Rent Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights (2010)

One of the most revolting, pathetic & boring things ever commissioned for TV... Total rubbish - Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights review by TB

When Mock the Week started, very quickly one of the panelists stood out from the others due to his comedic brilliance & timing. Frankie Boyle was a revelation on that show, genuinely funny, especially seeing as at the time the show started, a lot of the other panel shows played it fairly safe (you could make an argument for Have I Got News For You & it's history of libel scrapes, but that was never over offensive material.) Boyle was on for the first 7 series, before leaving "to concentrate on other projects." He subsequently criticised the production of the show, claiming that he was restricted in saying what he wanted to.

After leaving the show, he subsequently was made an offer he couldn't refuse by Channel 4: a sketch show where he could say & do whatever he wanted. And I, along with a large number of people, were excited to see what he would do with this opportunity, given his brilliant residency on Mock the Week. But what Boyle produced was not only tedious, unfunny & desperately trying to offend by being disgusting, but also boring.

The show is comprised of Boyle doing stand-up in front of a live studio audience, intercut with various sketches. The stand-up routines were mainly recycled gags from Mock the Week & his Live at the Apollo sets, with the odd new line thrown in. The sketches poke fun at everything from retro TV shows like Knight Rider through to random things like what aliens would do if they invaded Earth (the answer is both unfunny & disgusting.)

Aside from 1 extremely funny 20 second skit (Loose Women Iran,) the series is total rubbish. The thing which stood out for me more than anything was Boyle's absolute desperation to offend, in any way possible, but mainly by being disgusting. As I have said in some of my other reviews, my favourite type of comedy is near-the-knuckle humour. I have always found that the deepest & best laughs are when you are playing in people's "danger areas," challenging their beliefs whilst also making them laugh. So whether it is Jim Jefferies, Jimmy Carr or Jerry Sadowitz, I love offensive & provocative humour.

But the flip side of that is when what is being thrown onto the screen is not in any way funny, but instead just bile, then it becomes an exercise in tolerating rancidness. Boyle clearly seems to think that not only is he a genius writer (he isn't,) but that the more revolting he is, the funnier the material will be. So we have jibes at mental illness, disabled people, women ect. And of course the infamous "jokes" attacking Katie Price & her son Harvey (which ironically are cut from the DVD, probably much to Boyle's chagrin.)

None of it is funny, revelatory, clever or even insightful. It is just like sticking your head down a sewer, whilst an entitled past-it comic who got famous from stealing Jerry Sadowitz's act spews bile into the screen/audience.

And it wasn't just with this TV show that the audience & general public turned against him & his descent into a revolting rancid provocateur (the reviews for Tramadol Nights were overwhelmingly negative.) Boyle's subsequent appearance on Comic Relief's live show was cut after the audience booed him for nearly the entire set when he unleashed a similar tirade onto a crowd who weren't enamoured with him, and certainly not going to tolerate sitting there listening to a repugnant rant.

In recent years, Boyle has tried to reinvent himself as a compassionate individual, including actively criticising people's material/statements which contains things he doesn't like/attacks groups he thinks are off-limits. The level of hypocrisy in doing that, when you watch even one of these episodes, is just off the charts.

Pathetic rubbish