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Flight of the Conchords

The cast of Flight of the Conchords
  • Posted at 11:34am
  • 27 September 2007
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT
  • 7 comments

Why does musical comedy usually make me dive for the off switch, miss the off switch and crack my head on a coffee table?

1. Because hearing a cover version at a different speed or with inappropriate instrumentation is like watching someone put on an unusual hat. Amusing for two seconds, then it quickly becomes embarrassing. Culprits: anything from that punky version of Nellie the Elephant to Bill Bailey's cockney knees-ups.

2. Because making up new words to the tune of an existing song requires virtually no skill. All the hard work has been done for you, and substituting the word "glove" for "love" does not a gag make. Culprits: “Weird Al” Yankovic, or that London Underground song that did the rounds on the internet.

3. Because being funny is probably hard enough, but having to make it rhyme, too? You're just shooting yourself in the foot. Bad poetry isn't intrinsically funny, bad poetry is intrinsically bad.

4. Because decades of comedy sketch shows have been ruined by being rounded off with an ill-judged musical comedy number. Culprits: Goodness Gracious Me, French and Saunders, The Two Ronnies. I could go on, I won't.

5. Because every musical comedian will inevitably end up doing the same lazy gag: set up the rhyme so we're expecting a rude word – and then use a different word instead. Brilliant. Pam Ayres was doing that in 1974, and we didn't laugh very much then, either.

Fortunately, Flight of the Conchords manages to avoid virtually all of the above. It's both the name of a show, and the name of a band comprising two New Zealanders, Jemaine and Bret – both short of a consonant, and both in New York seeking fame and fortune. But within seconds of the show starting, you're pretty certain that fame isn't ever likely to come their way: these two are vague, drifting characters with only a partial grip on reality.

J: In New Zealand I was getting it on with lots of chicks. B: Who? J: Sarah Fitzpatrick, Michelle Fitzpatrick, Claire Fitzpatrick – the list goes on. B: No, that was all of them. J: Well, triple figures. B: That's not triple figures, that's three.

Their rambling, surreal exchanges are like watching the cast of Seinfeld on horse tranquillisers. And when they break into song, syntax and metre are ignored, and their flights of fantasy continue: "You're so beautiful / you could be a part-time model / but you'd probably have to keep your normal job".

The Conchords' career is doomed from the start: their manager, Murray, works in a New Zealand tourism office, and his idea of a meeting agenda is to start by taking the three-person attendance register. They have one fan, Mel, who has an obsession bordering on the intimidating, and is thus forced to come up with various excuses to hang around outside their house. Murray refers to her as their "fanbase" to make the boys feel better about the situation.

Aside from music, Jemaine and Bret have only one other interest: girls. Jemaine ends up going out with Bret's ex, Sally, but invites Bret on a date with them both out of sympathy. "It won't be weird," he says. "I like Sally. You like Sally. She used to like you. She really likes me. You like me. It won't be weird."

And of course, it is weird. The whole show is wonderfully bizarre, fantastically subtle, and features none of that gurning or those prominently flagged gags that usually masquerade as musical comedy. It was so wonderful, I wept. Or perhaps, as Jemaine would put it, my eyes were just sweating.

Flight of the Conchords is on BBC4: the first episode is repeated on Friday at 11:00pm, and it continues next Tuesday at 9:30pm.

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Comments

  • Posted on 30 September 2007
  • at 11:40am
  • by themanwhofellasleep

Having read your review, I suspect that in real life the band aren't vague listless New Zealanders but deeply ambitious, cynical careerists who think that being vague and wacky will make them stars. In much the same way that Graham Coxon spent many years in Blur adopting the personality of a midly challenged, socially inept 12-year old, whereas in reality you suspect he's an evil genius.

  • Posted on 28 September 2007
  • at 5:52pm
  • by sheridanski

Yes I liked it. My wife hated it. The usual.

  • Posted on 28 September 2007
  • at 6:20am
  • by Mondaygirl

We have them on HBO out here, which we don't get so I am limited to the archive on You Tube. Hopefully they will show it on BBC America soon. You guys get all the good shows first.

  • Posted on 27 September 2007
  • at 11:04pm
  • by mwanji

Ah, if only I had BBC4 here in Belgium...

  • Posted on 27 September 2007
  • at 1:08pm
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT

I'm new to them, Ewan, so I'm coming to the whole thing fresh. Which is a good thing, as I probably wouldn't enjoy seeing this stuff performed on a stage as much.

If you know their material, you might well watch this and feel that the songs have just been shoehorned in to the plot (or vice versa), but for me it just seems like the perfect vehicle.

  • Posted on 27 September 2007
  • at 12:54pm
  • by Ewan-M

It does sound like the show repeats a lot of the same ideas (and songs) of their BBC radio show, not to mention their comedy routines of the last few years. But does the TV show feature Neil Finn offering sage advice?

  • Posted on 27 September 2007
  • at 12:16pm
  • by Vicwardian
I am so desperate to see this show! It looks brilliant. I wish I'd caught the first episode. I like Kath and Kim - is it that kind of feel?I love musicals and I hate musical comedy - even the late great Kenneth Williams in Round the Horne as Rambling Sid Rumpo was always funny in spite of it being a musical number. But I really really loved Bill Bailey's song about betrayal that he sang in his Part Troll gig: "...Or the duck that lands so clumsily on the frozen pond in Winter, but the intoxicating power of our love transforms this simple act into an anthropomorphic drama - where Mr Duck is embarrassed and the other ducks are laughing..."Genius. My eyes are sweating.

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