The not so Young Ones
EIGHTIES sitcom THE YOUNG ONES starts a re-run tonight on BBC4 (9pm).This is to mark the show’s 40th anniversary and to make me feel really, really old. So does it feel desperately dated, four decades on, this frenetic comedy about four waste-of-space students sharing a rented dive in north London?
Yes and no. Mostly yes, it has to be said, but there’s one scene in this opening episode that does feel uncannily contemporary. It’s where Rik Mayall’s character, ludicrous pseudo-anarchist Rick, is watching Ben Elton on TV and gets so cross that he ends up putting his foot through the screen.
OK, so that doesn’t mirror precisely what I did myself while Elton was hosting Channel 4’s revival of Friday Night Live the other week, but I did shout: “Oh, do shut up, you silly man”, which is pretty much as powerful a statement, you’ll agree.
Of course, Elton was The Young Ones’ co-creator, so it’s not as though the telly-trashing gag was aimed at him personally.
Its target was early-Eighties “yoof” TV presenters, of which he portrays a particularly irritating example in this episode (originally shown on Tuesday, November 9, 1982). But even so…
Watching any vintage sitcom through modern eyes (mine should feel a lot more modern once I’ve had these cataracts sorted) can be a curious exercise.
Some of those old shows stand the test of time a lot more successfully than others.
Comedy can date so easily, but there are programmes from way back – Dad’s Army, Fawlty Towers, Blackadder – that still make me laugh (to be fair to Elton, it was thanks to him that the latter became such a hit after a drab start).
I shan’t bore you with dreary analysis (unless you’d like me to, in which case do please say…) but the less a sitcom has relied on topical gags, firmly rooted in the era of its creation, I’d say the greater has been its longevity.
That’s largely why those other sitcoms have stayed fresh while The Young Ones feels rather like a museum piece, albeit still a fascinating one. Alternative comedy, we’re reminded as we watch this show, believed it had an urgent mission in the early Eighties – to wipe the comedy slate clean, to boot out the dinosaurs that were dominating the industry, to rid the scene of their old-school bigotry, sexism, xenophobia etc.
Ironic, then, that if you now take a look on BritBox, where both series of The Young Ones are available in full, you’ll find disclaimers that warn: “Contains adult humour, violence, sex references, and homophobic and racist language that may offend.” Comedy, eh?
Funny old world.