All entries for Monday 14 February 2005

Nathan Barley

Dressed as PJ at PJ's P party, I missed the original airing of the first episode of this new sitcom on Friday evening. However, the scheduling goons at Channel 4 got something right for a change and I was able to catch up with the zeitgeist last night at 12.10.

Nathan Barley is a cunt, created by The Guardian's Charlie Brooker back in 1999, and now has his own comedy series co-written by Chris Morris (Brass Eye/The Day Today). Played by Nick Burns, Nathan is one of those twentysomething twats who live in London and work vaguely in the media, have a £50 haircut and all your latest mobile phones (namely the Wasp T12), etc.

He is also an Idiot, as decribed by jaded hack, Dan Ashcroft (Julian Barratt), in an article for Sugar Ape magazine, a publication whose readership and staff is essentially Idiots. However, he loves Dan's work and in said episode meets him and his sister Claire in their shared locale of Hosegate.

It's interesting that this series has only come out now. See, a few years ago – circa the Gorillaz album – there was certainly a rise of and subsequent backlash against these trendy youthful types who rode the streets of London on their microscooters in their ironic t-shirts. The media got tired of mocking this social stratum long ago and now directs its scorn at the charve phenomenon (insisting, so very annoyingly, at calling them 'chavs').

I briefly wondered why Chris Morris hadn't gone for the charves, before realising: too easy. Plus, even though all the Nathan Barley material is a bit dated, this is obviously a personal beef Morris wants to address. The whole point of Nathan Barley is to mock Idiots. These are probably the same Idiots who thought the Brass Eye Paedophile Special was brilliant but failed to properly get it, essentially liking it cos it was cool to. Yeah, right on, etc. These people do and say things that are controversial, surreal and 'ironic', without actually appreciating it, or getting it right. Dan shows the same contempt for sections of his audience that Morris has for sections of his. Witness Nathan's fictional website to see Morris/Brooker deconstructing this odious approach to entertainment, brilliantly.

But, and here's the rub, isn't Morris himself guilty of being controversial/randomly surreal for controversy/random surreality's sake? I thought the Paedophile Special was hit and miss. Am I guilty of the same, with my penchant for making ironic statements whenever I feel like it, even if not appropriate? Am I an Idiot? I thought the game of Cock, Muff, Bumhole was brilliant, and not in a 'ha-ha, the fools' way - genuinely. (Crucially, at the end of last night's episode, Dan succumbs to its joys.) I like to think, as I'm finding this series such a challenge to my way of thinking, that no, I'm not an Idiot. Rather, irony has either eaten itself (another cliché, Pat! Got it, y'big bollocks.), or has been given a bad name by Idiots. I'd like to declare a post-ironic world. And Chris, Charlie and I are there.

As for the series – troubled as I was by its implications – it's very funny. Well weapon, in fact. Watch it this Friday/Saturday. I was particularly impressed by the casting of Howard Moon from TV's The Mighty Boosh and Thornton Reed/Dean Learner from TV's Garth Marenghi's Darkplace.

Daniel Wilson Craw : 14 Feb 2005 03:05 |  Tags: Reviews TV |  Comments (19) |  Close comments |  Report a problem