‘Tis the season to be jolly and during the next couple of months we here at The Groggy Squirrel will be haviing a look at a variety of Christmas comedy releases, be they DVD, book, CD or ‘other’. So if you’re shopping for that comedy obsessed neice, brother, friend or cousin, keep an eye on this space to see what kicks some serious comedy arse this Christmas. To start things off, Annette Slattery reviews “This Mitchell and Webb Book”.
David Mitchell and Robert Webb are perhaps best known here in Australia for playing the lead characters in the wonderful Peep Show. However their media careers in Britain started with a radio show called That Mitchell and Webb Sound, a show which continues to this day. They branched out to their own television sketch shows with That Mitchell and Webb Situation and That Mitchell and Webb Look, some of which has also been aired in Australia. These ventures have extended, naturally enough, into This Mitchell and Webb Book.
Available only in hardcover at the moment, This Mitchell and Webb Book is a substantial looking volume, large and heavy. The book is a compilation of essays, pictures, apocryphal quotes, faux magazine and internet articles and an assortment of other bits and pieces. Not dissimilar to a sketch show in format, regular sections in the book include the often inspired Great Flat-Share Note Discourses, a selection of ‘town notice boards’ and Rejected Poster Designs For Great Movies. Of particular note are the essays, six written by Robert Webb and five by David Mitchell. Robert Webb and David Mitchell often play distinctly different characters, not only in Peep Show but in their sketch personas and their public faces. It’s in this set of essays, all prefixed “How to cope with…”, that we see the two at their most similar, with David and Robert toning down and ramping up their outlay of frustrated irritation respectively. It’s here that you can clearly see the meeting of the minds which surely brought about this comedy coupling.
There are a few sections in the book in which Mitchell and Webb use characters developed in past sketch outings. Whist a pre-knowledge of these characters certainly enhances the appreciation of these sections, it’s not necessary in order to get the gist of things. They also play on the characters they portrayed in the Mac vs PC ads in Britain, and although Australians wouldn’t be familiar with Mitchell and Webb in these roles, we did get the American version of the same advertising campaign so it’s easy enough to translate across. There is also some fun/torment to be had with the index. There are only about thirty odd pages numbered properly out of the two hundred and sixty two pages in the book, so locating anything listed in the index is a bit of a marathon. Add to that the fact that not everything in the index is actually in the book, so it’s worth a read through, just to locate their made up references.
In many ways David Mitchell and Robert Webb are extremely fortunate to have starred in the superlative Peep Show (created and written by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain). It has raised their profiles and bought them legions of adoring fans. However, in some ways, their own work, ie: the work they’ve written themselves, has always suffered by comparison. And while the same could be said of this venture, I think it’s also fair to say that the sophistication and quality of their work has grown enormously over the years and that their writing rivals, at times, that of their Peep Show counterparts.
I think the one real dissapointment for me with this book was the lack of substance, or the proliferation of filler. When I get a new book like this I love to savour it, to have it as my companion to dip in and out of for a week or two. I read This Mitchell and Webb Book cover to cover in less than two days, and that was only through occasional perusals. There are a lot of pages of just pictures and little else, or a single quote on a full page or graphics bulking up the text on other pages. Apart from the essays there really isn’t a lot of meat in this sandwich.
There are a lot of gems to be had throughout this book such as the Creative Writing Tips, the discourse between Dannii Minogue and Helen Keller and the essays, but as comedy fans themselves, I think David and Robert would appreciate the disapointment of a fan who felt they were a little short changed.
This Mitchell and Webb Book is available through Amazon