Review of Goodness Gracious Me Complete Series 1

Introduction

Well there`s a sparse genre for you, ethnic comedy. We`ve come a long way since Love thy Neighbour and Mind Your Language, and British comedy is a cultural goldmine compared to what we see of US comedies in this country. It`s like the civil rights movement passed US television by with most of their sitcoms still glaringly segregated. In the UK we have got some pretty good ethnic comedies, and talent usually comes before colour. I really enjoyed It Ain`t Half Hot Mum when I was younger, though it is buried in some politically correct vault nowadays. Channel 4`s excellent sitcom Desmond`s also springs to mind, and more recently Jasper Carrott`s and Meera Syal`s sitcom All About Me has attempted to address all minority differences, albeit to the detriment of actual comedy. Far more hilarious has been The Kumar`s at No.42. The rarest of beasts is the sketch comedy show, like Python or the Fast Show. The first that I can think of is The Real McCoy, a showcase of black comedic talent like Curtis and Ishmael and Felix Dexter. The problem I found with the Real McCoy was that it didn`t appeal to a large audience, the humour was specifically targeted and often tried to make social comment instead making people laugh. That`s understandable of course, it`s hard to be in a culture without noting problems like racism and bigotry, and it isn`t long before jokes about the issues stop being funny and start being a little uncomfortable.

When Goodness Gracious Me was announced, it seemed similar enough to The Real McCoy for me to approach it with a sense of trepidation. Veterans of the Real McCoy, Meera Syal and Kulvinder Ghir joined Sanjeev Bhaskar and Nina Wadia, to bring an Indian sketch show to television after a successful run on radio. I was expecting humour on the lines of "We`re Indian, we were downtrodden by the Raj but we`re reclaiming our cultural identity." In other words a short-lived social comment disguised as a sketch show. I was pleasantly surprised. More than that, as I realised that this show had caught the imagination of the public at large. People at work were talking about it, and children everywhere were quoting catchphrases. The number of times I was asked what `chuddies` were… An ethnic sketch show that crossed cultural barriers and gone mainstream, who would have guessed?

This disc comprises all six episodes from Series 1, with a couple of extras.

Video

Oh Dear. This seems to happen more and more with BBC output. For several years now, the BBC has been making its programmes in widescreen, but Goodness Gracious Me, the DVD has a 4:3 transfer for the 6 main episodes. The picture is further let down by digital artefacts. Pixellation occurs regularly enough to be irritating and macro blocking is occasionally apparent. Other than that, the picture is what you would expect from a television programme, at the wrong ratio.

Audio

A simple 2.0 stereo mix. Nothing to write home about. All the dialogue is audible as are the guru`s hand chimes. THERE ARE NO SUBTITLES.

Features

Aside from the nice ethnic animation for the main menu, there are two extras on this disc and a couple of creative chapter menus disguised as extras. Character selection allows you to jump to the bits with your favourite character in, and Song List allows you to jump to your favourite songs. Like I said, more chapter menu rather than extra. What are extra are the 14 minutes of Outtakes and bloopers. More blooper than anything else, they are quite funny and you can see how often it was that Kulvinder Ghir screwed up. Finally there is the 32-minute documentary. Taken from the Goodness Gracious Me night that the BBC broadcast a few years back, this follows the team on their UK tour and is more mockumentary than anything else. The interviews and behind the scenes jocularity seem a little too scripted but the theatre footage is hilarious enough. It`s noticeable that this is all transferred in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen. Tacked onto the back of this is a little search for the GGM megafan, a competition to see who knows the most about GGM, and finally the most popular sketch as voted for by BBC viewers. So you have the option of watching it 4:3 in the programme proper or 16:9 at the end of the documentary. STILL NO SUBTITLES.

Conclusion

So how did the writers and cast of Goodness Gracious Me make such a hilarious comedy? Don`t ask me, if I knew that, I`d be a rich comedian being criticised rather than a critic writing vicariously about rich comedians. But I can give you my two pennies worth. Most of the comedy in GGM is humour that appeals to us all. Inappropriate situations, jokes, gags, pratfalls are universally funny and will make people laugh whatever their culture. The brilliant thing here is the reversal of culture. Take a familiar situation and twist it so that your cultural references are reversed, and you laugh because you recognise your own culture in the ethnic differences. Hence the popularity of the restaurant sketch "Going for an English". Similarly Manjinder DeVine and the Rough Guide to England. What GGM is brilliant at is it combines its social commentary with general humour. Most jokes have more than one layer that appeal to more than several audiences. I`ve noticed that in any sketch where disaffected youth come into conflict with reactionary parents, my parents will laugh at the ridiculous and `stupid` children while I`ll be laughing at the antiquated and obtuse parents. Add to this sketch show comedy staples, like repetition and catchphrases and you have the ingredients for a hit. Mr Everything comes from India is a great example of repetition where the unexpected appearance of his rewriting of history just gets funnier. Catchphrases like "Kiss my Chuddies" or "Check Please" or "I knew that!" will go down into comedy history. "Init!" Finally there is the element of the ridiculous. Skipinder the Punjabi Kangaroo or the Buddhist pest control and the Six Million Rupee Man, Sanjeev Austin all spring to mind.

But Goodness Gracious Me isn`t perfect. The very nature of a sketch show is that it has something that appeals to everyone. By the same token you can`t expect a person to like everything in it. While my personal tastes favour the Bhangramuffins and the Kapoors (pronounced Cooper), I`m not too enamoured of Smeeta Smitten - Showbiz Kitten, or the competitive mums. The fat kid is also the least funny thing in this show. Also on the rare occasion, there is the attempt to make social comment at the expense of humour and I find myself feeling just a tad uncomfortable. But this is all incidental. The majority of Goodness Gracious Me is pant wettingly funny. My own favourites are the mad cow sketch, the Monty Python homage in the bridal emporium, the Untouchable song, the excellent Bharat Home sketch (We`ve removed the suitcases from the tops of our wardrobes but we still have the plastic matting in the hallway), The Brief Encounter Sketch, and of course I worship at the feet of Guru Mahareshi Yogi.

Ignore the dismal transfer, this is compulsive viewing and I wholeheartedly recommend this. DVDs were invented by an Indian you know…