A casting sheet describes seven characters aged from 17 to 38, with one billed as "the sort of guy who'd protest against cartoons in a bomb belt" while another is "insanely intense, bright, very focused, blind to anything he's not focused on, small seething boffin".
Morris has taken a keen interest in Islamic terrorism and was recently spotted at a terror trial taking copious notes. He was also seen at a seminar on al-Qaida.Morris also mentioned a while ago that he is working on a second series of Nathan Barley. (Which, IMHO, should be more interesting than The I.T. Crowd, a rather dull and obvious American-style sitcom dressed up in computer-geek garb, and with all the bite of Hey Dad!).
I guess people were too excited by the novelty of seeing jokes about IT guys lacking dress sense, social skills and girlfriends on the TV screen to notice that the jokes, and indeed the plots, were intelligence-insultingly stupid.
The quality of a comedy comes down to how difficult the target is. "The I.T. Crowd" was well done, but too easy - the mainstream already believes those assertions about I.T. people. So people got entertained, but no-one's outlook got broadened. "Nathan Barley" aimed at a more difficult target (it's armed with a big PR weapon) and hit it full square. I nearly cried watching it. As for the new one - all I can say is that this guy is brave. Whew.
I've had to think about the "difficulty of target" issue in NW a lot, and have been criticized for getting it wrong, once by an IT person!
NW = new waver? If so, I love your stuff. Did NW do "you've gotta party for your right to fight"? I can't find it anywhere...
It's on "Neuters", our 2006 cd (*). I'm not sure where you live, but if you like, take a look at http://spill-label.org/nw and see if the cd is available in your area. A lot of the songs are on download sites also.
(* I'm guessing you mean our Beastie Boys "cover" ... the song title above is actually by Public Enemy!)
Hey! I made a comment about how that NW retrospective is out now etc, but it seems to have been eaten.
Unless acb censored it because I said that I loved the IT Crowd ;)
Try posting it again; not sure what happened there.
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I agree. There were moments, but they weren't fantastic. Yet people loved it, or so it seemed. Maybe it was a desperate attempt to talk to me about something since they knew I was in IT. The worst is that people still ask me if I've seen it to this day. Leave it already. Goddam, it was bad enough having Simpson as a Surname. When will it end?