When life hurts, well-crafted, traditional sitcom like Count Arthur Strong can be an indispensable salve…
This article comes fromDen of Geek UK.
Normal life demands to re-start.
For my family like most others, normal life means watching television.
Telly is the cradle that rocked us through the decades.
Whatever happened to us happened against a backdrop of soaps and sitcoms.
Losing our dad though, changed things.
In the flayed-skin sensitivity of the days around his funeral, flicking through the channels meant running a gauntlet.
A murder onEastEndersbrought unwelcome ambulances and coroners back into our living room.
We winced at the mention of a hospital or autopsy.
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(Id never really noticed before, but TV isfullof people having heart attacks.
Not to mention the corpses.
TV loves a corpse.)
The answer was to limit what we watched.
Soaps and dramas were out, previously vetted films on DVD were in.
Nothing was risked that might prove too moving.
Quiz shows were especially safe ground soPointlessandEggheadsbecamea daily ritual.
What really got us through though, filling up the screen and our hours, was comedy.
Nothing too edgy, cynical or experimental, mostly good-hearted clowning.
Jokes that make you laugh, not nod wryly or cringe in recognition.
Sitcoms though, proved the best escape.
We prescribed ourselves familiar and comforting stuff.
Traditional, filmed-in-front-of-a-studio audience half-hours.Only Fools And Horses,Dads Army,Fawlty Towers.
They shook us back awake, those episodes.
They werent just a way to pass time, but a way to remember that life was still good.
And, unbelievable as it might have felt, that it was still the same.
Laughing at it now, together, was a shortcut straight to him.
Once the old favourites had been burned through, we moved on to newer stuff.
Bright, silly,Mirandawas a saviour.
It backfired every so often.
The best ones almost always do.
Enter: Count Arthur Strong.
And probably crossed the road to avoid him.
Again like most classic comedy characters, Arthurs personality can also be explained as symptomatic of a psychological disorder.
Every so often, it makes him an unwitting hero (whatever Arthur achieves is unwitting).
That all changed when the series moved across to television.
In series one, Michael seeks out Arthur for help writing a book about his now-dead fathers life.
Kinnears Michael is what drives the TV series forward.
Or at least thats how he sees it.
Michael isnt simply the straight man.
Brilliant as Steve Delaneys performance as Arthur isand it is brilliantKinnears is also exemplary.
Only that can explain his precise mastery over Arthurs alternately twitching, furrowed, delighted forehead.)
Delaneys performance is the foundation of it all.
Hes funny before hes said a single word, and then even funnier after hes done that.
Its such a strong visual performance, you might wonder how the radio series worked at all.
The TV series though, is on a different level.
Its taken Arthur from self-regarding twerp to exhausting but loveable favourite.
It wasnt an entirely safe choice then, back when traditional sitcom was my grief anaesthetic of choice.
Happy, welcome, grateful tears.
Heres to you, Count Arthur.
Count Arthur Strong series 2 is out on DVD in the UK now,available here.
Series 3 has been filmed and will air on the BBC later this year.
