As Frankie Boyle's new stand-up-slash-sketch-show reaches its third episode, I think I've seen enough of it to write a good enough review. First, though, an overview:
Your opinion on Frankie Boyle is largely dictated by how dark you like your comedy. 'Pitch black' is a good phrase for describing how dark Boyle's humour is. A beeter phrase is 'night-time, down a coalmine, during a fucking eclipse. And wearing sunglasses'. With this in mind, I've written two reviews.
For those of you offended by strong language or irreverant jokes that could be taken as 'something-ist', Daily Mail readers, and people who don't like jokes about child abuse, a) welcome to my blog, you won't enjoy it, and b) Your version of this review is here.
For the rest of you, check this shit out:
As you probably guessed, I'm already a fan of Frankie Boyle's. I'm not being paid to do this, so I wouldn't watch his show unless it was good (or so-bad-it's-good. Or Scrubs). So, let's start with the good shit.
The highlight of Tramadol Nights is definitely the sketches. Good lord, this man has no boundaries. Boyle clearly believes that if something's not okay to laugh about, then nothing is, and has made it his personal business that everything under the sun is made fun of. This is pretty admirable, and no-one else would have the sheer balls to make (just for example, because they're all pretty fucking transgressive) You've Been Framed: Too Bleak for TV.
What makes these sketches so good, though, is that after the shock value has worn off, they're still funny. This is a big plus, because you expect (and are therefore less shocked by) shocking material from a man whose latest DVD is titled If I Could Reach Through Your TV and Strangle You, I Would.
Speaking of abusing his audience, it's time I talked about the stand-up aspect of the show. I never thought I'd say this, but Frankie Boyle's stand-up lets him down here. And it's not just because the sketches are so freakin' good. It's because he pretty much just heckles his audience. We get it, Frankie. You hate everyone. Point taken. We've heard enough child abuse jokes from you, as well. Paedophile uncles are only funny the first couple of times. Occaisionally, Boyle gets back to his brilliantly scathing commentary on the world at large, and the stand-up sections just about get a pass because of this.
Overall, Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights is, depending on your attitude to sick jokes, one of the best sketch shows on TV right now. In terms of stand-up, it loses out to Russell Howard's Good News, among others. It's definitely worth watching, but not awesome. Too bad you can't reach through my laptop and strangle me until I give you 10/10, Frankie, but you get a pretty respectable:
7/10
Holy fuck, I've done something productive,
Nick
LOLLED at the link for about 3 minutes before I could continue. I haven't watched Tramadol Nights yet but I love Frankie Boyle so I may have to give it a go. Ta
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I was actually pretty let down by the whole thing. I thought the sketches were hideously, even embarrassingly, unfunny. I also noticed he re-used old jokes from previous shows and tours, not to mention half of his sketches were just realisations of stuff that'd previously just been delivered as jokes.
ReplyDeleteI really wanted the show to be good, but in my opinion; the show's really been a let down. I enjoyed your review though. If it's of any relevance, when I saw him live - I got slightly heckled myself, and was overjoyed that he'd referred to me as looking like 'a moderately powerful Pokemon' Skip forward to the release of his DVD and every seemingly unique line he'd said to our audience was ported over to this one. What'd seemed like excellent spur-of-the-moment observations just got revealed to be generic jokes he'd make about people that met certain criteria. Hmmm, just seemed a bit false.
Fair review. I've really enjoyed the show so far. The highlight sketches (Knightrider, the 70s porn star, The Wee Magic Hing etc.) have been very funny which is all you can ask from a notoriously inconsistent format. In a world where Horne & Corden, Katie Brand and Catherine Tate relentlessly produce shite - Tramadol Nights exists as a work of relative genius. The edge has been taken off of the stand-up because I watched Frankie's new DVD the other week, but there's no doubt at all I laughed at all the stuff first time around.
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