Hale and Pace

This used to be on TV every year up until the late 90's. Some stuff had me in hysterics but the show grew gradually more stale with each season. Gareth Hale and Norman Pace are two names I remember well, and hopefully more people will get see their work (going from this being the first comment). A "Hale and Pace" best-of would make a great DVD, provided they included their edgier stuff.

Coming out in an era when satire was king with the likes of Spitting Image and Ben Elton doing his laborious, but pointed stand-up. Hale & Pace like slasher horror films of the 1980s is a great example of something that was a critical failure, but a commercial success. Much maligned throughout it's incredibly long run; sometimes justifiably, often unfairly.

A common criticism was "two straight men"; an unwritten rule of comedy being a straight man and a clown a la: Morecambe & Wise and Laurel & Hardy. However, there are many successful comedy double acts with two jokers like Dick & Dom, Trevor & Simon and Vic & Bob. The criticisms of being vulgar are true and often the laughs would be based on someone saying a rude word or a vulgar punchline about bodily functions.

However amongst the throwaway sketches there are some sketches that are as good as anything on any other sketch show at the time: "Yorkshire Airlines", "Piss Off Mr. Chips", "Billy & Johnny" - two kid's TV presenters who hate each other. Weirdly, many comedians who criticised H&P pretty much did the same albeit in a slightly more clever way: Harry Enfield, Lee & Herring, Baddiel & Newman. The mantra being nob gags are OK if there is a literary reference in there.

Another thing people forget is just how good the performances of Hale & Pace are. Both having a gift at regional accents. Norman Pace is a surprisingly good singer, while Gareth Hale often bring a pathos to some of the sketches.

It may have gone for the cheap laugh or have been unecessarily violent and rude, but it represents a time when there was entertainment for the pre and post-pub audience. I will pick the worst of Hale & Pace over the best of Naked Attraction, which is the late night fare du jour.

Amongst all the comical duos, trios and massive groups that British television gave birth to, i think Hale and Pace are the least known abroad. When i saw them as gravediggers in the horror episode from "The Young Ones", all i could say was "Their faces look familiar". In the same episode i recognized Terry Jones as the drunk vicar, so i just took for granted the gravediggers were two more star guests.

"Hale and Pace" has never been broadcast in my country, as far as i know; but there was a Spanish late show, "El Chou", directed by Alfonso Arús, which used to fill the gaps with sketches by H&P (uncredited, i'm afraid). I was 13 by then, i think. I didn't like them, for i found most of their skits tasteless (which is not necessarily a flaw) and very stupid (now that is a flaw). It fitted perfectly in Arús' show. Anyway, Norman's blue eyes and Gareth's mustache (or is it the other way around?! Somebody send pictures!) remain etched in my memory. And if there was a DVD, i'd give it a try.

Along with Smith & Jones, Gareth Hale and Norman Pace made up the other popular British comedy duo to brighten our screens in the nineties. They spent less time on satirising the big issues and more on sexual innuendos and dirty jokes than S & J, with the kind of sniggering enthusiasm that has always been the English approach to toilet humour. Not surprisingly, their regular characters included two imbecilic teenagers with penchant for sadomasochistic pranks, and a pair of so-nice-you-just-wanna-puke children's show hosts who dropped outlandish double entendres with smiling innocence. They also had something of a gangster fetish, best realised in the two Rons, a pair of stone-faced cockney hoods in black tie who had a firm faith in the compatibility of electrodes and testicles. They shamelessly drew and played on the boorish, sexist and national chauvinistic mentality so loved by the British tabloid press and still too often prevalent when dealing with anything or anyone across the Channel, but never really succumbed to endorsing it without that tongue on the cheek. They always were a bit too clever and a bit too juvenile for that.

Interestingly, Hale & Pace also shone in the obligatory musical numbers that closed their shows, producing a few classics such as the Chris Rea parody "The Voice from Hell"; the Scottish rap duo McHammer (probably not a joke anymore); a country and western song about the singer's Dad, who was a Nazi transvestite, "a goose-stepping man of the night"; and one Godley&Creme-style video that took all the sloppy metaphors in the song's lyrics just a bit too literally. Often these are the most perfunctory parts of a sketch show, but they had enough hits to warrant the one all-music special that combined the best of their singing career.

There is of course only so many ways you can crack a joke about the French, premature ejaculation or the oafishness of anyone with a regional accent, and Hale & Pace eventually started to lose their potency. But their best skits still hold up today, smutty but clever, liberatingly funny in their incorrectness and their vigorously exploited stereotypes.

These TV shows were shown on TV in Iceland probably around the same time as they were running in the UK. Sadly it was on a channel that I didn't have access to but I managed to record a few of their episodes. Now these recordings are the gems of my VHS collection and when my VCR tore one of them about two years ago, I decided it was time to somehow put them all in digital format. I was not going to lose another tape like that.

I don't agree with Steve that they only "had their moments". It's true that each season was slightly different. Their humour became slightly darker but they always mixed in enough of their old style jokes. And the way they built up a series of jokes that might span not just one episode but a few, I thought was brilliant.

About a year ago, I set out on a quest to try and find this material on the internet and was able to get a hold of a few tapes on the Amazon Market. But it was not without disappointments and not cheap! From one vendor (Nick March, Deleted UK Videos) I got two covers containing the same tape! I sent him an e-mail to which he never replied.

I even tried contacting the BBC but got the information that they didn't have any plans of releasing these shows. I asked if I could possibly get in touch with them personally but never got a reply.

Anyway, I truly hope these shows will be released, not just as a one "Best of" DVD but in it's entirety. I will be the first one to buy the whole thing!