Vicious, tonight 9pm ITV

First topic message reminder :

Anyone planning on watching this; Sir Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi, tonight at 9 on ITV

Eilzel 2.0 wrote:

You are so insincere it is a joke, and you expect people to take you seriously

So long andy; see you on speakfree

Why are you being like this?

ALLAKAKA wrote: we all know that Gandalf was after Frodo Baggins ring.

McKellen is reputed to have said on set of frodo '' Nice Arse ,shame about the feet''.

ALLAKAKA wrote:



McKellen is reputed to have said on set of frodo '' Nice Arse ,shame about the feet''.

It had to be made - it filled the quota:
"Vicious (ITV): the least funny new comedy in recent memory, review"



What on Earth were they thinking? The makers of Vicious,
ITV’s latest stab at a sitcom, have squandered not only the estimable acting
talents of Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Derek Jacobi and Frances de la Tour, but also
the combined screenwriting welly of Olivier Award-winning playwright Mark
Ravenhill and Gary Janetti (Will & Grace) on perhaps the least funny new
comedy in recent memory.



McKellen and Jacobi play a gay couple who, after 48 years together, find that
their mutual affection is matched only by their mutual contempt. They while away
the hours exchanging barbs or scowling at one another from either end of their
sofa, like gargoyles in cardigans.



In this first episode – set entirely, suffocatingly, within the four William
Morris-papered walls of their drab central London living room – we learnt that
Freddie (McKellen) was a retired actor from Wigan whose career had peaked at
“killing a prostitute on Coronation Street”. Stuart (Jacobi), was a former
bartender from Leytonstone, who had still not got around to admitting his
sexuality to his mother. Together they made for cartoonishly camp, rather
unpleasant company, as much for the viewer as for the handful of visitors who
dropped in to break up the monotony of the set up.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10026311/Vicious-ITV-the-least-funny-new-comedy-in-recent-memory-review.html

Shallow and catty, vain and insecure, Freddie and Stuart really are a rather frightful pair. Which is what makes Vicious (ITV), a comedy that consists almost entirely of two old queens rubbing each other up the wrong way, such nostalgic fun.

Nostalgic? Vicious is one giant leap back into the closet, into a world where Modern Family and The New Normal haven’t penetrated. Where gay talk is conducted in code – ‘do you suppose he’s family?’ asks Freddie of the attractive young chap who comes a-calling – and bitchiness is the default dialogue setting. In terms of political correctness, it’s a horror show.

But it’s a sign of how far sexual liberation has come that we’re ready to laugh along with the ludicrously stereotypical pair pecking away at each other like camp woodpeckers. What once would have been deemed offensive now comes across as curiously endearing, a reminder that people still knew how to have a laugh, even back in the dark ages (The Village, take note).

The cherry on the top of this particularly fruity cake is that Freddie and Stuart are played by Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi with juicy, full-on thespian aplomb. They roll each line around on the tongue with relish, Freddie lacing his with acid, while Stuart’s are soaked in a lifetime of playing the butt of the joke. Their chemistry is combustible.

Add Frances de la Tour to the mix as mangy sex kitten Violet and it’s easy to dance to the tune of the Vicious timewarp. Aside from the references to Zac Efron (‘is that a person or a place?’) we could be in any decade from the 1970s backwards, Freddie and Stuart’s flat like a Victorian vampire den. They’ve missed a trick with the theme tune, though. Lou Reed’s Vicious (‘you hit me with a flower’) would have been perfect. Still, Vicious has a gay old time of it, in every sense.

http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/30/vicious-was-a-camp-comedy-with-ian-mckellen-and-derek-jacobi-on-top-form-3697545/

ITV’s new sitcom Vicious, starring Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi may have received mixed reviews, but it was a ratings winner for the broadcaster last night.

Monday’s launch episode opened to 5.53 million viewers (23.0%) at 9pm, while a further 344,000 (1.8%) tuned in on ITV +1.

Created by Will and Grace writer Gary Janetti and award-winning playwright Mark Ravenhill, it sees McKellen and Jacobi play Freddie and Stuart, a bickering gay couple who have been together for 50 years.

Several TV commentators have criticised Vicious for pandering to old fashioned gay stereotypes.

However, writing in the Guardian, Ben Summerskill, chief executive of gay rights charity Stonewall said the programme represented progress for gay representation on TV.

The Independent’s Tom Sutcliffe criticised the show’s excessive use of canned laughter. He said: “The basic schtick in Vicious is high-camp bitchiness, a form that reached an apogee in the American sitcom Will & Grace (on which Gary Janetti also worked). This is a sadly depleted version, though, and it’s delivered by McKellen and Jacobi as if they’re playing in Wembley Stadium and only the upper tiers are occupied, with a heavily semaphored effeminacy that seems to belong to an entirely different era.”

Gabriel Tate, from Time Out, praised the show: “It’s a very traditional studio sitcom setup, made watchable by its stars and enjoyable by a waspish script. Also, in its combination of old age and homosexuality, it could be argued to have broken a little ground.”

He added: “Not that creators Mark Ravenhill and Gary Janetti much care about that: this show is all about low blows and easy laughs – at which it excels.”

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/04/30/gay-sitcom-vicious-performs-strongly-for-itv/

I watched it and I found it quite funny

David wrote:I watched it and I found it quite funny

I thought it was hilarious. At first I thought it was a bit OTT but then got caught up in the ridiculousness of the whole thing. I loved when Jacobi got upset; McKellen was just great cause I've never seen him acting like that

David wrote:I watched it and I found it quite funny

Well, why didn't you and Eli say so?

Why did you wait until somebody (me) "gay-bashed" it?

Why, as always, do gays go around acting normal then all of a sudden, when what would be a perfectly normal occurrence for a normal person happens, but is seen as an evil slight upon your closed group, do you change and take a defensive stance?

BigAndy9 wrote:

Well, why didn't you and Eli say so?

Why did you wait until somebody (me) "gay-bashed" it?

Why, as always, do gays go around acting normal then all of a sudden, when what would be a perfectly normal occurrence for a normal person happens, but is seen as an evil slight upon your closed group, do you change and take a defensive stance?

I already said twas great

And did it occur to your forum focused self that david only just logged on?

Shady wrote:
No he's not........Never has been.It's a well known fact that he's putting it on.
In fact,he's had a string of beautiful female lovers throughout his career.

You thought they were beautiful females?
They were well-known TRANSEXUALS shady!!!!!

Oh dear, methinks you might have fancied a lady-boy

eddie wrote:

You thought they were beautiful females?
They were well-known TRANSEXUALS shady!!!!!

Oh dear, methinks you might have fancied a lady-boy

HAHAHAHAHA

david,why have you put a large BOLLOCKS at the end of you posts? is it because your posts are? [joking]

nicho216 wrote:david,why have you put a large BOLLOCKS at the end of you posts? is it because your posts are? [joking]

hahaha I like BOLLOCKS

David wrote:

hahaha I like BOLLOCKS

Me too Lovely David x

So what's Vicious?

Well I have watched 3 episodes of this and am still waiting for a laugh. considering the main cast, Jacobi, McKellen and del la tour you would expect something special, however it looks more like a bunch of amateur's hamming it up and mugging for the camera. god knows how it ever got commissioned.
It almost makes The wright way look good and that is saying something.