Neighbourhood Nonsense

THIS PAGE IS CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION. AFTER REVIEW, IT WILL BE TAKEN DOWN AND EDITED. FOR NOW, IF YOU ARE NOT LEO, YOU CAN IGNORE THIS PAGE

VERY MINOR NO CONTEXT SPOILERS AHEAD

I had a new experience recently - I went to a radio sitcom recording. Several of my friends and relatives have been before, but my closest experience was the Dead Ringers 25th Anniversary Tour. This show in no way resembles that and had a much smaller audience, so I will be keeping comparisons to a minimum.

The word minimum is very satisfying to type. Try it!

Back to the recording. I was invited personally by the author, amateur stand-up comedian and comedy writer Leo Morton, whom I have known for a long time. Because of this, I have promised to give him copy approval before publishing; a courtesy not usually extended to creatives of properties reviewed on this blog. Because of this, the finished version might be over sanitised, sorry.

I may have given the wrong impression when saying this was a radio recording. These episodes will not be broadcast on the radio, at least not yet. This recording was inspired by Leo's housemate Matt, another old friend, who has talents in sound recording and production.

After the episodes are properly edited, they should be available online and I will upload a link to them on this blog.

Being fully aware of Leo's talent, as soon as I heard about this recording, I immediately started inviting everyone I knew. Actual conversation I had on the matter:

Me: I've invited everyone I know to Leo's recording.

Charlie: Great, shall I invite everyone I know as well?

Me: No Charlie, the venue only holds 200.

Charlie is not his real name. If I used his real name, you would understand what I mean because he probably knows you.

Sadly, in the end, only four of the people I invited turned up. Even Charlie couldn't make it, probably because of the FA Cup semi final

Because this was mostly informal, the cast were some of Leo's friends (including him stepping up to play a character as they couldn't find another actor), none of whom are professional actors.

ALTERNATIVE DUE TO MY POSSIBLY BEING UNINFORMED

Because this was mostly informal, the cast were some of Leo's friends (including him stepping up to play a character as someone had to drop out last minute), some/all of whom are professional actors. (DELETE AS APPROPRIATE)

The recording also took place in a church instead of a dedicated theatre or studio as this was the best venue available to them.

The cast. L-R, Thomas (Max), Beth (Prim), Naomi (Aurelia), Leo XIV (Writer/Mikey), Jefferson (Ray) and Grace (Janine)

I WILL INCLUDE LAST NAMES ONLY WITH THE EXPLICIT PERMISSION OF ALL THE CAST. THEY MAY ALSO MAKE UP JOKE NAMES/NICKNAMES IF THEY WISH. YOU ARE LEO XIV AND HAVE NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER

Speaking of the cast, I'll quickly go through and say something nice about all of them.

Thomas and Beth are in their 20s, but were totally believable as teenage siblings. I particularly enjoyed a joke about Max preferring to be known as Maximillian ("It sounds like there's more than one of me")

Naomi, also in her 20s, perfectly captured the authoritative and exasperation of Aurelia, who I guessed to be an older character.

Leo XIV is the Pope and I thought this was a bit of an odd career move for him, but I think it's a good idea for a sitcom concept-

TIME OUT: I just realised I never actually mentioned the subject of the sitcom. It's set in a neighbourhood watch and follows the odd goings on within the group, usually after the fact being discussed in their weekly meetings.

-and he seemed to play the character well despite that not being the original plan.

Jefferson embodied the physicality of Ray, including putting his hand up to ask a question ("For those of you still only listening via radio..."), which ~I thought was a fun choice and helped the audience follow what was going on.

Grace did what I can only describe as "Going Full Penelope Keith", putting on an accent and affecting a tone that says "I'm better than you". This is a tough line to tread, as it can make a character unlikeable, but I think Grace managed to balance it well.

This line from The Goes Wrong Show doesn't relate to anything, but I thought of it every time her name was mentioned and now you will too. You're welcome.

At the start and end of each episode (we watched three episodes being recorded; I don't know how usual this is for radio), Matt read the credits of who played who and mentioned that additional material was written by the cast, which I thought was a good idea. However, it doesn't always work out for the best...

During the performance, the entire cast stood, as in the above picture. From what I understood from the Dead Ringers tour (I told you it'd come back), only the actors in a particular scene stand up. I don't know if this was a deliberate choice or if it was because all the characters are in pretty much every scene.

However, two of the three episodes (I don't know why not the first) started with cold opens, each of which only included a few characters. This meant that only those characters stood up, including part where Grace stood up halfway through as the other end of a phone call, which because of her voice was incredibly funny in context. I won't spoil why.

There were also a few inside jokes included to make some specific members of the audience laugh, which made think of this clip.

Although we only saw (heard?) three episodes, they were set over 51 weeks, so I assume there will be more set in between. I also noticed a joke about learning to drive being included in an episode set after that character mentioned having just passed their test, but that might have been my confusion. 

Although a Neighbourhood Watch is a fantastic source for comedy, it has the same problem as most workplace sitcoms - it's too mundane to provide more than one episode from its basic premise which is why in the first episode they're mostly just talking about New Years resolutions, but by episode two they're being arrested.

However, this is by no means a bad thing. Episode one of The IT Crowd has someone computer illiterate become head of an IT department (unlikely but plausible), but as early as episode two characters are declaring war and setting things on fire.

There's a rather amusing joke in one episode in which someone tricks someone else into paying him £10 per week, which he himself should be paying as penance for his own 'crime'. This was a very funny idea and trod the perfect line of the audience seeing the punchline just a second before the characters.

I was reminded of an episode of Dad's Army, High Finance (S8E5), which I had coincidentally seen just a few days prior, where a similar scenario takes place, except on a much larger scale. At the end of the episode, the relevant money has to be passed around between about 10 different people before it ends up where it's supposed to be. If a similar joke appeared again in Neighbourhood Nonsense, I would advise taking the joke further.

This also reminded me of Lab Rats (read my previous post to explain), where every episode sets up a series of jokes leading to a single punchline (although in this case it's not visual for obvious reasons)

In conclusion, Leo Morton is a talented writer who deserves more eyes on his material. I hope he gets discovered and has the opportunity to make more of this project and anything else he has in the pipeline.