So. Sitcoms in Britain. Remember when they were shot in front of an audience and the audience laughed, and all that shizzle? Well, one day Stephen Merchant and Richard Jarvis (or something like that, I can't remember the mong-faced* twat's name for some reason) came along and decided that comedy should not involve laughter.
In order to prove this, they wrote and starred in "The Office", during which almost no laughter can be heard. This was a stylistic choice in order to 'sell' the conceit that this was a real "fly on the wall" documentary. It worked, for the most part - a lot of the humour was contrived around being embarrassed on behalf of the main characters. As a one-off, this conceit works.
But unfortunately, corporations took notice. What happened was that TV executives the length and breadth of the country decided "Oh yeah! Laughter is out! Live audiences are out! That is so OLD HAT that I could live off the mould growing on the brim!£ And so a whole generation of 'silent' (as in, no audience) comedy has been spawned in this country.
And I'm left wondering why?
My argument is NOT that programs like "The Inbetweeners" or "Phoenix Nights" or "White Van Man" or "Man Down" or ... well, pretty much everything since "The Orifice", are NOT funny. I love quite a lot of them. But what they do lack, when divorced of the specific narrative construct of 'Fly on the wall documentary about a man having a mid-life crisis' that David Brent brought to the fore is... well, any reason to NOT have an audience.
The problem with any recorded media is separation. Whether it be factual or fictional, 99% of us aren't there when it is made. And so we are at least one-degree removed from being within the narrative. Movie and TV execs have spent years trying to find ways of involving us in a scene as if we were there. Close ups. First person POV. Musical soundtracks. Anything to get us to feel it closer, make it more personal. And with comedy, feeling as though you're a part of it is more important than any other genre - laughter is a pretty special thingy when you think about the emotional responses required in order to produce it. Hell, what normal new-parent hasn't spent hours trying to get their baby to laugh?!
So why has British comedy devised a set up where, almost as a standard reference now, we're deliberately told "You're not really here - these are just some idiots and you're just watching through the fourth wall"?
Ask any stand-up comedian about how important a good audience is, and they will tell you that an audience can make or break a show. They can go to the Fringe and perform the same material, word for word, note for note, identical night-in night-out, and bring the roof down one night, and yet be met with a sea of stony faces the next. The material and performance are EXACTLY THE SAME - but one night the audience loves it and the next they hate it.
Some stand-ups have learnt that if they laugh along to their own material, it 'jolts' an otherwise unresponsive audience into joining in and giving a bit of a chuckle. But it's not like the audience are being hood-winked into laughing along to material that isn't funny - it's just that it is natural as a human being to let your inhibitions down a little if you believe that people around you have similar tastes. We've all been on the bus, read something funny, but stifled the laugh: it seems like it's a natural defence against ridicule to not let anyone else know what you like.
So it's not that hearing other people laughing makes the material funnier - there's only so many ways you can say "penis" - but if you feel you're in amongst other people who think that the word "penis" is inherently funny, you will feel dis-inhibited and enjoy hearing the word more than if you were, say, round at your staunch Catholic grandparents' house.
So enjoyment stems, it seems, in equal parts from both the words being said AND the atmosphere into which they are spoken. So why the fuck is laughter surgically removed from modern British sit-coms? "Ballot Monkeys" had the makings of being a true classic. It was so topical that parts of it were recorded only hours before broadcast. Ben Miller portrayed a Lib-dem in the midst of ideological and mental break-down perfectly, and Hugh Dennis' sublime Thatcherite Tory facing up to modern Conservatism was brilliant...
...But it was just so fucking cold. Things like that or "The Thick of It" are truly brilliant, but if you're in the wrong mood and feeling particularly bitter about the human race, they can misfire completely. Whereas the programme upon which they are modelled, "Yes [Prime] Minister" has audience laughter throughout and within minutes his guaranteed to raise any mood. If I were up at 3am and feeling depressed, I would not expect "Bad Education" to cheer me up. But "Allo Allo" bloody-well would, even though the set ups are ridiculously contrived, the catchphrases so worn out and the performances to stagy... And I know half that audience are dead now, laughing from beyond the grave.
Let's face it: Hearing other people laughing at and enjoying something helps US enjoy it too. "The IT Crowd" was shot in front of an audience and broadcast with their laughter. And it is hilarious. And so was "Black Books", "Father Ted", "The Fast Show", "Red Dwarf" (mostly), "Fawlty Towers", and pretty much everything else that's been funny on TV since 1936. So why are we so goddamned opposed to hearing laughter on British sitcoms now?!
I've decided that I think that it has nothing to do with you or I or audience appreciation. It's about appearances. It's about Director John saying to Producer Bob "I made something even less funny than you last week - not even the crew dared laugh." Because appearing high-brow and artistic has become more important than actually being funny. When "The Office" was made, despite being the genesis of what I now consider to be poor 'cringe-factor' comedy, it had a unique edge and an internal consistency. We as an audience could work out where every 'Fly on the wall' camera in that room was supposed to be. Now the docucomedy has become such a trope that no director even cares about cutting from one shot to the next where a camera should logically be in the way. It's just how comedy "Is" now.
And yet...
What's this...?
The most popular TV comedy ever in world history was shot almost entirely on one set in front of a live studio audience. "Friends" may have finished over 10 years ago, but face it "The Big Bang Theory" has replaced it in the charts, it's still made the same way, and bejeebers... Even when the Schroedinger's Heisenberg jokes go over your head, it makes you laugh because you feel you're a part of the crowd and laughing along with everyone else. The most successful comedy on TV in the world right now is made the old-fashioned way:
With atmosphere and LAUGHTER. I hope Britain realises that soon.
* See "Herring vs. Gervais" 2012, 'Is "Mong" acceptable in modern language? Of course it fucking isn't you dick-head'.
