When Kenneth Branagh made Henry V and threw a bit of Henry IV in with Falstaff, he used the most famous speech of the character. Kind of. The whole truth is that he cut it savagely.

The scene is one where Falstaff and Hal role play Hal’s upcoming meeting with his father, Henry IV. At first, Falstaff plays the king, but as is his way, has nothing but praise of himself come out of the acted King’s mouth. Falstaff and Hal switch roles, with Falstaff playing Hal. Falstaff, as Hal, says:

This speech is one that I’ve memorized. It is rather easy to do so, either because of the repetition or because I’ve heard it so much. As I’ve noted before, memorizing something really allows you to get inside it. In this case, what’s really bothersome is the repeated line, “Banish not him thy Harry’s company.” Why?

Here is Branagh’s edit from Henry V:

You see what I say about Shakespeare getting a lot of help from editors, writers, and actors? This is barely Shakespeare anymore. Whatever: it works.

But how are we to interpret these last sentences? I think the speech, starting with “But for sweet Jack Falstaff” should be divided into three parts. At first, Falstaff is boastful. He is sweet, kind, true, and valiant. But then, he slips and falls into self-pity when he notes that he is old. This self-pity continues through the first “Banish” line. To me, it should be broken in two: “Banish not him” and “they Harry’s company.” Here the pause would be a small choke, as though almost crying.

At this, or even as he says the second part of the line, Falstaff catches himself. He instantly becomes the boastful Falstaff and says the last lines with gusto: banish plump Jack and banish all the world!

This, of course, is not the way the lines are normally delivered. Robbie Coltrane, in Branagh’s film, is almost pleading with Hal, reading his face for clues. Orson Welles, in Chimes at Midnight, does the whole speech in full-tilt braggart. He gets going so fast that the second line slips past almost without notice. For Welles, the sadness of the character seems tethered to his soul: Welles in many ways was Falstaff. Regardless, both great actors manage the part using their great skills. I’m trying to figure it out with an empty acting quiver.

More and more, I prefer my Falstaff complex. This is certainly not how he was written. I’m sure that audiences in Shakespeare’s time saw him as simply an object of ridicule to be laughed at, much the same as Don Quixote. But the modern viewer wants more. We realize that people strike more than one or two notes. For my part, as a writer of fiction, I cannot write a character I do not understand. I can’t write a character who is simply bad. The whole process of writing characters is about discovering how they came to be. This was not true of Shakespeare, and so people like Coltrane and Welles must go through this process themselves.

Update

Here is Robbie Coltrane:

Here is Orson Welles:

[1] These last three lines are in iambic pentameter, but given that they are part of prose dialog, it doesn’t seem important to write them line by line. Some of Moby Dick is in iambic pentameter, but it isn’t written that way.

I am fascinated by the opening soliloquy of Richard III. Most of it is Shakespeare at his best and a little, Shakespeare at his worst:

If you ever want to really get inside a piece of poetry: memorize it. Nothing is like it. In trying to memorize it, you look at it from every possible angle. I have, of course, memorized this exact speech. And so I think that I understand it pretty well. Here is my take, in more or less plain English:

Clearly, Richard is not a well-adjusted person. Even more: he is not a believable character. No one runs their life that way, “I have two options: lover or villain.” It’s ridiculous. But that doesn’t make it any less fun.

Henry Irving

As is discussed in the lecture available in And I Won’t Even Complain About Not Much Liking Shakespeare, Henry Irving is the first person to record Shakespeare. He probably did it in 1888. And what he recorded was this opening soliloquy from Richard III. It is a remarkable thing, because his performance is almost unrecognizable as acting. There is almost no emotion: it is all elocution. When he says the line, “That dogs bark at me as I halt by them” he says it as if he were Sweeney Todd in a melodrama. The only way to understand such a performance is to hear it as an aria. And as such it is interesting. But it tells us precious little about the character.

From this lecture, I know that the history of Shakespearean performance over the last 125 years has been one of moving away from this musical style of performance to our modern emotional style of performance. Based upon this, going backwards from 1888, we can assume that performances were even more musical, less emotionally nuanced. And thus, it is surprising to read William Hazlitt in 1814, describe the character in Mr. Kean’s Richard:

I agree with all that Hazlitt writes here, but somehow his impressive intellect and erudition seem to fail him in that he misses the one thing that most defines Richard: his anger—at the universe for making him deformed, and everyone in it for not sharing his deficiencies. If Richard is not angry (and perhaps bored as well), I don’t see what the whole play is about.

Laurence Olivier

Here is Laurence Olivier doing Richard the way I see him: angry. Beneath every line is rage and I am right there with him. This is the best performance of Richard I’ve ever seen, even though it is far from the most emotional or human. It is from Olivier’s own star-studded filmed version in 1955. Note that Olivier has taken out the dreadful lines, “And if King Edward be as true and just / As I am subtle, false, and treacherous, / This day should Clarence closely be mew’d up— / About a prophecy which says that G / Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be.”

Heartbreak Productions

Here is an interesting take on Richard. According the person who posted it, “Heartbreak Productions Richard III summer 2002. Directed by Peter Mimmack. With Andrew Cullum as Richard III. Filmed at Kenilworth Castle.” He starts off very sarcastic, which I totally approve of, because sarcasm is just a veneer on anger. However, Cullum throws some self-pity in the second half of the speech that I’m not so sure of. Certainly it is a valid take on the character, but like so much of modern Shakespearean performance: a lot is created that just isn’t there in the text.

Kenneth Branagh

Branagh is very good as Richard, but in this scene, he plays it too much like the melodramatic villain. His barely suppressed anger is great, but he jumps so nimbly from it to an all too clear delight that I find it jarring.

Ian McKellen

The 1995 filmed version of Richard III is so stylized, that it is hard to know what to think of McKellen’s understated performance. He is clearly very pleased with himself, but somehow he manages to integrate this with his hatred and frustration so that it works. (It is unfair to do a comparison of a big budget film and basically a book on tape that Branagh was doing.)

Just the same, it is hard to know if McKellen understands the speech at all, based upon the following clip. Yeah, we get it: “Sun of York” is a pun of “Son of York” and King Edward is the son of the Duke of York. But Richard does not mean these lines as stated: he would prefer it still be winter. I don’t mean to suggest that McKellen really doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Artists are almost always at their worst when they discuss their work. But one does get the impression that he thinks he is speaking to a child of limited intelligence:

There is no doubt that the more recent actors give Richard more depth. My question is whether that is really appropriate.

I recently wrote that I am not a worshiper of artists. But when I looked at how Orson Welles’ films have been rated over at Rotten Tomatoes, I was shocked. Here they are in chronological order, followed by their rating in parentheses:

Some of these ratings I quite agree with. One can hardly argue with Citizen Kane, a movie that is quite good on so many levels. But The Stranger gets 95%?! It is by far the worst film Welles ever directed—his attempt to make nice with the studio system. It is a good example of what happens to artists who get too political (e.g. Picasso’s WWII posters): it is a perfectly workmanlike film. Sure, it’s about as good as anyone else’s work at that time. And that’s the problem.

I will put them in the order I think they deserve. I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.

Yes, F for Fake is my favorite of Welles’ films. It is not only a great film, it was a totally new kind of film that no one has picked up on to this day. It is not a documentary. It is a filmed personal essay. In a time when the written personal essay is coming back in a big way, I don’t see why filmmakers haven’t picked up on it. Unless it is like Mozart’s music: it’s a lot harder than Welles makes it look.

The Trial is quite simply a perfect film. I cannot imagine how anyone will ever be able to better translate Kafka’s nightmare to the screen. It is disturbing, of course. What do you expect? Welles said that it was his favorite movie, not that it matters. He also said this about Chimes at Midnight.

Most Welles fans will find it surprising, my placement of Mr. Arkadin so high on the list. But unless you have seen the Corith or Comprehensive versions, you really haven’t seen the film. Every time I watch it, I perceive it differently. It is always and forever an exciting experience.

Ah, Touch of Evil. “You wanna go check it out? Watch Charlton Heston play a Mexican?” What could be better? Perhaps, Marlene Dietrich saying, “He was some kind of a man… What does it matter what you say about people?” Or Welles telling her, “It’s either the candy or the hooch. I must say, I wish it was your chili I was getting fat on. Anyway, you’re sure looking good.” And there’s that whole business of the three and a half minute tracking shot that takes us from the US across the border to Mexico. And there’s just about everything in the film. Yeah, it is totally genre. Totally great.

Yeah, yeah. Citizen Kane. The greatest film of all time. Whatever. It is a great film. I’ve seen it 20 times. It does not age as well as Mr. Arkadin.

I’ve already talked about Chimes at Midnight. Welles was the first director to figure out how to do Shakespeare on screen. Step one, cut That Bard savagely… Note, this film is badly in need of restoration, so if anyone has a million dollars lying around…

The Magnificent Ambersons is a stunning movie. But imagine if someone took a razor and cut the face out of the Mona Lisa. Now you have an idea of what’s going on in this film. The studio took it away from Welles, cut the hell out of the last act, and pasted a happy ending on it that looks like it comes from another film. It is painful to watch. I haven’t been able to face it for years.

Othello is great for reasons I discussed previously. I watched again last night, and it is so good. Most of Shakespeare moves very slowly, but this moves right along. It shows how easy it is to make a great film if you are a great filmmaker.

Macbeth is quite good, helped in large part by being what I consider to be Shakespeare’s best play as well as Welles’ expanded use of the witches. The film is clearly shot on a budget. The sets are limited and it has a claustrophobic feel that is absent from just about everything else he ever did. But it is good and consistent.

The Lady from Shanghai is what most people think of when they think of Welles: flashes of brilliance in a film you just can’t follow. But really, in 1948, who ever did anything close to this great:

Which brings us back The Stranger, which is not a bad film, just nothing I ever want to see again. That in itself is a testament to Welles: his worst film is a totally professional, studio picture. Frankly, until I got this list and started working on it, I didn’t realize just how much I respected this great artist. It’s too bad all those millions are being used to restore his films now rather than being used to fund them then.

Update (7 August 2013 7:15 pm)

I am getting so tired of film clips being removed from YouTube. Before, I had the whole hall of mirrors scene from The Lady from Shanghai. Now all I can find is the meat of it above. I think film owners are making a big mistake by clamping down on this stuff. Articles like this make people rent and buy the films. Regardless, any film from 1948 should now be in the public domain. This is all out of hand.

When I was a teenager, it was fun to take potshots at great artists and thinkers I knew little about. This is part of growing up. But I wonder why it is that many people never outgrow this urge? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for iconoclasts. But in order to be against something, you have to know it pretty well. For example, I would love to rage about how much Stephen King sucks these days, but I’m not willing to read all his novels even once to get to a place where I could begin to make such claims. (I thought The Shining was very good 30 years ago; I take no responsibility for that opinion today.)

Dissing Cassavetes

A few months ago, I came upon Andre Soares over at the Alt Film Guide. I know what you’re thinking, “Isn’t André Soares Ribeiro da Silva, more commonly known as André Soares, the 18th century Portuguese sculptor and architect dead?” Yes, he is. This is a different Andre Soares. He is a film ombudsman. And as such, he is hardly bad or unusual. But I’ve only read one of his reviews. He might normally be great. I don’t know. I don’t care. But let me tell you how I discovered him.

I came upon a copy of John Cassavetes’ Faces. It was very exciting, because I quite like Cassavetes and I had never seen any of his early films. To me, his reputation depended upon A Woman Under the Influence and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. And Gloria, because I’m an ol’ softy. I have long thought that America over-values foreign film to the detriment of truly independent film[1]. So I was glad that Faces had got the Criterion Collection treatment.

I grabbed the DVD, took it home and watched it. It was so powerful, I watched it again to get a better look at the technique. Then I watched all of stuff on the extras disc. Really: I couldn’t get enough. I went online to see what people where saying and that’s how I landed on Alt Film Guide.

Soares’ review is very well written, and if I hadn’t seen the movie, I would have found it compelling. Having just watched the film, however, I noticed something: the review was a hatchet job. I’m sure going in he had decided to savage the film. There were many problems. First, he made a few mistakes about the plot of the film. Second, he made some other mistakes. Third, it was clear he had watched the film only once. Fourth, he clearly didn’t look at the extras disc, which seems critical to me if you are, you know, doing a DVD review instead of just a movie review. When you get right down to it, the review was just a pretext for claiming that Cassavetes is over-rated.

Here is what passes for argument from Mr. Soares:

So let’s deconstruct this argument: Cassavetes uses cinematic tricks (Handheld camera! Wow!) to get in the way of the story he wrote. Despite all these tricks, Cassavetes only presents us with talking heads. In other words: the film is too stylish except that it isn’t. The tired comparison to Bergman (usually) is priceless. I love the 5-hour Scenes from a Marriage, but it is all talking heads and it doesn’t transport the viewer anywhere—and that’s the point!

Just to finish up: any time an ombudsman says something like “the film didn’t move me” or “I didn’t think it was funny” I know why I no longer write (or usually even read) reviews. If you base your judgement of a film on a single viewing, your opinion is as much an indication of where you are emotionally as it is of anything in the film. If your lover just left you and you lost your job, you probably aren’t going to find the best film in the world very good. Art takes time. And so does its appreciation.

Dissing Welles

I went to the library the other day in search of a reference that contained a rough estimate of the percentage of any particular Shakespeare play that was written in verse. I know I’ve seen such a thing. I did not find it, but I did happen upon one of my old nemesis: Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor’s Reduced Shakespeare. I browsed through the book and came to a review of Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight:

They gave it one out of five “bards.”

I suppose that Soares can be forgiven, because it has yet to become a cliche to hate on Cassavetes. But it has become a cliche to hate on Welles. Let’s face it, he’s an easy target: he’s fat. Forget what Falstaff said, “If to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved.” In America, to be fat is to be hated. Martin and Tichenor pile on here with glee.

But there’s a problem: they are wrong from top to bottom. To begin, how was Welles born to play this part? Because he was fat? That’s all I can guess. The truth is, I don’t particularly like him in the part because his conception is very much mine: Falstaff is a frightened and beaten man. There isn’t a great deal of humor in his playing of the part. As I’ve said before, I much prefer Robbie Coltrane.

Despite this, I quite like Chimes at Midnight. It works better than Shakespeare on film ever did before that.[4] And this is due primarily to Welles the director. The film is visually stunning. Yes, Welles did like low camera angles, but this film is quite subdued in this regard. And their take on the laughter is totally wrong. People are laughing in the tavern because they are laughing at Falstaff. There is no “laugh track” element here and the only way one would think this is if one were intent on making that point.

The film is all the more remarkable in that it does not look like the usual Welles guerrilla film-making. But to think that Welles could have got this shot with any other director through ordinary channels is madness. Just look at Welles! He actually slimmed down in the 70s. In the 60s, he looked his worst. No studio would have invested in Shakespeare with Welles in a star role. He did what he had to do to get the film made. And he succeeded. Brilliantly.

I am not a worshiper of artists. Both Cassavetes and Welles were far from perfect. But they were both artists who managed to do exceptional work under difficult circumstances. To me, the greatest thing you can say against both men is that they didn’t leave enough work. Why do people take aim at these men when there are extremely well-paid men creating garbage everyday who are far more deserving of such venom?

[1] I often hear of $5 million films referred to as independent, hence the “truly” qualifier.

[2] There is a little mix-up about Henry VI with Henry IV. It could happen to anyone.

[3] Falstaff is only mentioned in Henry V, he isn’t in it. What’s more, he isn’t even mentioned in Richard II. I think these guys get their Shakespeare entirely from movies (e.g. Falstaff is in Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V).

[4] Welles’ Othello is of a similar quality for the same reason. And it would be worth watching just for the unusual film appearance of Micheál Mac Liammóir as Iago. You can also hear him doing the narration for the wonderfully fun Tom Jones. (BTW: Martin and Tichenor gave this great version of Othello one bard as well.)

Milos Forman’s filmed version of Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus was a huge hit. According to Box Office Mojo it made over $51 million in the United States alone, and this is just the money it made during its theatrical release. You can imagine the kind of money it made worldwide and via tape and disc sales. And it was better reviewed than just about any film I’ve ever heard of. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 96% on it tomatometer. Metacritic gives it a score of 93 out of 100.[1] And, of course, it won so many awards that it would be very difficult to list them without being boring. It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and won 8. Amadeus is generally considered a great film.

I disagree.

Don’t misunderstand me, however. Amadeus is an excellent film. It just isn’t up there with the very best films—things like F for Fake or Gosford Park or His Girl Friday or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or The Conversation (to name just a few). There was always something wrong with it—something not quite right. The surprising thing is that I was not able to explained why Amadeus wasn’t quite great until I saw Amadeus: Director’s Cut.[2]

Differences

The director’s cut contains 20 extra minutes, pushing the already long original to a full three hours. Forman has claimed that he cut the film down for practical reasons because it was so long. I don’t believe this. It was already two hours and forty minutes long. I believe they cut it down to make it a more pleasant viewing experience.[3] And is it ever! At the end of the original, I sympathized with Salieri. Sure, he was evil and pathetic—but aren’t we all? However, in the director’s cut, I hated him easily as much as Constanze Mozart does.

Salieri’s Vow to God

The first change is relatively subtle. We get more back story about Salieri and his relationship with God. In general, it makes him a more pathetic character. In the original, Salieri offers God “the proudest prayer a boy could think of”:

In the director’s cut, we learn what this means. He asks the priest:

Sounds petty, doesn’t it? God makes him the most famous composer of his time and in exchange Salieri gives a few free piano lessons? So in just over ten minutes of film, we already don’t like him.

Salieri Hopes for a Fluke

The film continues on as in the original for a while with a tiny section removed where Salieri reflects that the piece played at the residence of the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg (an abbreviated version of the third movement of Mozart’s Serenade for Winds K. 361) must have been an accident. “It had to be… It better be.” It is important to note that this is the first time that Salieri is sympathetic. He describes the Serenade for Winds so beautifully and with such love, his trepidation in the face of a new perfect art is understandable.

The Rape of Madam Cavalieri

The next change is major, but unimportant. It takes place after the performance of The Abduction from the Seraglio. In the original version it is shown very economically that Mozart has “had” Caterina Cavalieri, Salieri’s student whom he lusts after. It is a fun scene, but it detracts from the film. What’s more, it shows Salieri to be obtuse in a way that is out of character with him throughout the rest of the film. On the plus side, it shows that there was perhaps a chance that Salieri could have accepted Mozart if he weren’t, in his own unique way, a bore.

Constanze!

Now we come to two additions involving Constanze Mozart and I believe their absence from the original release cost Elizabeth Berridge the Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress (and many other awards). Acting awards are given as much for characters as for actors. For example, Dustin Hoffman did not get the Academy Award for Rain Man because his acting was that great. In fact, I would argue that it was some of his worst acting. But the part! It screams “Acting!” It calls attention to itself. What the two scenes removed from Amadeus did was deprive the character of Constanze Mozart of her primary motivation. So her acting in the final scene with Salieri has no context, and Berridge’s acting tour de force seems downright banal.

The first scene is an argument between the newly wed Mozarts. Constanze shows herself to be strong and prophetic. And it leads directly to the second, far more important scene.

This is a five minute extension to the scene in the original when she goes to Salieri to ask for his help in getting Mozart a royal appointment. In the original, Salieri simply walks away. In the director’s cut, he makes a sexual play for her, thinking that she will not go along with his tit-for-tat proposal—sex for the appointment. When she does—but in a way designed to make him feel the cad he appears to be—he humiliates her and breaks the bargain they had struck. From his perspective, God is abusing him; God will allow him Mozart’s wife but not Mozart’s talent. From Constanze’s perspective (the objective one), Salieri is simply cruel.

This scene also sets up the most devastating line in the movie. After Constanze undresses before Salieri, he rings a bell calling his servant who he tells, “Show this woman out.” At the end of the film (in both versions but obviously not with much power in the original), Constanze tells Salieri, “I regret we have no servants to show you out, Herr Salieri.” The restrained hatred with which this line is delivered is annihilating. If looks could kill, Salieri would have beat Mozart to the grave. And Berridge would have beat Abraham to the stage at the 1984 Academy Award Ceremony. Instead, her performance in the original just lays there on the screen, and we are forced at ask, “Why is she so angry?”

We also miss the sweetest scene in the whole film when Mozart comes home to find Constanze in bed, inconsolable. It contrasts beautifully with the end of the film when Constanze comforts Mozart in his death bed. A short, but powerful scene.

Salieri’s Campaign of Lies

There are a number of other scenes that generally establish Sarieri as a villain. He spreads the rumor than Mozart molests his female students. He also sends him to a rich but uncouth family who treat Mozart very poorly. And he even tries to set Mozart’s patron, the Baron van Swieten, against him.

The Director’s Cut is a Great Film

That about sums up the differences between the original and the director’s cut versions of Amadeus. As you can see, most of the differences are in the first half of the film. But they affect the second half of the film, especially the resolution. When I had only seen the original version of the film, the ending just didn’t quite work for me because of the confrontation between Constanze and Salieri. At that point, Mozart is all but dead; he is irrelevant. God is nowhere to be seen; he only exists in Salieri’s mind. So the denouement is really in Constanze’s line, “I regret we have no servants to show you out, Herr Salieri.” And this line, as I indicated above is meaningless in the original. I asked myself again and again, “Why does Constanze hate Salieri so much?” In the original, we really don’t know. In the director’s cut we do. Not only that, we wish that she had a servant who was really big so he could show Salieri out through one of their upstairs windows.

So if you want an enjoyable movie with great characters and music that you can watch year after year, buy the original 1984 version of Amadeus. If you want a great film that will thrill you on each viewing, buy the 2002 Amadeus: Director’s Cut. The director’s cut has another advantage: it is all on one disc. The original is on a double-sided disc that must be flipped over after the performance of Don Giovanni. Or own both—probably the best option!

[1] This is for the 2002 release of the director’s cut. It appears they do not have an entry for the 1984 version. It doesn’t matter. The original was extremely well reviewed.

[2] As I think will become clear, most people will prefer the original released version of the film. I’m talking art here, not diversion.

[3] It also had the advantage of changing the MPAA rating from R to PG—not always a good thing, but for this film, I expect a very lucrative change.

[4] The portrayal of Salieri in the film is almost completely false except for this. By all accounts Salieri was a good man who was involved in many philanthropic activities, especially in relation to other, less successful musicians. In addition, except for one nasty comment in a letter to his father, Mozart seemed to get on well with Salieri. They even worked together. And unlike in the film, Mozart did become Court Composer under Joseph II (although he was paid poorly). Also, Mozart’s financial troubles have been greatly over-stated. Most of the money he borrowed was to pay other money he had borrowed so that he didn’t owe anyone for very long. What’s more, his finances really took off the last two years of his life. If he had lived longer, he would have become very wealthy. And finally, he was not given a pauper’s funeral. He was buried in a communal grave, but that was the fashion of that time. So other than little tidbits like the fact that Salieri did have a sweet-tooth, Amadeus is total fiction.

It came as a great gift that when I went to check out some old episodes of That Mitchell and Webb Look on Netflix, I found that a new season (series?) was available. Like the glutton I am, I sat down and watched all six episodes. What a delight these guys are. The show compares so well to American comedy. The primary reason I don’t watch Saturday Night Live, for example, is that the skits rarely go anywhere. A skit will have a (hopefully) funny idea, riff on it, and then end abruptly. In comparison, That Mitchell and Webb Look generally have skits that do go somewhere and provide a payoff.[1]

A good example of their writing is found in one of their skits from the first episode of Season 4. It is a film set and an actress is giving an emotional performance. The actor playing opposite her is supposed to respond with the words, “I don’t know what you want any more.” But instead of matching her level of emotion, he mumbles the line. The director calls cut and then they riff on it a bit. The director tries to get the actor to emote (or even just speak the line properly), but all the actor can do is mumble the line in a different way. If this were an SNL skit, that’s where it would end. Here, the director continues to work with the actor. Finally, the director gives up and decides to cut the line. The actor is upset. “Mike!” he says. “I’m doing my best! I really am! It’s just…” Followed immediately by the mumbled, “I don’t know what you want any more.” The skit is hysterical and fulfilling.

Mitchell and Webb are good about retiring skits before they get old. In some cases, I’m glad to see them go. Numberwang—the unfathomably complex numbers game—never really worked for me fully. Maybe this is because I don’t have enough experience with British television. Two skits I do miss disappeared rather suddenly: The Surprising Adventures of Sir Digby Chicken Caesar—a drunken and most likely psychotic homeless man and his sidekick Ginger—and Ted and Peter—the alcoholic commentators on televised snooker matches, a pool game I had never heard of before. Of course, they have all been replaced with, if anything, better skits like The Quiz Broadcast—a post-appocolypic quiz show that takes place after some unspeakable “event.”[2]

What really caught my attention in Season 4, however, was a bit they started in Episode 5 that was paid off in Episode 6. In the middle of Episode 5, Mitchell was telling Webb about having finally seen all the Black Adder shows. He says that he thinks they screwed up the ending of Black Adder Goes Forth. For those who don’t know it, this show takes place in the trenches of World War I, and it ends very poignantly with all the men going over the top and being shot to pieces. So the joke is that Mitchell thinks this is just a joke that bombed. Amusing. Then they get to talking about how they need to end their show with “something tacked-on and mawkish.” They continue later in the show discussing ways they can end the show in this way. While thinking about it, they go to get some tea. But it’s not ready! It will take 5 minutes! They are devastated—in slow motion just like in Black Adder Goes Forth. Brilliant.

But that’s not the end. They finally decide that the way to end the show is to kill off their cast member, James. There is a montage of things James has been in before with the text, “James Bachmann: 1972-2010.” Then, it cuts to a room with a woodchipper. Two feet stick out of it with the words, “Tragically got put into a woodchipper for narrative reasons.” Brilliant.

But that’s not the end. Okay. It is the end of that episode. But then they end Episode 6 (the season finale) with a funny skit about an old Sherlock Holmes that ends poignantly and uncomfortably and in no way funny.[3] Holmes is in a rest home with dementia. They go a long way with the comedy of a once brilliant man who is now a babbling fool, while Watson tries to cover and preserve Homes’ former image of himself. And then, it stops on a dime. Holmes looks at Watson seriously and says, “I know, John. I do know. I can’t get the fog to clear.” Watson is speechless. Devastated. Then Holmes looks pained and calls out for the nurse. She comes in and checks him. “Oh, dear. It looks like a two pipe problem. Let’s get you cleaned up.” This last bit is not cheap scatological humor. There is no laugh track here. It is deadly serious. Sad. Brilliant.

[1] A Bit of Fry and Laurie is equally good. Or a little better. Or a little worse. But definitely of similar quality.

[2] I believe they started The Quiz Broadcast in Season 3. It was definitely before Season 4, but it definitely comes into its all in Season 4.

[3] Yes. In that sentence “funny” is an adverb. Don’t ever let me hear you use the word “funnily”!