…for crimes against comedy perhaps…? December 1, 2007

I was quite frankly shocked at Vic Reeves’ new solo venture, the radio show ‘Vic Reeves’ House Arrest’ which started on Radio 2 on November 17^th co-starring Noel Fielding from The Mighty Boosh and Nancy Sorrell of erm… ‘I’m A Celebrity’ fame, also married to Vic Reeves…

clockwise from top left: Bob Mortimer, Noel Fielding, Nancy Sorrell, Vic Reeves © BBC 2007

I was hoping for something with at the very least decent production values. After all Vic Reeves’ is the co-creator of such classics as ‘Shooting Stars’, ‘Smell of Reeves and Mortimer’ and also the criminally underrated ‘Catterick’ (all co-written with Bob Mortimer), however not only did the sound production in this new radio series seem rather shoddy, but the programme fell severely short when it came to material as well.

 

The concept of the show was very promising; it was Vic Reeves playing himself but he was under house-arrest for a crime he didn’t commit. However the first episode just seemed like one huge wasted opportunity.

 

Instead of clever self-contained sketches about things going on in Reeves’ house it consisted of basically Reeves’ ‘narrating’ as himself, bumbling about his house looking for things to do. Now narration on radio I don’t mind but when it’s of the type ‘ooh, I’m in my house now, I wonder what I could do next…oh, who’s that at the door now?’ it really is sub-standard and shows lack of effort. There were some cut-away sections that were spoof adverts or spoof TV shows Reeves was watching, but they were ruined by the sound production as there was no differentiation between Reeves talking in his house and the spoof drama sections…it felt like we were missing out on a visual joke that would signify the shift in location. Sorry Vic, but you’re on radio so we need to be able to hear it!

 

Then later in the episode we had the appearance of Inspector John Fowler who was originally conceived as Kinky John, the club compere in ‘Bang Bang It’s Reeves And Mortimer’ and later reinvented as an American style detective (“Just dial 999 and ask for the American Eagle!”) in ‘Catterick’. Fowler is one of Reeves and Mortimer’s funniest characters, and given the nature of the show, it would have been great to have Fowler pursue Reeves for the different crimes he is supposed to have committed perhaps, or something along those lines. It’s almost a no-brainer really. But whether Reeves thought this was too obvious, or he just intentionally wasted an opportunity I don’t know, but instead we had Fowler simply reading sections from his auto-biography.

 

 

left to right: Kinky John and Inspector John Fowler © BBC

Don’t get me wrong Fowler’s section was actually one of the few highlights of the show as his strange stories in his paradoxically faltering yet grandiose delivery (“The audience are like pu…GINGER in my hands…(long pause)…PUTTY!” as Kinky John in ‘Bang Bang’) are always entertaining, but when presented without contrasting him to a more serious backdrop and without interaction with other characters (as in both ‘Catterick’ and ‘Bang Bang’) they just seem a little one note. The other highlight for me was the monologue by Bob Mortimer as Reeves’ hairdresser Carl. Mortimer’s performance was, as ever, hilarious and provided a much needed element of texture to the sound of the show as I was already zoning out only a short while into the show as up to Mortimer’s appearance it has been mostly Reeves’ voice. However, the character of ‘Carl’ is yet again another character originally shown in Bang Bang as a club bouncer and then in Catterick as the protagonist returning from the army to search for his long-lost son, only now he is reduced to merely a cameo. Oh and did I mention we had ‘Club Singing’ originated in ‘Shooting Stars’ as well? It seems Reeves doesn’t have any new ideas to offer, just recycling old popular ones in the hope we won’t notice. Even guest stars Fielding and Sorell were underused (I never thought I’d find myself writing that sentence believe me!)

 

I don’t know if I can attribute this distinct loss of direction and quality in Reeves’ material to the fact he is writing on his own without the aid of usual comedy partner Bob Mortimer but it does seem suspicious, especially given that the sections of Vic talking have a similar style to that of many interview with Reeves (or rather Jim Moir), by which I mean a slightly infuriatingly evasive tone, mixed with a perhaps self conscious effort to be ‘surreal’ or rather his version of what surreal is. No, despite being a huge fan of most of his comedy material I’m not a fan of Reeves/Moir in interview.

 

Had this been a new series by unknown comedians I would have forgiven the faults in the show and perhaps found them endearing, but really I expect a lot more of someone with such an illustrious comedy career as Vic Reeves, especially as this series seems like a huge step backwards; by this I mean they went from the live sketches of ‘Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out’ to ‘Smell of’ and ‘Bang Bang’ which gave us more polished sketches and mixed the live and televisual elements brilliantly, while also further developing running characters then to ‘Catterick’ which took the characters and gave them a longer narrative, while also incorporating some sketch like elements. In these examples of Reeves and Mortimer’s career there isn’t really a logical progression as such, more that each new venture builds on the best elements of the last whilst also creating it’s own identity; whereas with ‘House Arrest’ it just seems to be rather stagnant and unclear of it’s direction.

 

I hope that this is just a minor blip from which they can recover their comedic originality. I’m sure they will, after all I’m no longer judging them on ‘Families At War’ or Bob Mortimer for his involvement with ‘Tittybangbang’ , though that last one took months of counselling and therapeutic viewing of decent comedy writing such as ‘The Smoking Room’. I will remain optimistic that Vic Reeves (hopefully along with Bob) will come up with something fresh and new that builds on the genius of ‘Catterick’, which in the mean time I recommend you all go and watch, or you want some truly original radio comedy go and download ‘Blue Jam’ by Chris Morris (download available from Cookd and Bombd)…which no amount of my blog space could really do justice too…