OK, it's the middle of the night and there's no-one around to disagree with me.
This didn't improve on a repeat viewing, amazingly. I feel soul-less, bereft of the will to live, fearing more for society because of this decaying remnant of Western hegemony than any credit-crunch will ever make me.
First of all...
This is simply not funny. Why do we enjoy sitcoms? Because at their most basic of levels they are funny. What do we get here? A series of crude lines which don't actually work as a script, which anyone who knows the basic anatomy of the human body with a minor grasp of the English language could make.
There is no wit, there is no invention, there is no heart.
If one is to write risque comedy, to do it well, one has to be above it. To make a "f**k" gag (which all this show is) one has to be able NOT to make a f**k gag.
Put simply, to make a good dirty joke, one has to justify it by the ability to make far more sophisticated jokes. The writing on this, does not. Contrast Talbot Rothwell in the 'Carry On' screenplays. (Bear with me here.) Making good knob gags requires the ability to accept that these are crude and potentially offensive, which you justify by making them in a situation which is far-removed from the gutter.
'Coming Of Age' damns itself not only by a lack of wit, but by way of characters, which are the first consideration of a sitcom. You can forgive a character making horrible remarks if 1) they are identifiable and 2) you can have a shred of sympathy with them. Where is any characterisation in this? The lines are interchangeable, so far as to whether the character has a cock or a c**t.
Most, most importantly, this show is insulting to the young (as well as to anyone who actually enjoys comedy).
So what is its message? You're a teenager, you must be gagging for a f**k 24 hours a day. You're a teenager, you're gormless. You're a teenager, you have no ambition beyond being manipulative and selfish. You're a teen, you're vaccuous, heartless, charmless and without redeeming qualities. (Yeah, yeah, it's "only a sitcom mate"...)
I was in-between the cool kids and the nerds when I was a teen. My experience (echoed by meeting teens/early-20's thesedays as friends) is that nothing really ever changes. Only the languague and the clothes ever really change. Being a teen/early 20's is having the tools but not really knowing how to use them - not sexually, but emotionally. I have a small focus group of the 18-22 age group who read my scripts. No, not close friends, I met them down the local. (I am 35, though consider myself an slow-learning 25.) They would be insulted if I gave them a script like 'Coming Of Age' and told them it was how they were. So this is written by a "youngster", who knows how it is. No he doesn't. He writes how a hormonal priapric boy wishes life is. Most teens and early 20's, however they express themselves (either introvertly or extrovertly) are in the majority lacking in self-confidence and looking for guidance. There is a sweetness and a potential for comedy in that.
I'm all in favour of "dangerous" comedy. I write about more adult characters, but I have a regular teen characer in my latest (and script-commissioned) comedy. He has dimensions and a back-story and doubts and blah-blah-blah. The point is that let's not treat teens as one-dimensional characters. Bain&Armstrong are able to flesh out even their minor young characters to an extent in 'Peep Show' to provide not only a little slice of teenage life, but also to compare their attitude with Jeremy & Mark only a decade down the line.
'Coming Of Age' is the point where any right-thinking person who loves the sheer satisfaction (No!) comedy can give us should say "Enough is enough".
I very much doubt that teens will find this funny. This is so bad I really don't think this will find an audience. Perhaps only Susan Nickson (which it reeks of, and whose ascendance into the status of 'Comedy Guru' tells you everything you need to know about what is wrong with Auntie at the moment) and the rest of the 20-something morons who populate the Beeb will think this is doing more good than harm. (There goes my Beeb commission.) But if BBC 3 has gone to these depths, basically insulting teenagers - this sitcom is effectively talking down to younger people and telling them all they're really just compact-f**k-vehicles with the personality of a Dalek - then it no longer deserves to exist, this abomination, this soiled-condom-in-a-garden-pond of a channel.
I'm not a reactionary old fart. I'm pretty certain there is a great sitcom out there for teenagers. But as a simple comparison (although not sitcom), compare and contrast teenage comedy 'Superbad' versus 'Coming Of Age'. OK, different genres. But which is far more full of genuine wit, great characterisation, great acting and (importantly) some heart? You can be as crude as you like if you know how to be clever whilst doing it.
(By the way. A = Superbad.)
Sorry for the rant.
"One of the kindest things you can say about Jim Davidson as a fellow comic is he's not a performer who is troubled by the possibility of duality of meaning." Stewart Lee
Me On That Facebook Thing That Used To Be Fashionable So I Hear
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