About the only broadcast TV we watch these days is C4 for music videos during dinner. This means that we sometimes get to see a guy named Dai Henwood. He is, we are told, a professional comedian, who also does presenting work on C4.
Apparently he’s won awards for his standup comedy. This … is amazing to me. I’ve never seen his standup work and can’t comment on it, but holy fucking balls he’s near unbearable on C4. It’s quite difficult to explain why, but he seems to tend towards that sort of leaden, cliched, silly voice comedy that tends to get airtime on NZ TV, but that makes me want to stick forks in my eyes … but usually just results in my turning the TV off.
Mr Henwoods comedy stylings are clearly what C4 want for their their target demographic and I hope it works well for them, but I prefer a much sharper, more observational, cynical and much drier sort of comedy. Or, altenately, if you’re going to do stupid shit then play it straight and then it works. Don’t spend your time grinning at and mugging for the fucking camera. It’s the difference between the awful Welcome to Paradise and the sublime Flight of the Conchords (or, for that matter, the not sublime but utterly splendid Back of the Y.)
It’s possible that Dai is an NZ Bob Saget analog, cast in roles that don’t really match his natural comedy style. Maybe the smirking matey-mate stuff he does on C4 is a role that they’ve asked him to play, and that his standup is actually hilarious.
I can only hope, but I’m not making any effort to find out.