Frankie Boyle new TV series

[pol]

Tramadol Nights is a new sketch show by Frankie Boyle, starting next week on Channel 4. There's a strange trailer: Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights on Vimeo.

The man's humour is certainly extreme, but also brilliant in places. But then i'm a fan. I get the impression it makes a lot of people of my mum and dad's generation (in their 60s) blanche a bit. But then maybe Billy Connelly had a similar effect in the 1960s and 70s... I dunno. Cheery iconoclast or worrying disabled-baiter? What's the verdict?

[wullie m]

Don't like the guy Pol, too clever-clever, not a patch on Billy!

wullie.

[PeterSandy]

Originally Posted by wullie m

Don't like the guy Pol, too clever-clever, not a patch on Billy!

wullie.

It's the way he tells them - Telegraph

[Lachlan09]

Is he SuBo's brother ?

[Saorsa1]

People seem to be offended by the truth.

He's hysterically funny at times, at others he invokes a sense of cringing embarrassment but he makes me laugh.

I don't agree with him politically but so what?

[Saorsa1]

I do think Billy Connelly is the funniest man alive on the planet.

[Lachlan09]

I think Billy was one of the first performers in the UK to tell stories, rather than being a stand-up comedian telling jokes. He had a great affection for Lenny Bruce. The other story-tellers I recall at that time were the Welsh comedian Max Boyce, who never went near the territory Billy ventured into and Jasper Carrott, a very funny Brummie. Who came first I do not know but for me, Billy was the best. Otherwise, comedians at that time tended to be joke-tellers like Les Dawson and Bernard Manning.

He developed his routine while with Gerry Rafferty in the Humblebums where in between songs and re-tuning his banjo, he would introduce the next song with a lengthy prologue, often injecting his own observations. In time, these humorous interludes became better received than his songs.

I saw him the first time at the Waverley Market in Edinburgh in 1974 as a virtual unknown in his "Great Northern Welly Boot Show". He was really funny, really irreverent and well on the way to his established storytelling routines. The next time I saw him, in 1975 or 76, he was a Scottish star just beginning to hit the big time in England (I didn't know that he would succeed). He did make people roll about in the aisles while wincing at his highly irreligious routines (Jesus' last miracle for instance), or bodily functions (eg meeting the girlfriend's parents, the jobby wheecher). He openly joked about subjects considered taboo at the time.

The last time I saw him was in Hong Kong in 1993. Still amazingly funny and by then a star in the USA and most parts of the world, I did notice he used the F word much more than before, it was really noticeable. That took away from the fun for me a bit as he used it too much, but he was still hilarious of course.