Frankie Boyle’s Tramadol Nights
Encyclopedia
Frankie Boyle’s Tramadol Nights is a comedy
sketch show created by Frankie Boyle
, starring Boyle himself alongside Jim Muir, Tom Stade
, Robert Florence
and Thaila Zucchi
.
panel show Mock the Week
after seven series to focus on his tour and "some other funny things I'm writing". Later that month, he told The Daily Mirror
that his new material would include a comedy sketch show for Channel 4, without censoring any of the black humour he had become known for. An appearance on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
followed, when Boyle revealed that the show was originally called Deal With This, Retards, but had to be changed to avoid offence. The show was consequently renamed Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights (a reference to the opioid
drug Tramadol
and J.G. Ballard novel Cocaine Nights
), with a broadcast date of November–December 2010.
who are "gleefully abused" by Boyle.
Metro applauded the first episode's blend of stand-up and sketches, that "cantered gleefully – but never gratuitously - past the boundaries of taste and decency" with "some fantastically acerbic rants about religious people and the mentally ill."
The Independent
's Rhiannon Harries felt "the best of the sketches were those that satirised the bland inanity of TV culture" but was "less comfortable with the jokes about mental illness" that more or less "conflated religion and autism", concluding that there was "something very brittle about the laughter. The world seems a meaner place after listening to Boyle." The Liverpool Echo
observed that "in a former life, not so long ago, Boyle was the best thing about Mock the Week
" but thought the new series' uncompromising material "was, somehow, over the top and below the belt at the same time," culminating in a parody of Knight Rider that was "one of the most tedious and unfunny sketches in the history of tedious and unfunny sketches."
In The Guardian
, John Crace
, noting that the absence of previews was usually PR speak for "We don't think it's much good and we want to avoid it getting a kicking," implied that Boyle's standup sequences were re-hashed from his recent "least exciting" tour. The conclusion that Boyle – known for "heartless sensitivity-baiting and not much else" – has been given "enough rope to hang himself" is difficult to resist. But "there are flashes of the caustic wit that make him great" and "even to those who've heard his jokes before, there are laugh-out-loud moments." Writing in The Scotsman
, Aidan Smith said he didn't find any of the jokes very funny and the filmed sketches "showed up Boyle's limitations as a comic actor." MSN
's Stuart Bak wondered whether Frankie Boyle was still funny. In sketch form, his material is "neither particularly offensive nor particularly funny, but a bit run-of-the-mill and even, at times, embarrassingly awful" so Boyle should "stick to the stand-up." The British Comedy Guide
branded the show "disappointing", citing "over-long sketches" and an "almost childish fixation on sex".
On December 7 the second episode (including the time-shifted repeat) reached 1.14 million viewers, down 26% on week one. Metro withdrew its support, claiming "laughs were thin on the ground" in the second week and that in the third episode "almost without exception, the sketches were wholly unfunny and the in-house audience seemed to be struggling to raise even the smallest of titters." The final episode was broadcast on December 29th and averaged an audience of 575,000.
were said to have been left "absolutely disgusted and sickened" by a joke in the 7 December 2010 broadcast about Price's heavily disabled son, Harvey (then years old). On the show, Boyle said: "Jordan and Peter Andre are still fighting each other over custody of Harvey - eventually one of them will lose and have to keep him." Then adding "I have a theory about the reason Jordan married a cage fighter - she needed a man strong enough to stop Harvey from fucking her."
In a response, Katie Price's representative said "Harvey Price is a little miracle. Every day he overcomes so many difficulties and has so many battles to win due to his medical problems. I love him and am deeply proud to be his mother. If Mr Boyle had a tenth of his courage and decency, he would know that to suggest, let alone think funny, that Harvey may sexually attack me is vile and deeply unfair. Mr Boyle clearly has serious issues and those that give him a TV platform to say such disgusting things need to look at themselves very honestly." Peter Andre's representative also responded to the comments made by Boyle and said "We're all disgusted by these comments. Peter is angry and very upset at Harvey being mocked in this way. Children, especially a disabled youngster, should be off-limits." Both have confirmed that they are seeking legal action and have written a complaint to Channel 4 regarding Boyle's jokes with Katie saying "To bully this unbelievably brave child is despicable; to broadcast it is to show a complete and utter lack of judgement. I have asked my lawyers to write to Channel 4." The charity Mencap described Boyle's joke as a "disgusting" attack on a disabled child.
In April 2011 Ofcom
upheld 500 complaints about the incident and censured Boyle and Channel 4 for broadcasting the jokes, which had been personally cleared by Channel 4's Chief Executive David Abraham
, ruling that the material appeared to directly target and mock the mental and physical disabilities of a known eight year-old child who had not himself chosen to be in the public eye. "As such, Ofcom found that the comments had considerable potential to be highly offensive to the audience."
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
sketch show created by Frankie Boyle
Frankie Boyle
Francis Martin Patrick "Frankie" Boyle is a British comedian and writer, well known for his pessimistic, often controversial sense of humour...
, starring Boyle himself alongside Jim Muir, Tom Stade
Tom Stade
Tom Stade is a Canadian comedian, who moved to Edinburgh, UK, with his wife Trudy and their two children in 2003. He is known for his appearances at the Edinburgh Festival, as well as appearing on British TV shows such as The Comedy Store, The Live Floor Show, Stand Up For The Week and The World...
, Robert Florence
Robert Florence
Robert Florence is a Scottish presenter, comedian and writer from Glasgow, Scotland, best known for starring in the popular BBC comedy sketch show Burnistoun, and the video-game review shows Consolevania and Videogaiden. He was a core writer of Chewin' the Fat and with Iain Connell wrote the...
and Thaila Zucchi
Thaila Zucchi
Thaila Lucia Zucchi is a British singer and actress, trained at The Arts Educational School, London. She began her career as a member of the British band allSTARS* before transitioning into acting, appearing in Big Brother 8 in the UK, where she played the part of fake Australian housemate...
.
History
In October 2009, Boyle announced online that he would be leaving BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
panel show Mock the Week
Mock the Week
Mock the Week is a British topical celebrity panel game hosted by Dara Ó Briain that launched in 2005. The game is influenced by improvised topical stand-up comedy, with several rounds requiring players to deliver answers on unexpected subjects on the spur of the moment.It is made by independent...
after seven series to focus on his tour and "some other funny things I'm writing". Later that month, he told The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror is a British national daily tabloid newspaper which was founded in 1903. Twice in its history, from 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was changed to read simply The Mirror, which is how the paper is often referred to in popular parlance. It had an...
that his new material would include a comedy sketch show for Channel 4, without censoring any of the black humour he had become known for. An appearance on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross was a British comedy chat show presented by Jonathan Ross. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 2 November 2001. The programme featured Ross's take on current topics of conversation, guest interviews and live music from both a guest music group and the house band...
followed, when Boyle revealed that the show was originally called Deal With This, Retards, but had to be changed to avoid offence. The show was consequently renamed Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights (a reference to the opioid
Opioid
An opioid is a psychoactive chemical that works by binding to opioid receptors, which are found principally in the central and peripheral nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract...
drug Tramadol
Tramadol
Tramadol hydrochloride is a centrally acting synthetic opioid analgesic used in treating moderate pain. The drug has a wide range of applications, including treatment for restless legs syndrome and fibromyalgia...
and J.G. Ballard novel Cocaine Nights
Cocaine Nights
Cocaine Nights is a 1998 novel by J. G. Ballard. Like Super-Cannes that followed it, it deals with the idea of dystopian resort communities which maintain their seemingly perfect balance via a number of dark secrets.-Plot summary:...
), with a broadcast date of November–December 2010.
Content
The show mixes pre-recorded comedy sketches with stand-up routines before a studio audienceStudio audience
A studio audience is an audience present for the taping of all or part of a television program. The primary purpose of the studio audience is to provide applause and/or laughter to the program's soundtrack . A studio audience can also provide volunteers, a visual backdrop and discussion participants...
who are "gleefully abused" by Boyle.
Critical reception
The show received a mixed critical reception. The first episode, broadcast on 30 November 2010 after an advertising campaign on London buses, attracted a "modest" audience (1.54 million viewers including the time-shifted repeat the same evening). The free daily newspaperFree daily newspaper
Free daily newspapers are distributed free of charge, either in central places in cities and towns, or with other newspapers. The revenues of such newspapers are based on advertising.-In the U.S.:...
Metro applauded the first episode's blend of stand-up and sketches, that "cantered gleefully – but never gratuitously - past the boundaries of taste and decency" with "some fantastically acerbic rants about religious people and the mentally ill."
The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
's Rhiannon Harries felt "the best of the sketches were those that satirised the bland inanity of TV culture" but was "less comfortable with the jokes about mental illness" that more or less "conflated religion and autism", concluding that there was "something very brittle about the laughter. The world seems a meaner place after listening to Boyle." The Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
The Liverpool Echo is a newspaper published by Trinity Mirror in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is published Monday to Saturday, and is Liverpool's evening newspaper while its sister paper, the Liverpool Daily Post, is the morning paper...
observed that "in a former life, not so long ago, Boyle was the best thing about Mock the Week
Mock the Week
Mock the Week is a British topical celebrity panel game hosted by Dara Ó Briain that launched in 2005. The game is influenced by improvised topical stand-up comedy, with several rounds requiring players to deliver answers on unexpected subjects on the spur of the moment.It is made by independent...
" but thought the new series' uncompromising material "was, somehow, over the top and below the belt at the same time," culminating in a parody of Knight Rider that was "one of the most tedious and unfunny sketches in the history of tedious and unfunny sketches."
In The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, John Crace
John Crace (writer)
John Crace is a British journalist writing for The Guardian.Crace is probably best known for his "The Digested Read" column, in which he reviews new fiction by condensing it into short narratives of about 700 words in the style of the book itself...
, noting that the absence of previews was usually PR speak for "We don't think it's much good and we want to avoid it getting a kicking," implied that Boyle's standup sequences were re-hashed from his recent "least exciting" tour. The conclusion that Boyle – known for "heartless sensitivity-baiting and not much else" – has been given "enough rope to hang himself" is difficult to resist. But "there are flashes of the caustic wit that make him great" and "even to those who've heard his jokes before, there are laugh-out-loud moments." Writing in The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
, Aidan Smith said he didn't find any of the jokes very funny and the filmed sketches "showed up Boyle's limitations as a comic actor." MSN
MSN
MSN is a collection of Internet sites and services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system.The range of services offered by MSN has changed since its...
's Stuart Bak wondered whether Frankie Boyle was still funny. In sketch form, his material is "neither particularly offensive nor particularly funny, but a bit run-of-the-mill and even, at times, embarrassingly awful" so Boyle should "stick to the stand-up." The British Comedy Guide
British Comedy Guide
The British Comedy Guide or BCG is a British website covering all forms of British comedy, across all media. At the time of writing, the BCG has published guides to more than 1,200 individual British comedies - primarily TV and radio situation comedy, sketch shows, comedy dramas, satire, variety...
branded the show "disappointing", citing "over-long sketches" and an "almost childish fixation on sex".
On December 7 the second episode (including the time-shifted repeat) reached 1.14 million viewers, down 26% on week one. Metro withdrew its support, claiming "laughs were thin on the ground" in the second week and that in the third episode "almost without exception, the sketches were wholly unfunny and the in-house audience seemed to be struggling to raise even the smallest of titters." The final episode was broadcast on December 29th and averaged an audience of 575,000.
Harvey Price
In December 2010, both Katie Price and Peter AndrePeter André
Peter James Andrea , better known by the stage name as Peter Andre, is an English-born Australian musician, singer-songwriter, television personality and businessman. As a recording artist, he has achieving four top 10 UK albums and ten top 10 singles.-Early life:Andre was born at Northwick Park...
were said to have been left "absolutely disgusted and sickened" by a joke in the 7 December 2010 broadcast about Price's heavily disabled son, Harvey (then years old). On the show, Boyle said: "Jordan and Peter Andre are still fighting each other over custody of Harvey - eventually one of them will lose and have to keep him." Then adding "I have a theory about the reason Jordan married a cage fighter - she needed a man strong enough to stop Harvey from fucking her."
In a response, Katie Price's representative said "Harvey Price is a little miracle. Every day he overcomes so many difficulties and has so many battles to win due to his medical problems. I love him and am deeply proud to be his mother. If Mr Boyle had a tenth of his courage and decency, he would know that to suggest, let alone think funny, that Harvey may sexually attack me is vile and deeply unfair. Mr Boyle clearly has serious issues and those that give him a TV platform to say such disgusting things need to look at themselves very honestly." Peter Andre's representative also responded to the comments made by Boyle and said "We're all disgusted by these comments. Peter is angry and very upset at Harvey being mocked in this way. Children, especially a disabled youngster, should be off-limits." Both have confirmed that they are seeking legal action and have written a complaint to Channel 4 regarding Boyle's jokes with Katie saying "To bully this unbelievably brave child is despicable; to broadcast it is to show a complete and utter lack of judgement. I have asked my lawyers to write to Channel 4." The charity Mencap described Boyle's joke as a "disgusting" attack on a disabled child.
In April 2011 Ofcom
Ofcom
Ofcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...
upheld 500 complaints about the incident and censured Boyle and Channel 4 for broadcasting the jokes, which had been personally cleared by Channel 4's Chief Executive David Abraham
David Abraham (executive)
David Abraham is the Chief Executive of the United Kingdom's Channel 4 television corporation, appointed in January 2010 he formally took up his post on 4 May 2010. He was previously Chief Executive of UKTV.-Previous career:...
, ruling that the material appeared to directly target and mock the mental and physical disabilities of a known eight year-old child who had not himself chosen to be in the public eye. "As such, Ofcom found that the comments had considerable potential to be highly offensive to the audience."