James Acaster on certain 'challenging' comedians.
- Thread starter Kyuuji
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I used to watch The Ricky Gervais Show animated thingummy he did years and years ago, and I had to stop because of how he treated Karl Pilkington. Now yes, Karl is playing up being a doofus for comedic purposes, but sometimes he'd ask a genuinely brilliant, insightful question which Ricky would shut down with shrieking, derisive laughter.
It's so good. Watch all 4 shows, they're all brilliantly interwoven and just impeccably put together. Intelligent stand up and so, so funny.
James is the best. His rant against Rhod after the "build an addition to the Taskmaster house" task was hilarious.
You haven't watched Cold Lasagna Hate Myself 1999 then. It's transcendent.
Gervais genuinely believes the idea of comedians being asked to tone down hateful rhetoric is akin to The Life of Brian being banned in parts of Ireland and the resulting fallout with the Catholic church. He doesn't grasp the idea of using comedy responsibly or the fact that it's so often used as a trojan horse for bigotry.
At the end of the day he's just another privileged white dude getting in a huff at being asked not to do something, no matter how sensible the request is.
On the subject of Acaster, he's easily one of the better of the new generation of British comedians working today. I saw him alongside Josh Widdicombe a number of years back at the Edinburgh Fringe. They actually joined in as guests on another act and they both came across as genuinely decent guys.
Yeah, when stuff like that just feels mean spirited I have a hard time finding it funny.
He either really doesn't see the difference in ridiculing organized religion and ridiculing marginalized people, or he just doesn't give a shit, because he's a bigoted piece of shit. The more time passes the more I tend to believe the latter. There's a certain Graham Linehan-esque quality to him, to how he just doubles down on all the bullshit if there's praise to be had for doing so, because his ego just can't not suck that up.
Repertoire is one of the best stand ups ever and somehow Cold Lasagna Hate Myself 1999 is even better.
Both of them would make it into my top 10 list of the best stand up specials of all time, so here's to whatever Acaster decides to do next.
I thought this was a pretty good look at Acasters stand up (spoilers for those who haven't seen Repertoire).
This is what I know him for, but now I'm going to check out more of his stuff. The bit in the OP is brilliant.
thanks to this thread I discovered a new comedian that seems like a good time!
Ricky Gervais kinds of reminds me of the atheist movement.
They shit on the Church because of how ridiculous it all is and then when the target is exhausted they jump on another target like minorities and their schtick become all too apparent that it's all unfunny hacks and they manage to shriek into irrelevance as they can't stop shitting on vulnerable people.
They've always been bad, it's just that their previous target was so horrifically monstruous that it was easy to ignore.
Ricky Gervais kinds of reminds me of the atheist movement.
They shit on the Church because of how ridiculous it all is and then when the target is exhausted they jump on another target like minorities and their schtick become all too apparent that it's all unfunny hacks and they manage to shriek into irrelevance as they can't stop shitting on vulnerable people.
They've always been bad, it's just that their previous target was so horrifically monstruous that it was easy to ignore.
Yeah. I noticed that a lot of prominent Atheist youtubers dived straight into hating on feminism when Gamergate took off.
Define "atheist movement". Me being an atheist is one of the reasons I dislike Ricky Gervais so much, but rather because he's not representative of any atheist movement, if there even is such a thing. He's just got a larger audience than most.
There's no denying the (online) skeptic community has harbored a lot of bigoted fucksticks, looking for an excuse to shit on marginalized people in the name of facts and logic, but lumping people together like this isn't very accurate, especially when you consider that the only thing all atheists are guaranteed to have in common is something that they don't do.
I saw this guy what feels like eons ago, before he became more known, at the Comedy Club in London. Really funny. Then randomly saw him outside a club whilst I was on a stag do.
I need to check out his latest material, he still seems like the same guy
I need to check out his latest material, he still seems like the same guy
I want to but I don’t like buying stuff off vimeo. Will it likely be on netflix or a more accessible digital platform like itunes/amazon?
He's trying to have his liberal cake and his far-right cake and eat it then. He's still a cunt.
I can never quite decide whether I like Acaster or not. A lot of his jokes are funny, like the one in the OP. I just find his style grating at times (like the bit between 0:22 - 0:52 in the video).
Gervais is just an unfunny cunt.
Gervais is just an unfunny cunt.
Gervais is a fucking sore and this is the first clip I’ve ever seen of Acaster so I’m having a great time here. Good thread.
I meant the very online skeptic movement.
Very long day with a lot of shit breaking, I wasn't the most precise I can be.
I apologize.
This is what I'm talking about :
Random question: is the pronouncing R's similarly to W's a feature of some British accents? I only ask because I've heard a fair number of Brits do it (notoriously Jonathan Ross, but YouTubers as well), whereas here in the US I've only ever seen it discussed as a speech disorder. I've been curious if it has the same stigma of being "incorrect" in the UK or if it's considered a valid dialectical feature/alternative pronunciation. If so, does it originate from a specific region or class of people?
On topic: thanks for the video, OP. I rarely engage with stand-up comedy anymore, because my exposure has been to many toxic performers and fans, but I've been amused by the clips posted in this thread and will check out more of his work.
On topic: thanks for the video, OP. I rarely engage with stand-up comedy anymore, because my exposure has been to many toxic performers and fans, but I've been amused by the clips posted in this thread and will check out more of his work.
The usual crowd featured on Dave (including James Acaster) are all pretty great tbh.
Thank you, that was a great watch. I thought he had a lot in commom with Bo Burnham after watching Repertoire and this video goes a bit into why I felt that way.
How did he actually do these episodes when he was on tour btw? It was the same venue in the special, but he didn't really perform these all in a row every night, did he?
That's a really good point actually, he does remind me of Bo Burnham in many ways.
As far as I'm concerned you don't need to apologize, and as it turns out I guess we're basically in agreement. I guess I'm just a bit too used to hearing certain religious apologists attempting to discredit skepticism, and by extension atheism, with arguments similar to what I feared you were setting up. But my assumptions are on me, not you.
I should have been clearer anyway.
It's infuriating to realize that one can so easily miss the obvious issue with one's community based only on the people they're bashing at one time.
Dawkins very public shitting the bed on something as simple as being decent is definitely not a wakeup call I expected.
At the time I certainly didn't expect that from someone with his background....I know I was far too naive
Punching down is for cowards and hacks.
I believe you may be confusing Scolari with Vicente del Bosque there.
Johnathan Ross does have a speech impediment
Some regional accents feature a similar use of ‘w’ sounds in place of ‘r’s, particularily Southern accents in the proximity to London. Such an accent could conceivably carry stigma to those with a large dislike/suspicion of Southerners.
Not that I talk about him often, but he will be Brave Lil Cis Boy Gervais to me from now on.
Nah, they're not alike at all.
Those German shows (and our own Austrian ones, for that matter) are really bad, but stuff like WILTY and Taskmaster are genuinely good and funny a lot of the time. The comedians are better, work better together, and the shows are better concepts in general.
I do like Taskmaster by the way. It varies with guests, as these shows do, but I only skipped one series. And I'm sorry for assuming you were german.
Laudable aim and intent, but it's a pretty weak bit. Acaster gets a load of accolades, and I can see that he does some uncommon things with the medium, but I guess I just sort of don't find his delivery particularly funny.
My favourite Acaster moment is when he randomly turned up on that Quelle Chris album. I was like....is that?..
Cant be...
And it was lol
Cant be...
And it was lol