I love comedy, especially in sitcom form, so I took more of an interest than many would in today's news that The Radio Times had run a poll in which its readers voted for 'the best sitcom of the twenty-first century'. I can't say I was particularly invested in the outcome as, as far as I'm concerned, any poll that looks for the best thing to come out of a century that is only about 16.5% complete yet shouldn't be taken at all seriously. However, even I was surprised to see that Mrs Brown's Boys, the Irish sitcom whose main joke is that an old lady swears and is actually a man in a wig, was voted number one, ahead of such side-splittingly wonderful offerings as Black Books, Peep Show, and Green Wing.
My viewership of Mrs Brown's Boys begins and ends at one episode that I watched a few years back, and I remembered it being so unfunny that it actually made me quite angry. To refresh my memory and ensure that I was being fair I looked at a couple of clips on YouTube, all of which I sat through stony-faced and clicked off before they finished.
With 61 million people living in the UK from all walks of life, huge differences in taste are inevitable. One man's comedy gold is another man's endurance test. The readers of The Radio Times expressed their opinions, so here's mine, and it takes the form of thirty things that I think are funnier than the TV show Mrs Brown's Boys.
My viewership of Mrs Brown's Boys begins and ends at one episode that I watched a few years back, and I remembered it being so unfunny that it actually made me quite angry. To refresh my memory and ensure that I was being fair I looked at a couple of clips on YouTube, all of which I sat through stony-faced and clicked off before they finished.
With 61 million people living in the UK from all walks of life, huge differences in taste are inevitable. One man's comedy gold is another man's endurance test. The readers of The Radio Times expressed their opinions, so here's mine, and it takes the form of thirty things that I think are funnier than the TV show Mrs Brown's Boys.
- Taking a just-opened ready meal out of the microwave and immediately finding a hair.
- Stepping on an upturned plug.
- Getting to the airport and realising you've forgotten your passport.
- Finding out your favourite Domino's side has been discontinued (RIP mozzarella sticks).
- Reading The Old Man and the Sea.
- The flush on the toilet breaking when you're at the house of someone you really fancy.
- Getting a paper cut right on the bit where your finger bends.
- Unexpectedly coughing up phlegm in a public place.
- Accidentally cutting your fringe too short.
- Those weird stress dreams you get where your teeth are falling out.
- Someone stealing your bike while you're buying a bike lock.
- Going to scratch your face and accidentally poking yourself in the eye.
- Second-degree burns.
- Having one of those showers that only runs at a temperature the human body can withstand for about thirty seconds before it becomes either dry ice or lava.
- Trying to stream a TV show on watchseries and finding all the links have been taken down.
- When you go to a friend's house for dinner and you think you're getting dessert but they just give you fruit.
- Mouth ulcers.
- Desperately trying to avoid eye contact with Amnesty International fundraisers on the street because you can't face the guilt of admitting you don't want to help fight human rights abuses.
- Your cat biting you for no reason.
- The agonising month-long process of wearing in a new pair of Doc Martens.
- Money falling out of your pocket into the toilet.
- Being too hot to sleep.
- Looking for chocolate in the fridge and then remembering that you ate it all the night before.
- Your entire house burning to the ground.
- Someone telling you, "You should have made a back-up," when your computer fatally crashes.
- A package taking two days to arrive even though you paid an extra fiver for next-day delivery.
- Moderately serious head injuries.
- The Eurovision Song Contest.
- Being out in the rain and stepping on a loose paving slab that flips up and splashes water halfway up your legs.
- Every other sitcom that's been made in the twenty-first century, even Miranda.
Image credit: mingusmutter
