Rich's best work: Time Gentlemen Please.

Seriously? I mean, I like it, but best work? Just telly-wise or all together? I think TMWRNJ is 10x better than TGP. And stand up like Hitler Moustache or The Meaning of Life or AIOTM (not strictly stand up, but still) are miles better.

You and I have very different taste though, I realise. That's quite fine by me.

SPOILERS:

I just caught up on episode 3. I enjoyed it, but had some serious issues with it. I don't mind that it was more serious in tone and dramatic, especially wth the little meta nod joke with the snowglobe and the 'one of your radio comedies' thing. That was the only real laugh for me though. What I also didn't like was the portrayal of the mother's reaction to the grandmother with alzheimers'. It was super heavy handed and not realistic. I've witnessed real life scenes of that sort with family members who rarely or never visit their loved one saying ridiculous things to their infirm parent and asking them stupid questions or overwhelming their senses etc. They got that much right, but the whole thing of her not recognising her daughter was just too storybook for me. I've seen loads of people with alzheimers be skeptical of family who never visit and maybe not respond to them warmly, or refuse to speak to them, but even in the saddest cases of like a daughter not visiting for 14 years because her mother disowned her, her 102 year old mother still recognised her daughter despite severe dementia and laughed in her daughter's face when she asked if she knew who she was. Her answer was just 'Yes.' as in d'uhh/unfortunately/of course. She wasn't happy to see her, but she recognised her by sight, if not by name. A lot of times they'll forget how old they themselves are, and will be under kind of a wobbly working assumption that they're a teenager or in their 20s, so for them a lot of times it doesn't make sense conceptually for them to have adult children but they do tend to still recognise their childrens' faces and voices even after a long time apart, at least with moderate dementia. Their short term memory and names and math questions and 'what day is it?' and all that becomes unrealistic for them to keep track of, but anything like 10-20+ years ago is still going to be in there in some retreivable state. They usually just need the right kind of prompting. Then the thing with the song was weird to me, because the grandmother was singing along wasn't she? Just not super confidently and she didn't get the words if there were any. But she had the tune. Why wasn't that proof enough to the family that she was still in there?

Also the plot and premise was laid on a little thick this episode without a lot of gags. I chuckled a bit. I'll stick with it. Hopefully the next one will be good. Wonder if there's going to be a twist at the end. And also wonder how far into the future the next episode will jump, and by the finale what point in Ian's life will it be. Will he be an old man? What family would surround him in old age? Not sure that's where it's going, but that's where my mind jumped to.

Moreish fun. It feels more televisual to me than most radio comedy does, for whatever reason. Steadman and Davis are very good.

There's two sitcoms on at the moment with "Richard Osmand" jokes in them.