Great British comedies rarely transfer to the silver screen...
Sunday, 27th April 2008, 20:58

ChangesPosted by Stuart McLean on 27-4-2008 20:58

Certainly this was the case in the seventies. I've recently been wading through a whole set of British TV shows on film (including 'On the Buses', 'Porridge', 'Steptoe & Son', 'Up Pompeii', Dick Emery in 'Ooh you are awful', 'Rising Damp', and so on) ....none a patch on the TV shows. They are all without exception devoid of the original atmosphere and pace of the original show. With 'Sex and the City' just about to launch, is there any evidence that comedy TV CAN transfer to film? Discuss!

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ChangesPosted by Robert John Shepherd on 28-4-2008 01:34

I think it's possible, but it just hasn't happened so far. I think the main problem is stuff designed for a studio audience, which is mainly dialogue based, just doesn't work when you remove that.

Personally I'd love to see Red Dwarf get a big screen outing, but then I know that pretty much every single director on the planet would just screw it up. And if he didn't kill the comic timing because, even if he did "get it", he probably couldn't recreate it.

Actually maybe Red Dwarf is a good example, you take the 2nd from last series where they went away from recording things in front of a live studio audience, and decided things would be better if they did them on film, getting the audience to laugh later. Possibly the worst decision ever, backed up by a very poor quality season. The last series, back to the studio audience, and things were much funnier.

ChangesPosted by David Beckett on 28-4-2008 14:34

Red Dwarf could transfer to the big screen, but I don't know where they'd set it, or even when. If it was written and directed by Grant/Naylor there's no reason why a 90-minute feature wouldn't work, like the three-part 'Back in the Red' episode.

The problems would be getting Grant and Naylor back together and the aging and expanding main four cast members.

The X-files worked, as did The Simpsons and South Park, but they're not British and two of them are animated! I don't suppose The Magic Roundabout counts, either! No, can't think of any British comedies that have made it successfully to the big screen, although On the Buses was Hammer's most financially successful film - a depressing thought.

This is worth a read.

ChangesPosted by Mark Oates on 28-4-2008 16:12

You could argue that the opposite is also true - look at the original Carry On Laughing series from ATV - it isn't a patch on Carry Ons like Don't Lose Your Head, Cleo, Up The Khyber etc.

Dick Emery's Ooh, You Are Awful has special status in my book. It isn't really based on his tv series, as none of his regular characters appear in the movie (Charlie Tully plays a Mandy-like WPC to get into police college). It's also the only 70s britcom to ever be remade (as Hong Kong action comedy Aces Go Places III).

I don't think the movie versions of British sitcoms fail exactly. They're always made by a completely different production team to the original, and shot film-style rather than the studio-session style of video comedies. Both these factors have to mean something.

I've always thought the movie version of Up Pompeii, and the Steptoe sequel Rides Again both worked particularly well as re-stagings of a video original, in fact watching the tv series of Up Pompeii recently I came to the conclusion that Bob Kellett's movie is a huge improvement on the original - specifically Michael Hordern's turn as Seneca, Bill Fraser and Lance Percival as villains and of course the presence of Maddie Smith and Julie Ege.

Another factor to remember is that in the 1960s and 70s it was virtually impossible for British film producers to garner a distribution deal with a Hollywood studio. Even with an American star in place they'd seldom do more than put a British movie out as a supporting feature to their domestic product.

I think if Hell ever does freeze over and Red Dwarf The Motion Picture finally gets made, it will probably have little to do with the tv original. More money might get thrown at the project than in the past (as with the appalling Hitchhiker's Guide movie), but everything will get redesigned - "re-imagined" - and everybody will say it isn't a patch on the old show.

ChangesPosted by Stuart McLean on 28-4-2008 22:54

I'm not a big Red Dwarf fan so couldn't comment. The 'fan club' were a werid and devoted bunch though, often crowding into my favourite watering hole in Teddington (right next to the STudios on the River) after a recording. (some 10 years or so ago). You could tell the 'dwarfies' from the usual crowd a mile off...though I can't now remember what distinguished them so obviously!

Mark - I thought the Dick Emery outing was absolutely awful. (Must be a joke in there somewhere along the 'Oooh it is awful...' variety) . A 'caper film' horribly realised ....technically inept (hear that echoey sound on the wide shots) and as dull as dishwater. What did you think of it?

ChangesPosted by Mark Oates on 29-4-2008 02:07

Sorry, Stuart, I have a soft spot for it (don't say yes, between my ears). It tickled my funny bone at a key point in growing up and I've been fond of it ever since. Clues to the whereabouts of a fortune in the form of tattoos on the arses of a group of young ladies? What's not to like?

ChangesPosted by Stuart McLean on 29-4-2008 20:17

Ahh ... I fully understand the 'critical blindness' of nostalgia...I suffer from that a lot myself! There's plenty of things I really like that if I saw for the first time today, I really shouldn't. (The Monkees TV Show, Dark Shadows (the vampire soap), Hart to Hart ...the list is endless!)

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Great British comedies rarely transfer to the silver screen...Sunday, 27th April 2008, 20:58