MEATBALLS, MASH AND GRAVY

Déjà vu or what? If you’re wondering why UK film’s in the dire state it’s in, then look no further than today’s Screendaily.com. The announcement that the makers of Peep Show are making a movie for Intermedia only proves that comedy is the last refuge of an ideas-free industry desperate to cash in on a ‘hit’ TV show.

What they’re forgetting is that telly’s a different, many-tentacled animal these days. When Big Brother can only manage to attract 220,000 viewers in Scotland, the idea of any comedy series being a hit is delusional when the audience share is so paltry.

Long gone are the days when millions would gather round the box to watch ‘classic’ unfunny comedies such as On The Buses, Love Thy Neighbour, Are You Being Served and George and Mildred. So it’s no surprise that this pile of crap, alongside Morecambe and Wise, Steptoe and Son and Porridge were all made into films, only to find that 20 million TV viewers stayed away from the cinema in droves.

Haven’t they learned anything? Recently we’ve had The League of Gentlemen, Alien Autopsy, Shaun of the Dead and possibly the worst film of all time, Sex Lives of the Potato Men, causing one irate viewer on IMBD to ask – Who provided the financing?

Who indeedy? Well stand up the UK Film Council, who proudly palmed 750,000 quid to the makers of SLOPM. I don’t mind the real film industry taking a punt on fart jokes, toilet stunts or eejits getting their balls mauled – that’s their business. But when lottery ticket buyers are being asked to cough up twice to watch stuff they don’t bother to watch on telly anymore, it only goes to show the poverty of imagination that keeps a peculiarly English culture afloat.

And in a culture where filmmakers aren’t allowed to get serious, who can blame the average cinema-goer for giving their six quid to Warner Brothers and Universal? At least with Hollywood you’re getting some money on the screen. And at least it’s film, with real stars, not some TV spin-off badly shot in a disused factory with ugly non-actor stand-ups.

Even quasi-dramatic guff like Shane Meadows’ dire ‘Once Upon a Time in the Midlands’ follows an age-old comedic tradition, only with fewer laughs and a cast of tired professional proles such as Ricky 'one-note' Tomlinson. And at the other end of the food chain, when will Richard Curtis learn that we’ve heard all his quirky posh-guy tosh, again and again and again? Some of us remember his cringe-making Oxo cube adverts. I mean - suckbutt? What's a suckbutt?

Which is about as funny as the three-legged dog picking over the ashes of the orphanage fire…