Chambers

Sitcom about barristers chambers in London starring John Bird as a stupid and offensive lawyer. Originally a radio show, this has lost much in its translation to television. The jokes are crude and smutty and there is an overemphasis on crassness, which worsens as the series goes on. In the second series, Meera Syal appears as a successful female Asian barrister, lacking in personality.

Page 1 in his book, "I hated, hated, hated, this movie", the undeniable critics writer, Roger Ebert, wrote: "You know that the French consider Jerry Lewis the greatest screen comedian of all time. You've looked at some Lewis comedies, but you don't get the joke." Even this assertion is not accurate, it is no less true that, from one country to another, even growing close enough, what works in one may be a flop in another. As Jerry Lewis failed meeting his public in US, "Chambers" did not met his one in UK. Probably because English people are absolutely adamant about the quality of writing, even a comedy, but also because the original series, broadcast on the BBC radio, had accustomed to a high quality. Much like the disappointment of seeing a movie after reading the book it is based upon. In France, it was a great success. As were/are quite all British comedies and -too rare- films. This is the schizoid part of the idea that we, French, have of Humor... We like "pooet pooet kaboom" humor, but nothing equals English Humor in our mind. "L'Humour Anglais", English Humor is THE absolute reference... And all that bla bla bla to say : that's why "Chambers" was utterly funny and a great success in the Frog's country !

As a Brit, I hate to say it, but we have really struggled to devise some good comedies lately to emulate those gems of the past and to rival US shows like "Friends", "Frasier" and "Ally McBeal", which are really popular with people over here. "Chambers" is one of the latest in a series of dreadful comedies desperately manufactured by the BBC in the last few years. It is a little reminiscent of the style of 80s comedy "Yes, Minister", in that the humour is supposed to come from a stupid bureaucrat working in a profession in which he couldn't possibly have succeeded in real life. This show, though, isn't remotely funny. John Bird is just plain irritating in this (he's much better on Channel 4's "Bremner, Bird and Fortune"). Another interesting factor is how the aforementioned American shows connect so well with younger people. I can't imagine how this show, about an ageing barrister and his entourage, could possibly appeal to young people. And it won't. In fact it won't appeal to anyone, and the BBC will pull the plug on it very soon (the second series is currently being shown on BBC1). It will just go down in the archives as one of the BBC's many modern comedy flops. In fact, I can't believe I've found so much to say about it.

Actually I'm lying ... I haven't seen the film. I have heard some of the radio series and they're reasonably good. I suspect that this is one of those series which did not transfer well to TV - of which there are many in the BBC archives. There are some cassettes available of the radio series and I'd say that on a scale of 1 to 10 they merit 6 or 7. The general format is of a couple of interleaved story lines, typically with Vince (Jonathan Kydd) discussing problems with Fuller-Carp (John Bird). Often the problems relate to Fuller-Carp's inability to actually win any cases. This is then balanced by interplay between Ruth (Sarah Lancashire) and Hilary (James Fleet). Occasionally there are other interactions, but rarely. It is perfectly understandable that these scripts may not transfer to video, as the timing may be very wrong for a visual presentation, and the humour is not particularly visual. The episode with the word games for example - I won't even mention the word which is eventually worked in - is amusing on radio, but there's nothing which could reasonably be used to enhance this visually - not for BBC audiences at least.