About JE Smith
Location: Irving, Texas
Occupation: Freelance
Bio: JE Smith, aka Jeff S., is a forty-something guy who was born in Illinois, but has been living in the wilds of Dallas, Texas for almost twenty years. He has been a movie nut ever since seeing Escape from the Planet of the Apes at Steeleville Theater in 1971 and is also obsessed with Doctor Who, Ultraman, Star Trek, The X Files, Batman, Spider-Man, Doc Savage and many other pop culture icons. For fifteen years (1981 - 1996) he published the sf/horror filmzine Wet Paint, and tried his hand at self-publishing his own comics with Bulletproof (1999, 3 issues) and Complex City (2000 - 2003, 4 issues and a trade paperback), both of which bombed. He's been writing film reviews for almost thirty years and is just getting the hang of it. Married to the lovely Barbara for over 15 years, and owned by a sleepy cat named Max.
Posts: 178
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The “first lady of character comedy” returns with another season. Am I bovvered?
When Catherine Tate popped into the TARDIS at the tail-end of Doctor Who’s second-season finale “Doomsday,” most American viewers had absolutely no clue who the chick in the wedding dress was. But UK audiences know the face and the voice well; over the last decade or so, Tate has carved an award-winning niche as a character and skit-comedy performer, appearing in such shows as Attention Scum, Big Train, Wild West, and even highbrow fare such as Bleak House and Miss Marple. However, it was her own self-titled sketch-character show that pushed her success to the next level. The second series comes to DVD in a bare-bones release that lets the work of “the first lady of character comedy” speak for itself.
Much like Tracey Ullman before her, Tate assumes a host of different characters, often utilizing extensive make-up and costumes. Among others, there’s the profanity-spewing granny Nan Taylor (the scourge of Meals on Wheels), Sam and her husband Paul, to whom their entire lives are endlessly hilarious (“Oh, here she goes!”), Bernie the inappropriate nurse, indignant Northerners Janice and Ray, maybe-gay gentleman Derek Faye (“How very dare you!”), and of course, the disaffected teenager Lauren, whose uncaring “Am I bovvered?” became Tate’s oft-repeated catchphrase.
Tate’s performances in some of these roles are absolutely astounding, and there’s no doubt that a lot of this stuff is quite funny; I particularly liked D.I. Angie Barker, a working-mum detective who takes her children along to grisly crime scenes. And there are occasional non-repeating skits, such as the highly amusing Plight of the Ginger-haired. But here’s the rub: while often hilarious, The Catherine Tate Show is also incredibly repetitive. The set-up, delivery, and punch line of all the recurring-character skits – such as the prissy socialite Sheila Carter, who chides everyone around her for their lack of social graces and then cuts a huge honking fart (real sophisticated, that), or the lady who says embarrassing things to other party guests – are exactly the same from episode to episode, with only the location and the person playing opposite Tate changing. It’s like being told the exact same joke six weeks in a row; the first time it’s hysterical; the second time, it might still make you smile; by the fourth or fifth time, you’re wondering why this person doesn’t come up with some new jokes. In some cases the acting manages to salvage the gag (such as Sam and Paul, who crack me up), but most often it’s just more and more of the same, and even at a mere six episodes, it gets really redundant.
This DVD presents the whole of Series Two in very sharp transfers, with absolutely no extras at all.
If you’re already a fan of Catherine Tate, this will be a worth addition to your collection. But for those who are encountering the sassy redhead via the Who connection – she’s the regular companion in the 2008 series – this may be a bit of a slog. There’s a certain level of quality here, but also a lot of rehashed elements, and a bizarre devotion to a very narrow range of comedy. Frankly, Tate could probably pull off a much more diverse level of humor, but this is what she chooses to produce, and it’s obviously met with quite a bit of success in the UK. Whether that translates to American DVD sales remains to be seen.
