Vicious: Well, Do You?

Eh?

Tom Sutcliffe on Independent Voices on the TV show everyone's talking about!
Was it actually funny, why was it so divisive, and what does this all mean?
Blah blah blah... snore!

PS Today's Telegraph proposes a new conspiracy theory;

"On first viewing I couldn’t understand why, in the year 2013, two gay men – Gary Janetti and Mark Ravenhill – would create a comedy about gay men who conform to almost every homophobic stereotype: bitchy, vain, melodramatic, lecherous, rude, sulky...

"Then it struck me. Vicious was a wind-up, its aim to enrage bilious homophobes by rubbing their faces in their own prejudices. “There! See!” the bilious homophobes would splutter. “Homosexuals are every bit as seedy and unpleasant as I thought! God, they make me so angry, I could… Arrrgh! My chest! Call 999! I’m having a heart attack!”

"I suppose there is an alternative possibility, namely that Vicious is just a load of hackneyed old rubbish. But I’m sure that can't be it."

Fagburn wonders how many Telegraph readers are in the "bilious homophobes" camp?
And lest people think I'm obsessed with this show I'll leave the last word to their Gerard O'Donovan.

"Last week’s opening episode of ITV’s much trumpeted Vicious – a camp-as-custard comedy about two lovably acid-tongued old queens, Freddie (Ian McKellen) and Stuart (Derek Jacobi), living out their twilight years in mutually vitriolic bliss – rather divided critical opinion. Mostly, it must be said, between whether it was just plain awful or unforgivably abysmal." 

Update: Seems I spoke too soon.
The show has another fan - Garry Bushell in the Daily Star! 
"Proper stars in an orgy of put-downs – what’s not to like?"

But - quicker than you can say "Some of my best mates are poofs" - Gazza notes; "But it’s hard to keep up with PC thinking on these vital matters.

"For decades we were told that Mr Humphries was an insulting caricature, yet now ITV, the gayest of all networks, has decided he’s funny again. Newsflash: he always was."


PS Having now endured watching Vicious all the way through, here's my two cents:

If they got in a decent script editor, who could start by cutting half the "How old?!!" lines, and if Ian and Derek toned down the hammy over-acting - how can two great gay actors make "acting gay" look so laboured? - and if they lost the laughter track, which only serves to over-emphasise the lamer gags, it might have been just about bearable. 
Just about.