TV show to help us get through? As the saying goes, 'laugh so we don't cry'.
17
Looking forward to this. You really can't go wrong with this cast. I will watch anything with any actor from Ghosts or IT Crowd. Both brilliant and hilarious shows.
8
The English have always had a way of making humor out of tragedy...this is a step over the line of common decency.
4
@rford
Define "common decency" please, because I'm pretty sure Mrs. Slocombe's cat crossed that line quite a few times.
10
@rford It's called Trench humour. Look it up.
10
No ... this is not funny at all.
11
Count me in. I loved Twenty Twelve about London hosting the Olympic Games, which are clearly lower stakes than a pandemic. It's not particularly dated and funny in retrospect that they managed to predict some events (like athletes stuck on a bus for hours when the driver got lost trying to get to the Olympic Village).
11
I probably won't watch. At least not yet. Too many deaths too close to home. But I'm not one to dictate what others find enjoyable -- so if people are ready for it, good for them. I hope it's good/cathartic. I'm just not there...
14
Sounds like Schitts Creek meets covid in the UK! I'm looking forward to it :-)
9
@Cat
Need more Schitts's Creek. It really helped get my mind off not just the pandemic, but the election. After binging it, I returned to watch again; one episode a night before bed, to clear my head of all the bad stuff
5
Seems fast! We're still looking for an escape so nooooo thanks :) I hope it at least doesn't promote irresponsible behavior. But if it provides relief for others, so be it.
5
The Brits are well known to be irreverent – think ‘Monty Python’, or ‘ Fawlty Towers’. Lately, Ricky Gervais’s black-comedy drama, ‘After Life’ has tackled the death of a spouse due to cancer, but it does feel a tad premature to be making light of a world-wide epidemic that has decimated so many families. Still, à chacun son gout, and those who would be offended can opt not to watch this sitcom.
3
I generally enjoy British comedy series but this already looks dated and unfunny - and will likely be even more so when it's actually released, especially once a substantial part of the population is vaccinated and will want to put many of the indignities of the COVID experience behind us. But I'll try to reserve judgement until I see the final product.
6
It seems premature to start making light of something that people still aren't taking seriously. Maybe after we get the raging plague of death spreading across the world at record speeds under control, then we can take the foot off the pedal and laugh a little. But I'm worried this will just validate people who don't take it seriously, which is how we got in his mess to begin with.
25
It seems premature to start making light of something that people still aren't taking seriously. Maybe after we get the raging plague of death spreading across the world at record speeds under control, then we can take the foot off the pedal and laugh a little. But I'm worried this will just validate people who don't take it seriously, which is how we got in his mess to begin with.
6
It seems premature to start making light of something that people still aren't taking seriously. Maybe after we get the raging plague of death spreading across the world at record speeds under control, then we can take the foot off the pedal and laugh a little. But I'm worried this will just validate people who don't take it seriously, which is how we got in his mess to begin with.
1
It seems premature to start making light of something that people still aren't taking seriously. Maybe after we get the raging plague of death spreading across the world at record speeds under control, then we can take the foot off the pedal and laugh a little. But I'm worried this will just validate people who don't take it seriously, which is how we got in his mess to begin with.
4
@Alex Anderlik
One more time for the people in the back!
6
Looking forward to watching this and I hope its funny. Covid has indeed been serious for many people. And for many people it has been an inconvenience at most. Humans have become so attached to their comfort and unable to handle a bit of discomfort (I'm talking about people in the latter category). And that's why we are destroying this planet. Food for thought.
19