Written by Musgo Del Jefe
Little Britain is an incredible collection of characters covering all levels of British society from the Prime Minister's office to the small village of Llandewi Breffi. All these characters are created and played by Matt Lucas and David Walliams. The show consists of 20-30 short sketches per 30-minute show featuring recurring characters, most with a collection of catchphrases. The sketches are linked by the inventive narration of Tom Baker (the 4th Doctor from Doctor Who). His narration has little to nothing to do with the scenes and is usually nonsensical statements about Britain - "British justice is the best in the world. Anyone who disagrees is either gay, a woman or a mental." Little Britain falls squarely in the tradition of great sketch shows somewhere just south of Monty Python and right around the level of Kids In The Hall.
Why does this work? The answer is simple: volume, volume, volume. At around a minute per sketch and with over 20 established characters, each with a couple catchphrases, there's almost always going to be something for everyone. There's going to be a character or two that everyone knows in their real life. If you don't like a character or sketch, there's another one coming in one minute. For the characters that you know and love, like Carol Beer the travel agent, you know immediately how the sketch is going to play out, with her saying "Computer says no . . . (cough)" as the customer gets more and more frustrated. The anticipation is itself the pleasure.
The characters are the stars. Once each character's particulars have been established, there's less need for set-up for each joke. This is the brilliance of the recurring character in a sketch show that Saturday Night Live perfected years ago. Once we know the character, like Emily Howard (a rubbish transvestite) ("Well, being a lady, I do ladies' things"), we only have to put her in the scene like at the community pool and we can immediately play out the jokes before they happen. We immediately fast-forward to her having to decide which locker room to change into her bathing suit even before she's standing at the two doors at the end of the sketch.
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