We recently finished watching the box set of the first series of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I loved it, but Jayne found it hard to watch, and she found it hard to watch for the exact same reason that I enjoyed it so much – the cringeworthiness of Larry David. His character in CYE has many of the qualities of David Brent in the Office, so that his interactions with anyone else are like watching a car crash: you can see what is going to happen and don’t want to look when it does, but you can’t help yourself.
CYE shares some other characteristics with the Office as well. It is filmed in a hyper-realistic style, in fact the hour-long special which inspired it was made as a fake documentary.
What makes Larry David more disturbing than David Brent is that he is a real person, so you have to keep wondering if he really is that bad in real life. He must have those tendencies towards multiple faux-pas (what is the plural of faux-pas anyway?) but you have to hope that he is exaggerating for comic effect.
That is what is so disturbing: either he is that bad or he isn’t but he is quite happy to give the impression that he is. Those who keep saying that all American TV comedy is puerile, banal, irony-free, and just plain bad need to watch this (and Seinfeld and the Simpsons) instead of the rubbish that fills Trouble.
I am looking forward to the next few box sets now.
CYE is top drawer ,absolutely brilliant TV .It’s a hidden gem and I hope it gets a much wider audience…
You already know I think it’s brilliant! I’ve might have good news too, I think it only gets better, for me series three is brilliant. Enjoy!
Sorry my grammar is so bad, it’s a typo honest!
Good choice! My sister introduced me to it (she has a good track record) and I’ve enjoyed the first three series so far. I’d say each was better than the preceding one. Funny thing is that I see him more as a kind of Alan Partridge than David Brent, and it’s sometimes uncanny.
I was thinking that. I can see the bit in “I’m Alan Partridge”, where Alan has a showdown with Tony Hayers in a resturant, in CYE, albeit toned down slightly!
I love Curb Your Enthusiasm – it was one of the first things I saw (on BBC4) when we got a Freeview box, and I immediatley got the DVDs. Not too long ago there was a ‘Ricky Gervais interviews Larry David’ thing, I think on Channel 4, which was pretty interesting. Larry said he’s not really like his on-screen persona, but would like to be sometimes! The end of series 3 was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen (restaurant opening night).