British Life

1
British Life

• Humour Comedy

2
British Humour

• Humour (??) is of central importance in British
  culture
• In normal everyday conversation there is always
  "some" humour- even if it isn't very funny (and
  isnt meant to be)
• irony ??
• wit ??
• banter ??
• teasing ??
• understatement ?????
• humourous self-deprecation ????
• mockery ??
• silliness ??

3
British Humour

• Many non-British people find everyday British
  humour confusing.
• Especially irony, which is almost always present
• e.g. A normal conversation
• A How are the children?
• B Fine, thanks.
• A Oh, Good.
• The same conversation in Britain
• A How are the children?
• B Oh, they're delightful - charming, helpful,
  tidy, studious...
• A Oh dear. Been one of those days, has it?
• Understatement is also a big part of British
  humour
• e.g. During a typhoon "It's a bit wet out
  there, isn't it?"

4
British Comedy

• Father Ted
• Fawlty Towers
• Men Behaving Badly
• Only Fools and Horses
• Whose Line is it Anyway?
• The Young Ones
• The Goodies

5
Father Ted

• Father Ted is a 1990s television situation comedy
  set on the extremely remote fictional Craggy
  Island off the west coast of Ireland.
• It first aired April 21, 1995 on the UK's Channel
  4, and the final episode was broadcast on May 1,
  1998.
• Father Ted was written by Arthur Mathews and
  Graham Linehan, who also co-created Big Train.
  All the interior scenes were shot at the LWT
  studios in London, while all of the location
  footage was shot in Ireland

6
Fawlty Towers

• Fawlty Towers is set in a fictional hotel named
  Fawlty Towers in the Devon town of Torquay on
  "the English Riviera".
• The hotel is owned and run by the eccentric Basil
  Fawlty and his wife Sybil, helped by the maid
  Polly, the Spanish porter Manuel who could barely
  speak English and (in the second series) the chef
  Terry.
• Permanent guests were the half-senile Major Gowen
  and the bewildered old ladies Miss Tibbs and Miss
  Gatsby. Very few other guests ever stayed long.

7
Men Behaving Badly

• Men Behaving Badly centres around two "blokes",
  Gary (Martin Clunes) and Tony (Neil Morrissey)
  (Tony replaced Dermot (Harry Enfield) from the
  second series on) sharing the ground floor flat
  owned by Gary in a converted house.
• Gary is a branch manager of a security systems
  company Tony drifts from job to job, including
  spells as a model, busker, mime artist, barman
  and driver

8
Only Fools and Horses

• Derek "Del Boy" Trotter (played by David Jason)
  and his younger brother Rodney (Nicholas
  Lyndhurst) share a flat with their elderly
  Grandad (Lennard Pearce) several floors up Nelson
  Mandela House in a high-rise estate in Peckham,
  South London (although the actual high-rise shown
  in the show was in Acton, West London).
• Del Boy runs Trotter's Independent Traders he's
  a fast-talking Cockney market trader, a
  wheeler-dealer, a wide boy, always looking to try
  to make a quick buck, cash in hand, no questions
  asked.

9
Whose Line is it Anyway?

• Whose Line Is It Anyway? is an improvised and
  largely unscripted comedy pseudo-game show.
• It was originally a British radio programme, but
  moved to British and then American television.

10
The Young Ones

• The Young Ones was a British sitcom about four
  male students sharing a house. It was written by
  Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, and Lise Mayer, with
  additional contributions by Alexei Sayle (usually
  involving his own performances).
• The show was directed by Geoff Posner and
  produced by Paul Jackson for the BBC between 1982
  and 1984.
• The show developed a cult following throughout
  the English-speaking world