Where’s the Comedy?
At Mark Presdee’s excellent screening event of Annie Griffith’s Edinburgh-set comedy feature ‘Festival’ last night, we discussed why there aren’t enough British comedy features reaching a wide audience and enjoying box office success. We’ve got a rich culture of comedy and humour in these islands, reflected in live perfromance, on tv and radio, but sadly not enough on the big screen. Why is this? Is it the writing, lack of development funding, wrong format or what? Some of the biggest comedy classics have come from the US (think ‘Some like it Hot’, ‘Toy Story’, ‘Blazing Saddles’ and so on) and they don’t even get irony yet! All we have is Monty Python and a string of formulaic rom-coms from Working Title. Maybe we need a Head of Comedy at the UK Film Council. Now there’s a thought…
