Sunshine on Putty: The Golden Age of British Comedy from Vic Reeves to The Office

by Ben Thompson

The definitive history of a golden age in British show-business, Sunshine On Putty is based on hundreds of interviews with the leading comedians of the era, as well as managers, agents, producers, directors, executives and TV personalities.In the 1990s, British comedy underwent a renaissance – shows like The Fast Show, The Day Today, Shooting Stars, The League of Gentlemen, The Royle Family and The Office were hugely popular with critics and audiences alike. Just as politics, sport, art, literature and religion seemed to move towards light entertainment, the comedy on the nation's televisions not only offered a home to ideas and ideals of community which could no longer find one elsewhere, but also gave us a clearer picture of what was happening to our nation than any other form of artistic endeavour.From Ricky Gervais' self-destructive love affair with dairy products to Steve Coogan's suicidal overtaking technique; from the secrets of Vic Reeves' woodshed, to the stains on Caroline Aherne's sofa; from Victor Meldrew's prophetic dream to Spike Milligan's final resting place, Ben Thompson reveals the twisted beauty of British comedy’s psyche.

Genres: Comedy, History, Nonfiction, Tv, Cultural

496 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Ben Thompson is one of Britain's most respected cultural critics. He currently contributes to the FT, Mojo and the Sunday Telegraph.

Reviews

[Alan Trewartha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this, and I did for maybe the first third of it. The author's idiosyncrasies, the passive-aggressive sub-but-not-sub-texts, and the segues that first appealed, eventually wore me down to under 3 stars. (I was reading the ebook which the publishers have done a terrible job with. Lots of OCR errors, some funny. Multiple repeated sections of text. Which pettily takes it definitively down to 2 stars.)

It frays at the edges. The author's erudition gives way in places, perhaps with fatigue, and some of the narrative dot-to-dot moves to the next comedian-in-focus have laddered under the strain. To be fair, sometimes that strain appears as a comical overreach, but more frequently as I went along, elegance gave way to mechanical, unoiled, gear shift. (From Ren and Stimpy to Brass Eye – ooft.)

But the substance is there – with plenty of primary material from the author's interviews and experiences.

The author declares an intent to manufacture a self-contained period of comedy to be nostalgic about, one that was only a few years old at the time. A hostage to fortune, emphasised by the terminal book-end being the finale of The Office (UK, of course). The Office is still fine and worth a re-watch, but time has been less than kind to its star, which has echoed back, unfairly but markedly, staining nostalgia for this terminal show. But more than that, so many minor and major characters and shows whose fortunes loomed larger or smaller, unaware of the post-publication lives, disturb the text woozy with ironic irrelevance.

[Roxy Brennan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant - a fascinating and well written journey around nineties comedy

[Stark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a corker. Interesting analysis of recent history in British comedy and the culture it affected and was affected by.

[Liz Ely · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well written look at post-alternative British comedy. I really enjoyed this book for the thoughtful analysis of shows I grew up watching, and the people I idolized in my more apolitical youth. The author clearly knows his subject matter and leaves you wishing you could meet up with him in the pub to discuss some of his theories further. In his afterword he states 'part of the reason for writing this book was to give up-coming comedians something to feel nostalgic about'. Objective achieved, with the caveat that his willingness to be critical and not shy away from say, racism and sexism allows the reader look back with a sort a nostalgia that is also brutally honest

Good stuff.

[severyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hideous attempt by Thompson to demonstrate that he thinks he is smarter and funnier than the comedians he writes about, and successful in that it demonstrates that he thinks he is smarter and funnier than the comedians he writes about. Puerile, lazy and, by the time you reach the moon-eyed chapter on Caroline Aherne, frankly nauseating.

Stands at the opposite end of the quality-writing-about-comedy continuum to Stewart Lee's masterful 'How I Escaped My Certain Fate'.