--- the BBC official writeup
* * *
A television studio. An empty stage. A door. A crowd left over from Top of the Pops. A sense of electric excitement that fills the air like tear gas; we realise that we are going to see something special here. Coming off the back of their mega-hit genre-busting deconstruction of post-wave feminism ‘Lesbian Vampire Killers’, Matthew Horne and James Corden are the saviours of British comedy which has stagnated in a quagmire of Stewart Lee/Ricky Gervais/Simon Pegg/Chris Morris old-boys-club nepotism. But no more. In a matter of seconds our heroes will walk through that door and dazzle millions with half an hour of pure comedy gold. I’m shaking a little bit in the knowledge that I am about to see two television De Vincis paint their Mona Lisa with paint made from comedic sketches.
There is a hiss. The crowd gasps. The door slides open and our two maestros enter. One realises straight away that these guys are professional comedians who know the first rule of live comedy – bigger is better. Deadpanning = dead AIR-ing. They go STRAIGHT for the lulz, pulling funny faces, leaping about, howling at the crowd, gurning at each other and drumming up excitement until the audience is so excited they literally can’t stay quiet. We're like children on fizzy lemonade. Eventually the applause dies down. And the show begins.
MH: Hi guys! Wow, it’s great to be here. I’m hermaphrodite straight-man scarecrow twat Matthew Horne!
The crowd goes MENTAL
JC: And I’m smug yardie manchild James Corden!
Both: And welcome to meltdown comedy turkey ‘Horne & Corden’!
More applause; one can immediately see the influence that their apparent years of work as Butlins Reps had on these two young comedians. They start off with some patter that immediately wipes all memories of Morecambe and Wise from our minds. Corden speaks to a wheelchair-bound member of the audience; one immediately begins to suspect that there’s some trickery afoot when Horne disappears. The young girl claims that she can’t afford an electric wheelchair, but being physically (and possibly mentally) disabled, she’s such a big fan of the two comedians that just coming to the show is enough to cheer her up. ‘But wait’ says Corden. ‘We’ve got a surprise for you… a new electric wheelchair!’ We cheer - but then Horne comes in with the new chair. Oh no!- he hasn’t got an electric WHEELCHAIR, he’s accidentally got an ELECTRIC CHAIR from a Texan prison!
He’s accidentally got an ELECTRIC CHAIR from a Texan prison!
He’s accidentally got an ELECTRIC CHAIR from a Texan prison!
He’s accidentally got an ELECTRIC CHAIR from a Texan prison!
(This is funny because ‘electric wheelchair’ and ‘electric chair’ are two terms that, despite being different, sound sort of similar. It’s like a visual pun. Because they sort of sound the same but really mean totally different things. The comedy comes in the mismatch between the expectations of the audience and the reality. After all, electric wheelchairs and electric chairs are like, absolutely not the same! They are different. And therein lies the comedy. This respectful and witty approach to dark subject matters like child disability and the death penalty is a promise that the show makes with us, and when we launch into the sketches we see that this promise is more than kept.)
SKETCH ONE: “The Gay Newsreader”
JC: Hello, I’m a straight newsreader in the studio! Oh no! There’s some kind of obviously-serious state-of-affairs (terrorist attack, hostage situation, etc)! Such a serious situation obviously requires an equally serious register of response. Now let’s go to our reporter out there in the field who I can only assume will be treating this situation with the reverence it deserves.
MH: Heya guys! Look at me! Being the androgynous member of the pair, I’m dressed and acting like a mincing homosexual predator stereotype from a 1950’s Christian fundamentalist propaganda leaflet!! But I’m presenting the news! How wacky! I wonder what kind of crazy antics I’ll get up to!!! Now the thing you should remember about homosexuals is that they (“we”) are all obsessed with fashion and having sex with other men.
Gunshots are heard
Oh look, a terrorist! Actually he’s quite fit you know, maybe I (being a gay man) can go and offer him my number!!! Then I can have sex with him! And we can go buy shoes! BECAUSE I’M A GAY MAN!!!!!
JC: *pulls a funny face*
MH: Well, gotta go, there’s a sale at Prada! Toodles!!!!!!!!!!
JC: Oh, you gays! What won’t you try and have sex with? (well, other than women, obviously)
End of Sketch
(Repeated week-to-week in a variety of different situations)
The joke here is that nobody would actually act like this (other than the gays). This sketch is making a satirical point, raising questions about the public acceptance of homosexuals into public roles, with the obvious implication that no, they probably shouldn’t be. Because they’ll be too interested in singing karaoke and talking about Jean Paul Gautier to do a proper job.
The sketches have started off well and don’t you worry – the quality never wavers.
SKETCH TWO: “Olympic Games"
Horne and Corden are taking part in an Olympic sport
MH: Being skinny and lithe, I’m quite good at this Olympic Sport!
JC: On the other hand, being big and fat, I tend to not be very good at this Olympic Sport!
End of Sketch
(Repeated week-to-week in a variety of different situations)
This sketch revolves around a common theme that runs throughout the series – the fact that Matthew Horne is skinny and lithe whereas James Corden is big and fat. This realisation is pretty important – without it, many of the show’s sketches (such as the one where Corden takes off his shirt, grabs his belly, shakes it about while screaming ‘WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?!?!?!?’ for four and a half minutes) are liable to simply fly over the head of casual viewers.
SKETCH THREE: “MAN BEING PUSHED OVER”
MH: I am a posh-looking businessman doing some middle class, in this case buying paté at a posh supermarket.
James Corden runs into frame and pushes him over.
JC: I pushed you over!
MH: Oh no, I fell over! I do look silly!
JC: I did it!
End of Sketch
(Repeated week-to-week in a variety of different situations)
Many sketch show precursors to Horne & Corden threw in a number recurring in-jokes for eagle-eyed viewers to spot; the exact same throwaway reference (for example, the lemon drink in TMWRNJ) would reappear constantly throughout a season, often with minor variations. What's great about Horne & Corden is that they do the same thing, except they push it another step further and more or less fill every episode with the same seven or eight sketches rotated about with minor cosmetic variations for the entire season; therefore if you liked the posh-looking businessman being pushed over in the supermarket, you are likely to LOVE the posh-looking businessman being pushed over in, say, the gym! Or the toilets! I’m looking forward to tuning in next week to see where the posh-looking businessman gets pushed over next (I hope it’s a posh gallery opening!!!). Sure, “people” may say that familiarity breeds contempt but did those people star in the Catherine Tate show or write Bafta-winning comedy 'Gavin & Stacey' or flirt with with Keith Allen’s daughter Lily Allen? No. No they didn’t. So they don’t know shit about comedy.
SKETCH FOUR: “Big Penis”
Horne is working in an office when Corden walks in
JC: Hey, Matthew Horne, guess what?
MH: What?
JC: I just had that penis enlargement surgery that you can have.
MH: Wow! Is your penis bigger?
JC: Yeah a bit. Want to see?
MH: Yeah!
James Corden unzips his flies, at which point a huge long prosthetic penis falls out of his crotch and lands on the desk
JC: Look, I had penis enlargement surgery and now my penis is bigger.
MH: Yes.
JC: We sure presented an cause-effect relationship in this sketch.
MH: Yes, because the penis is bigger. And there it is.
JC: So we’re happy with this sketch, then? This it is. This is what we’re going to broadcast to millions.
MH: Yes. Yes I am. I think that this sketch is the best that it possibly can be. We’ve written something to be proud of here. I’m going to lie on my deathbed in sixty years and think fondly back on that time when we did a sketch where the punchline was a large prosthetic penis. The joke being that you had surgery to make your penis bigger, and it was a success, and now you have a big penis. Which we’ve presented here on screen. That’s the joke. A penis. We’re getting paid thousands of pounds for this.
End of Sketch
At this point we realise that Horne & Corden have produced not just a sketch show, but an incredibly sophisticated post-modern deconstruction of the sketch show format as a whole. Just as in Alan Moore’s ‘Watchmen’, where the author presented the various tropes and trappings of the superhero as nothing more than a series of arbitrary nominal moral distinctions, in ‘Horne & Corden’ our two clown visionaries have dragged the sketch format down by not actually including any punchlines, jokes that aren’t puns or non-sequiteurs, or humour.
SKETCH FIVE: “Xander”
MH: I’m a posh man.
JC: I’m an obnoxious person. My name is Xander. I do obnoxious things.
MH: Oh no!
End of Sketch
Repeated week-to-week in a variety of different situations
SKETCH SIX: “Something About Superman And Spiderman”
MH: I am a posh superman.
JC: I am an obnoxious spiderman.
Both: We are doing normal everyday things that superheroes do not traditionally do.
JC: I act obnoxiously.
MH: Oh no!
End of Sketch
Repeated week-to-week in a variety of different situations
SKETCH SEVEN: “For Whatever Fucking Reason They’re Buying Clothes From A Shop”
A shop. MH or JC comes out of the front door holding a bag. He holds it aloft, proudly.
MH/JC: I HAVE JUST BOUGHT SOME INNOCULOUS-LOOKING CLOTHES
End of Sketch
Repeated week-to-week. No variety of situations. seriously thats it
SKETCH EIGHT: “Horne and Corner dress in stupid clothes and do a comedy song making fun of the Christians in which the main jokes appear to be that if you sing words really long, then sometimes the beginning of the word sounds like a swear-word (for example CUNTTTTTTTTTTT-RY), and also the fact that saying ‘touch me heavenly father’ in reference to the hymn also sounds a bit like asking your paedophile father to molest you, and concluding by singing the names of a list of celebrities (no, that’s the joke), so they repeat that four or fives times and then the show’s over and this is broadcast to the entire country”
This sketch ends the show every single time.
* * *
All in all, on my cultural barometer I would probably place 'Horne & Corden' into the same pigeon-hole as I do Robbie Williams and Rupert Everett’s performance of ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me’ from Robbie’s 2001 Sinatra inspired album ‘Sing When You’re Winning’, especially the bit when Robbie and Rupert start riffing with each other and playing grabass, which is basically equivalent with me saying that it’d probably be a good idea to tie Corden and Horne to a chair and keep hurting them until they promise to never release anything they produce into the public domain ever again.
-- My Official Writeup
No comments:
Post a Comment