Tittererer’s Digest #22 (feat. Barack Obama)
Good day and welcome to my last ever Tittererer’s Digest. After today, I hand over Humour Editor responsibilities to Alan Maguire. And no, there won’t be a Conan/Leno style backtrack. This is it. I’ve really enjoyed doing this column (but obviously not enough to keep doing it) and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it too. Alan is going to continue the Digest, so don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll be… OK. So for one last time from me… ON WITH THE DIGEST!
Clip of the Week
This week, President Obama attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, an annual Washington tradition since 1920. It’s an evening where the administration of the day gets together with members of the media and press who’ve been covering it for the last 12 months, to let their collective hair down. In recent years it’s become an increasingly star-studded affair, with big name comedians hosting – and the evening takes the form of a kind of roast. This year, the brilliant Cecily Strong, one of the stand-outs on SNL‘s current stellar roster, hosted. And she sort of nailed it…
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As funny as Strong was though, she was ultimately upstaged by Obama himself. This is usually a relaxed affair but the President really pushed the boat out by riffing on how chilled he could be now that he’s entering the fourth quarter of his presidency. “After the mid-term elections, my advisors asked me; Mr. President, do you have a bucket list? And I said, well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list. Take executive action on immigration? Bucket. New climate regulations? Bucket!” He even gets a little help from Keegan Michael Key (Key & Peel) Well worth a watch…
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Honourable mention to Count Arthur Strong’s Ask The Family.
In Cinemas This Week
A bit of dark Swedish humour for you to see in cinemas this week. Force Majeure is the story of how an act of instinctive paternal cowardice can tear not only a family apart but a nice skiing holiday too. In Ruben Östlund’s film, a young Swedish family travel to the French Alps for few days on the slopes. But when an apparently devastating approaching avalanche causes the father to flee, for all intents and purposes leaving his wife and children to perish, it seriously shifts and distorts the family dynamic. It’s a quite brilliant concept and the result is sharp, black satire. Well worth a look. It’s showing this week in the Lighthouse Cinema.
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Any Other Business
– Is merely watching TV comedy no longer doing it for you? Well the excellent BBC Writersroom have just added a buttload of new script PDFs to their library (which now includes Inside No. 9, Detectorists and *cough* The Walshes) – an indispensable resource for comedy writers and the televisionless. [Read More Here]
– Last week marked the 20th (TWENTIETH!!) anniversary of Father Ted‘s first broadcast. There was lots of coverage, celebrating arguably the greatest sit-com ever seen on this side of the Atlantic – the pick of which was James Thomas’ (AKA @AstonishingSod) piece for the Huffington Post. [Read More Here]
– This week Sidesplitter spoke to unintended cult-comedy hero Tommy Wiseau (writer/director/star of The Room). [Read More Here]
That’s your lot folks. I’m off to no longer enjoy comedy on your behalf, but merely selfishly.
@Shaneinho
