Did Slapstick Truly Need a Right-On Facelift?

velvoofell

On British radio, 'Count Arthur Strong' has over six series under its belt, some scripts stronger than others, but overall a mundane world (in the radio sow, the North of England) viewed from the perspective of the malapropic, Munchausenian "Count Arthur". Arthur is the antagonistic protagonist, consistently getting himself and others out of his/their depth due to spiralling lies, misunderstandings - or mammoth drinking sessions. On radio, he is a quixotic Falstaff, childish and hilariously self-preserving. His dubious relationships with eternal protégé "Malcolm" plus his tentative grasp of reality and Equity membership, add to the tone of a sitcom Morrissey might have penned. The humour is unabatedly "Northern" but self-effacing with it - for example, Strong constantly name drops cult Northern comedy turn, Jimmy Clitheroe, to scant recognition.

For television it may have been seen as a cheap or cheating move to simply transport the radio scripts to screen. To reshape it or TV, Graham Linehan, one of 'Father Ted''s progenitors, became writing partner for Steve Delaney (the Count himself) and the outcome was positively anticipated.

What results is an odd Frankenstein creation of the Count Arthur Strong stage show - which Delaney performed solo for years - and what appears to be a 'Colin's Sandwich'- style script Linehan had pre-written, ancillary to the Strong project.

The location changes from a drab, 'Butchers Films' style North to, utterly incongruously for Strong's potential gravitation, a trendy Brick Lane/ Camden Lock style area of London. Gone is the camp manchild Malcolm and instead Rory Kinnear's 'Michael Baker' is Arthur's principal comic foil, a writer who has paired up with his light-entertainment icon father's former partner, Strong, in order to record his memoir. Here begins one of the many problems with the TV 'Count Arthur Strong'. Strong's name may be above the shopfront, but Linehan devotes so much time to Kinnear/Baker's reactions, right-on problems (Baker, constantly meeting with Strong in an ethnically diverse cafe, endeavours to show he's neither racist or, in his pursuit of a diamond-in-the-rough waitress, sexist) and first-world woes that he may as well be the eponymous character.

The only 'Father Ted'-level belly-laughs come, ironically, when Linehan's scenarios give way to sections of Delaney/Arthur's radio scripts or original stage (a disastrous radio- drama recording; a marathon, one-man, musical showcase). These are rendered all but narratively impotent when offset by ( presumably Linehan-scripted) exchanges where the cafe waitress chides Baker for exploiting Arthur. The implication is that Arthur's caricatured exploits are those of an uncoping, possibly senile geriatric. Therefore, the Linehan tack, offsetting truly funny slapstick and malapropism, with sixth-form level political correctness, isn't just unfunny, it seeks to rob the genuinely funny (Delaney written) portions of the script of laughs - are we, the audience, daring to laugh at a person suffering from mental illness?!

In the last few years, Linehan has adopted a po-faced, "arbiter of all that is politically correct-and-right-on" pose on social networking platform 'Twitter'. Under the nom de plume @Glinner, he has engaged unwary souls over the mildest of criticisms and accused even the most liberal tweeters - whom he takes against for some reason - of whichever "ist" or "ism" he sees they conveyed.

The sitcom suffers from this dubious, contrary and ultimately too "preachy" hand wringing. A conspiracy theorist character, Eggy, is held up for ridicule then pathos - he questions the government and status quo because his wife was unfaithful. The chimera of a slapstick and social mores sitcom so patronising of a mainstream audience that it questions hilarity at the acts of a fool or fool(s), cannot work. Linehan, so deftly working in broad strokes and productively cake-and-eating-it with'Father Ted' taints this show with his own seemingly conflicted attitude to what should be - but not "is"- funny.

His fellow twitter "King Bee", Stephen Fry, opined that sitcom 'M*A*S*H' started well but then ended in a mire of pathos and saccharine fluff with "a little Korean boy being brought on every week that the white cast could head-pat". This could be advice best heeded as, figuratively speaking, Linehan has hit the ground running with " juvenile-Korean-head- patting" in 'Count Arthur Strong' and it can only be hoped that he hands the reins back to Delaney - as he did after one series to Dylan Moran on 'Black Books' - that he might salvage his character.

If that means simply televising old radio scripts, all the better.

score 5/10

velvoofell 7 August 2013

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2849752/