TV Review – Little Britain, Season Two, Episodes 4 – 6 (2004)

Overall Quality 4.5 / 5.0 (fantastic)
Gay Content 2.5 / 5.0 (mostly hetero, but lots of gay-interest bits)
Gay Positivity 3.5 / 5.0 (mostly positive)

Walliams and Lucas have a great ability to find comedy in the ordinary, to take a typical everyday circumstance and turn it into a laugh-fest merely by tweaking the circumstances or exaggerating certain behaviors or having the characters say/do what we think but would never say/do. They’re at their best when the humor is an incisive but good-natured observation about humanity’s foibles and foolishness.

Occasional pieces bare teeth, however, and cross a line into mean-spiritedness. For example, the sketches about “Fat Fighters” grow increasingly ugly. The subtlety of the early bits have given way to crude and openly hostile treatment. These pieces are more uncomfortable than funny.

Fortunately, such sketches are an exception to the flavor of the humor overall. Don’t let this minor criticism scare you off! Season two remains in its last half a great improvement to an already funny first season. Highly recommended!

Episode 4
Original Air Date: 9 November 2004

• The fourth episode presents a Maggie (David Walliams) and Judy (Matt Lucas) sketch of gay interest. After a Christmas service (this is apparently the Christmas episode), Maggie learns that the church Choir Master is gay and partnered to a fellow named Steven.
• This episode also includes a good example of one way Walliams and Lucas have innovated from the first season by incorporating fast-paced, standalone bits: a very funny short sketch of a corner store cashier (Lucas) making observations about a customer (Walliams).
• Daffyd (Lucas) storms his local library with a selection of gay books in order to create a gay section, only to find it already has a quite popular one. More odd than funny.
• Sebastian’s (Walliams) sketch in this episode has an ugly tone. The Prime Minister (Anthony Stewart Head) and his wife are having a baby, and Sebastian reacts with jealousy. Unfunny.
• On the whole, another funny one, but with more than the usual number of quirky head-scratchers.

Episode 5
Original Air Date: 16 November 2004

• The Prime Minister is on a television set preparing to give a televised interview; the interview is planning on asking some difficult questions. Sebastian doesn’t like that. I have never been a fan of the character of Sebastian; this is my least favorite of his sketches in the season. It’s not even that he’s so ugly and mean-spirited in it; he’s simply insipid.
• Daffyd’s friend Myfanwy has married her girlfriend Rhiannon, and he attends their reception at the bar after skipping the actual nuptials. Daffyd argues he couldn’t go to the service because he’s gay and wouldn’t be welcome at the church; they point out that the vicar is a gay man performing a gay wedding. Then Daffyd argues that two women should not adopt. “It’s not right!” he says. He then proceeds to spout off some very anti-lesbian stereotypes; when they retaliate verbally, he says he won’t tolerate homophobia in the village. I have mixed emotions about this piece. As far as the humor goes, it’s laughable, but as much shocking as comic. But regarding the gay positivity, Daffyd’s sketches have strayed from their original satirical brilliance. I appreciate how Daffyd has become a mouth-piece for ignorance and prejudice, and yet his behavior casts an ugly tone. Daffyd’s first few pieces in the first season delighted me; the key ingredient was Daffyd’s naïveté, simplicity, and basic good-natured. Slowly those are falling away, and being replaced with an insistent internalized homophobia which simply doesn’t amuse me.
• As a side note, one of the recurring characters in the series is mental patient Anne (Walliams), whose sketches tend to be odd but fairly funny. In this episode, she leaves behind a sketchbook which, when the pages are flipped, turns out to be an animated illustration of a penis getting hard and then ejaculating. It was a very funny piece and quite, as the British might say, “rude.”
• Overall, Episode 5 was more dumb than anything.

Episode 6
Original Air Date: 23 November 2004

• A series of very brief sketches in the sixth episode show two prim and proper ladies at lunch (played by Walliams and Lucas). One lady (Walliams) tries to set the other (Lucas) up with a series of men. She has Polaroids of each: they turn out to be full-frontal nude shots of the men. Very funny.
• Finally, Daffyd enjoys another amusing sketch. He returns to the pub after a gay rugby league game, followed by the handsome gay rugby team. Daffyd, meanwhile, is the only member of his team, being the “only gay in the village.” Except that the elderly gentleman who fill the bar argue they’re gay too, and cite sexually explicit acts as proof. Daffyd ends this funny and silly bit by saying he’s leaving the village and going to a place where he’ll be the only gay: San Francisco.
• Sebastian also has his best piece yet. The Prime Minister is celebrating a re-election victory with his staff. Sebastian and the Prime Minister dance, the PM disentangles himself, and Sebastian starts crying. The PM shows pity, and Sebastian French kisses him. A light-hearted and very laughable piece.
• The second season concludes with another strong, funny episode.

DVD Extras

• The DVD includes a very interesting but oddly paced and shot documentary. It would have benefited from some tighter editing. Nevertheless, the documentary provides some interesting insight into the world of “Little Britain.”
• We also find a special “Comic Relief” episode, which hosts several British celebrities (George Michael, Elton John, and Robbie Williams). The episode is more strange than funny, and it sorely misses the laugh track.
  • George Michael meets Andy, the indecisive and supposedly wheelchair-bound fellow played by Matt Lucas. Michael can barely contain his own amusement at the scenario.
  • Daffyd interviews Elton John. The piece was very funny, loaded full of double-entendres, but John himself fell flat, and his concluding line just comes across as dumb.
  • Robbie Williams really gets into his role when he’s dressed as a lady by “ropey transvestites” Emily (Walliams) and Florence (Lucas).
• The deleted scene include some pretty funny ones; but for most of them, it’s obvious why they were deleted.