Feeling Blue

I have a very personal recommendation when you are feeling a little blue or under the weather. It works for me; it is free and has no harmful side effects although it could become addictive. It is also available in the US and the UK although translating it into French might be a challenge. I felt a little blue this afternoon and even a walk could not revive my spirits. I suspect that Marion was also not at her best. So what did we do?

We watched a couple of repeats of Frasier. Particularly when you have not seen it for a while it is comedy at its best. I think that you could make a pitch for it being the best sit-com of all time, the only one that I think is on a par with it is Fawlty Towers, but then there were only twelve episodes of Fawlty Towers and may be just may be the humour does not translate internationally quite as much. Frasier ran over 264 episodes a prodigious effort of scriptwriting and acting.

I think that it passes the fundamental test of good comedy; it makes me laugh out loud, frequently and raucously. Not only at the originals but when I watch a rerun as well. Perhaps I am just getting grumpy but no modern show has that effect.

Why, I think the reasons are many, but firstly the scripts are great and the cast is a fine comedy ensemble that seems to feed of each other. In particular I love the episodes where there are cases of mistaken identity or circumstance. The Millennium episode where the brothers and Marty are on a road trip and where Niles climbs into the wrong camper van comes particularly to mind.

I realise that there was a huge writing team behind Frasier and that the jokes would have been crafted and polished countless times rather than the partnerships typically involved in British comedy of the time. This means that the writing is probably more polished and slick, and it that it lacks the catch phrase moments of British comedy. The “they don’t like it up them” of Dads Army or “Don’t mention the war” of Fawlty Towers. What Frasier does successfully is to combine comedy with pathos, and this is an extremely difficult thing to do. You both cringe and laugh at the same time, whereas in something like the Office the comedy relies on embarrassment.

So the mood of our evening has been changed for the better by a simple comedic prescription.