second season of Nathan Barley

So there is this amazing satirist named Chris Morris. He makes me feel like a disney character that is how angry he is. I just watched all of Brass Eye, his show from a few years back that was a parody of tabloid shows. He has this amazing episode about pedophile that I guess was quite controversial and yet looking at datelines to catch a predator it is quite apt.

So a couple of years ago Chris teamed up with Charlie Brooker another amazing and angry gentleman. Check this article out on grafitti artist Banksy to get what I mean. And they wrote a 6 episode sitcom called Nathan Barley, ridiculing the scenesterism in a part of London. This by rating standards was considered a great failure, literally. It had the lowest ratings the channel had every had for the time and night ever. Many Morris fans thought it was terrible, that he had lost his edge or sold out. But I stumbled on it a month or so ago and found it to be really quite good, if not one of the best shows I'd seen in a while. I am admittedly prejudice because it has my favorite person Julian Barratt in it. He plays a writer who works for sugaRAPE magazine, which is essentially Vice. He hates the culture that surrounds him, calls everyone idiots and the more he rejects it the more they want him. He also discovers he cannot work for any other magazine or publication because he is in fact an idiot as well. Noel Fielding also makes an appearance as Jones. Who is actually a bit cynical as well and is one of my favorite parts in the second episode, the preacherman episode, where he looks at Nathan Barely who is performing this terrible song and just says, "you are rubbish."

Anyway despite criticism and poor ratings it seems that it is going into a second series. I have not found much information on it. I am very excited. I hope Julian and Noel are in it again. They are going into the third season of The Mighty Boosh this Spring though. Apparently this comedian Will Adamsdale is in it. Doing what? I dont know.


Anyway people really hate this show because they are the hardcore Chris Morris types and think this part of his downfall or people really like the show because it's funny and character driven and absurd. I think it is very different from what Morris has done, because it is a sitcom and not a parody/ satire of a news show, and that could be why people have such disapproval of it. Sometimes, myself included, people take comedy too seriously. Morris is quite a serious comedian so maybe it's part and parcel to it but I think Nathan Barley should be considered without the baggage and history of the creators of the series and appreciated for the creation of the game cock muff bumhole.

It is hard to like and quote when in essence doing that is sort of becoming part a victim of the criticism of creators, and you become a sort of Dan Ashcroft character. Yes it is quite complicated.

Peace and fucking.