A Bucket O’French & Saunders – BBC
by John Walker on Oct.01, 2007, under Television
I adore French & Saunders. And I have no measure of whether that’s incredibly uncool, or enormously out of date, or something. But I adore them.
I love them because when working together, they’re incredibly funny. And because they’re astonishingly cruel. And cleverer than me. And I’m a bit in love with Jennifer Saunders.
Everything is meta. Layer on layer on layer. No sketch sits still, or stays in its place. They stay in character while stepping out of character. There is no defined position between sketch and sketch show, everything blurred, everything a television programme eating itself.
To understand their majesty, all you need to see is the Silence of the Lambs sketch.
Whether being Madonna and Britney, the stars of Alien, or a making-of documentary of the Harry Potter movies, they remain Dawn and Jennifer. Their accents may have changed, and indeed will likely change throughout the sketch, but it’s never about that which they’re spoofing. The Lambs sketch is purely about their being back for a new series, dressed in the lavishly complex clothing of a movie spoof.
These blurs nicely include Dawn’s size, somehow never impinging on her playing someone as thin as Britney Spears (well – back before Britney went saggy), but yet always being relevant. Not, “Ha ha! There’s a fat lady!”, but something smarter than that. Or as idiotic as French declaring, “That’s my big fat wobbly belly.”
Anyway, so they’ve got a full series of clip shows to celebrate 20 years on the BBC, with new material scattered throughout that’s just as great as they’ve always been. Seeing their awesome Silent Witness spoof, Witless Silence, again is such a joy. And best of all, it reminds you quite how silly they are. Astonishingly silly. Silly enough that a sketch can just be the two of them dancing stupidly, or shouting like children. But still smart.
And no, I didn’t think Ab Fab was very good, and the Vicar Of Dibley is like a tramp vomiting his liver in your face.
And Jennifer’s mother is a biology teacher in Cheshire.
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Clothing » A Bucket O’French & Saunders - BBC
October 5th, 2007 on 15:38[…] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe Lambs sketch is purely about their being back for a new series, dressed in the lavishly complex clothing of a movie spoof. These blurs nicely include Dawn’s size, somehow never impinging on her playing someone as thin as Britney … […]
October 2nd, 2007 on 11:22
I’m so disappointed. I hoped to read a news report on how someone had finally stabbed the useless unfunny fatsos to death, hacked up the corpses and dumped them in a bucket. But apparently the only thing in a bucket is your taste. Bah.
October 2nd, 2007 on 12:26
Awooogah! Awooogha! Sense of humour deficiency syndrome tests positive! ….. run for your lives.
October 6th, 2007 on 18:04
The Bucket show is rubbish at showing the sketches though. It just shows clips with music over them, which is daft.
April 27th, 2008 on 20:10
The show is is great. cleaver witty comedy from two outstanding and remarkable actresses