Easy answer to anyone questioning me over which comedy act, post-Python that is, I rate as having the most influence on British Comedy and the wider world (well, British Life) as a whole. It's the early return of the surreal with Vic & Bob, more broadly appealing because of its clear working class roots instead of its University educated roots, and managing to reach an audience with intelligent yet popular comedy in way not seen for at least 20 years.
Yes, sitting here, having watched more comedy that anything else, prefering comedy to anything else, and having seen practically all the major and minor shows of the last two decades and beyond, easily the most influential duo - it's Vic & Bob, aka Reeves & Mortimer, and this is the show that not only changed comedy's commercial ability, but changed the way comedy was subsequently constructed - both professionally and publicly. Very influential, more so than anything I've ever lived through.
It may not have been immediately apparent upong their Channel 4 debut in 'Vic & Bobs Big Night Out' in 1990 / 1991, the comedy being almost purely surreal to the point of making most think 'What the...?', but it clicked with many. Particularly importantly it clicked with the BBC who signed the duo up and gave them the break which was to become, almost simultaneously, 'Shooting Stars' (their game show, running until 2003 after a revivial) and 'The Smell of Reeves & Mortimer', with a more subtley mainstream approach, a larger budget, access to the wizards in special effects, costumes and make-up that the BBC is renouned for. Fleshed out, more clearly expressed and more confidently audience-oriented work, 'The Smell of...' is the truly mature and powerful culmination of their oddly differing, yet perfectly matched, straight and obtuce minds.
Into the mix then, Vic & Bob added small clip segments, characters that reappeared in an on-off fashion, with their usual anarchic and surreal sequences of banter between themselves and to the audience. Fake advertisements, sketches, all manner of weirdness on film. The large fake frying pans, fire hydrants, hammers were out in the studio segments - lengthy sequences of almost musical clattering of each others skulls just one indicator that they're in almost Warner Brothers cartooon territory - and the costumes were on for a series of people with strange hair, thick glasses, men with bra's, a whole host of oddballs, misfits and weirdo's.
Yes it will suffer from unravelling the more I explain it. It is absolutely clear to anyone with much experience of British Comedy that Vic & Bob, this show the height of their skills in many ways, did something to comedy which hadn't been done until now - they took comedy into commercial ground previously only trodden by a chosen few, and they managed to stay away from anything which has caused a subsequent backlash so their influence remains undiminished. Hence, this show more than any other, is the best example of British Comedy since Python, the most important example of a comedy show from the last 15 years, and the complete re-writing of comedy rules.
More than this, the reinvention of comedy, most substantially in this particular show, reached to affect in an undeniable fashion 99% of all comedy material that followed, and the general publics comedic thinking also shifted - yes, what we see as funny changed once again thanks to Reeves & Mortimer, and so you will see traces that go back to their early 90's work today in everything that event has the slightest hint of humour at work within it. Without doubt then, I can't help but have written about them again here, in order to highly recommend the early April release on R2 UK DVD of 'The Smell of...' - if I had the money, I would buy you all a copy. I wish I could say the same for the 1999 series 'Bang Bang, It's Reeves & Mortimer' - terrible series, for completists only from my eyes - but I also recommend 'Big Night Out' and 'Catterick' as stunning work.
'Vic & Bob.net' - The Complete Guide to Reeves & Mortimer.
'The Smell of Reeves & Mortimer' at the BBC Comedy Guide.
Vic Reeves & Bob Mortimer at the BBC Comedy Guide.
'The Smell of Reeves & Mortimer' at Wikipedia.
'The Smell of Reeves & Mortimer' R2 UK DVD (Complete Collection) released April 3rd 2006 at Amazon.co.uk [Direct Link].
Hallelujah! A DVD release! What with that and Tideland getting picked up for UK distribution, I'm gonna be able to counter-program myself very happily throughout the World Cup.
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