Roger & Val Have Just Got In - BBC2 Fridays 10pm

I think the problem with this is mainly the format itself. If you're gonna restrict yourself to just two characters talking to each other in (more or less) the same location for a whole half hour then you're setting yourself a steep challenge to keep the audience amused without getting bored. Alan Bennett can pull off this kind of thing, but I'd say he's in the minority.

Somethng like, say, Rev isn't exactly packed with laugh-out-loud moments either, but it still works because there's enough variety in the characters and situations to keep it moving along anyway. The Royle Family is fixed to one location too, but at least they keep moving people in and out of it. This has nothing like that to fall back on.
 
Like hugzy above I am glad there is a thread for this programme. I watched the first episode expecting to be in stitches as I love Dawn French and was disappointed. I stuck with it hoping it would improve and I am so glad I did. I feel like I am starting to really understand the characters now and why they occupy themselves with such trivial stuff (to mask their pain/grief).

It was so moving tonight - I genuinely had tears in my eyes. Looking forward to next week.
 
Roger and Val is becoming a little gem.

Its a really sweet show which I look forward to everyweek.

I wonder if it will have a second series and carry on the baby storyline
 
Repeated again this evening so I gave it a go and actually I quite liked it. I quickly dispenced with the notion of it being a "comedy" and viewed it as an observational ramble between a couple in two rooms.

As an aside did anyone else notice the picture moving up and down a fraction?
 
Me too. And the husband.

It's very elegantly done ~ a very gradual reveal of the tragedy and pain that blurs the edges of their workaday lives.

Yes, not much happens, but that's the point, isn't it? That life isn't a relentless chain of huge events, that most of the time is spent bickering about really mundane stuff, but there's a vast human story behind everyone's life, even if they're just a 'boring middle-aged couple' preoccupied with dining room curtains and fridges.

I like it a lot.
 
In my earlier post, I was unfair to Alan Bennett, as I enjoyed his "Talking HeaRAB" as they had crisply drawn characters.

This "comedy" is so in your face though, that this couple has suffered a tragedy in the past, it lacks any subtlety to me. Well, I have tried a couple of eps now, and managed not to turn it off, but I wont try again.
 
Seriously?! Getting On was pretty much perfect-I certainly laughed as much on a second viewing as when it was first shown last year.
Still you'll be pleased to know that My Family is still on: apparently it's a laugh a minute ...
 
I like it but it is not what I expected it to be. I thought it would be funny. But it is actually very downbeat a lot of the time.

ReminRAB me of the old Plays for Today from the 6Os.

And they are both brilliant in it.
 
Liked the idea of this but the script just wasn't funny enough. Some of it was nicely observed, and it was well-acted by French and Molina, but I doubt I'll be tuning in again.
 
Not as huge a fan of tonights episode. I mean it was still good, but certainly didn't top last weeks emotional drama. I finally got around to reading the "What Roger and Val is really about" (which they mention at the end of each episode) on the BBC Comedy site and its quite an interesting read about the background for the show and how episode 3 was the turning point for the series.

Worth checking out, no spoilers in there really except a possible tiny one about episode 6 (not its content, but the message it provides): http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/comedy/2010/09/roger-and-val-beyond-the-curtain-hooks.shtml
 
To be fair that's a good defence for just about all comedy ever. Comedy, as with many arts, is incedible personal and isn't really something that can be explained or taught or passed on. Not that I mean you can't teach someone how to be funny, how to deliver a joke or how to take a prattfall but rather that you can't teach someone how to find something funny.

If you don't find something funny whilst someone sitting next to you is laughing their head off there really is no way they can explain it to you so you will start laughing. You might understand a joke when it's explained but you won't suddenly spontaneously burst out laughing at the memory of it.

It's not just a status thing, it's not all about "This is clever comedy which I get it so I am therefore superior to you" it covers all forms of comedy from the highest brow to the lowest.

My wife laughs her head off when the kiRAB watch Tom and Jerry or Road Runner cartoons. If someone is being run over by a lawn mower, hit with an anvil, struck by a truck or leaving their face impression in a frying pan she's laughing out loud. In that instance I "just don't get it" though I understand what sort of comedy it is and it's not because I think it's "beneath me" either.

If anyone posts a comment about a conmedy show to praise it or to slate it you will get as many "I agree" posts as "I couldn't disagree more". Frankly I would be shocked if it wasn't the case.
 
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