Harry & Paul - Series 3 Page 8

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Well like it or not I've had that song 'Right in the middle of the f**king road' in my head all weekend.

Still some great stuff going on.

Accepting the maxim that "all sketch shows are hit and miss", this series so far has had more hits than misses. I've only just caught-up on Episode 2 (after seeing 3)... I really enjoyed the Doctor Who/1970s ITV spoof, with Paul doing the best Bob Grant impression I've ever heard. The Writer & The Landlady? God knows where that's going, but I like it - it captures perfectly the creepy veneer of certain 1950s British films (though I'm slightly confused as to why the dramatisations of the writer's story are shot in colour).

I'll say it again, Harry and Paul are still way ahead as the best broad comic actors we have.

During the Beatles Cheeses sketch Tarbies face in the background cracked me up when I noticed it.

Quote: john lucas 101 @ October 18 2010, 9:03 AM BST

Well like it or not I've had that song 'Right in the middle of the f**king road' in my head all weekend.

Still some great stuff going on.

That was fabulous!

reminded me of Enfield at his height... still has flashes of the old magic

Just watching the repeat of Ruddy Hell... on Dave. It's good you know.

Quote: Tim Walker @ October 18 2010, 3:48 PM BST

I really enjoyed the Doctor Who/1970s ITV spoof, with Paul doing the best Bob Grant impression I've ever heard.

I thought this was great too. It summed up what a load of rubbish On The Buses really was with the characters forever laughing at each other.

This is a bit specialist, but the voice Harry does for every driver in the Parking Patewayo sketches is identical to the voice Guy Secretan puts on in Green Wing when he pretends to be someone Northern from the Shires on the phone.
It pleases me.

Quote: Kevin Murphy @ October 14 2010, 2:19 PM BST

http://www.beehivecity.com/television/is-postman-pataweyo-on-bbc-twos-harry-and-paul-a-bit-racist4658/

So what about The Northerners, isn't that just as guilty of perpetuating a stereotype? They are all presented as white chain-smoking drinkers.

Of course it's done ironically, or surrealistically, or it's actually making fun of the upper classes or something, so "it doesn't count".

I enjoy this show but I do feel it's quite lazy, essentially repeating the same gags week after week. At least with The Fast Show they bounced the characters off in new and interesting directions. This show seems content to tread water.

I was recommended this recently as a broad, mainstream sketch show. Having watched it last night for the first time I thought it was anything but - it was really quite out there in places. Perhaps the sketches become less absurd by repetition or maybe this was just an odd episode but I couldn't imagine my parents sitting down to watch this. Some of it was too surreal for my taste even - particularly the landlady and the guy naming made up football teams. What was all that about?

Quote: zooo @ October 19 2010, 9:50 PM BST

This is a bit specialist, but the voice Harry does for every driver in the Parking Patewayo sketches is identical to the voice Guy Secretan puts on in Green Wing when he pretends to be someone Northern from the Shires on the phone.
It pleases me.

It sounded to me like the voice Harry Enfield did on his old TV show when Kevin & Perry were pretending to be from up north.

Oh, I don't remember that. Maybe that's where Secretan got it, and it's come full circle?

Paul Whitehouse had moved on in recent years with some interesting material like Down the Line and the Chris Langham psychiatrist series. But his work with Enfield (along with those awful Aviva ads) seems like stale moth eaten rehash of 15 year old work.

A lot of the characters felt like trivial observations in HArry's North London neighbourhood; over officious Nigerian traffic wardens, sad middle age men chatting up young Polish girls in a deli, rude over-priced junkshop owner, that really don't strike much of a chord.

Enjoyed the Berlusconi translator which was at least funny the first time.

Enfield's Dean Benefit character has got the most legs for a show that repeats its sketches every week. Unusually for him he underplays it and is all the funnier.

F**kin' brilliant!