2014. It’s the year of big anniversaries. Wars, presidencies, the fall of Communism in Europe…And then there’s one anniversary that Comedy Central has really done a sterling job of beating us round the face with. Yes, at some point during the (too) long vacation, most of us have probably found ourselves grateful for the endless re-runs of Friends gracing our screens 24/7. It’s now been 20 years since we first met the beloved Central Perk gang – and 10 since we left them behind.

It was a difficult breakup. There are few TV-fads in history that the international viewing public has found it so difficult to get over. In our heart-of-hearts, we’ve still not really moved on yet. Friends got the sitcom formula beautifully, impeccably spot-on in a way that productions since have striven to replicate and missed the mark. I had a go at analysing what makes Friends tick even now, 10 years on. 

The Characters

It’s an incredibly cheesy moment in all of our lives, but everybody’s been there: the “Which Friends character are you?” conversation. The nice thing is that this conversation always ends in some form of disagreement. Nobody ends up being 100% Rachel or 0% Chandler. Why? Because the characters in the show are so incredibly multi-faceted that we manage to share something with all of them. You may hate Ross, but let’s not lie; there’s probably something about him that reminds you uncomfortably of yourself.

The actors and directors have done such a wonderful, thorough job of building these characters, each with such a careful balance of strengths and weaknesses that you cannot help but see them as equal. True, we can rank them in order of preference, but nobody can deny that there are consistently six main characters. Meaning that there’s always someone for everyone.

At the same time every character is a perfect individual; each has their own quirks and mannerisms. From Phoebe’s musical gifts to Joey’s aversion to sharing food…could they BE any quirkier? It’s difficult to get six equal characters and keep that uniqueness there. But Friends does it.

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Use of Comedy

Let’s start by making a few comparisons. In Two and a Half Men, the comedy is incredibly recycled. I’ve never sat down and watched a run of Two and a Half Men episodes, because there’s no point. Every episode is built from exactly the same material, and none of them ever seem to be going anywhere. You know precisely what you’re going to get for the full 21 minutes: Charlie hammering on about his sex life (character and actor are entirely synonymous, both equally unlikable), Alan being painfully awkward and enough misogyny to last a lifetime. Then there’s How I Met Your Mother, which I found myself watching for the first time the other day. It’s the kind of show a Friends lover should warm to, being effectively the same programme. But I think it’s trying too hard; the moment the writers find something funny, they milk it for as long as possible until it’s not funny anymore.

Friends treated comedy differently; they’d strike gold, let it go and then, when we were least expecting it, the joke would resurface later in a new, sometimes deeply ironic circumstance (unagi, anyone?). The sheer range of comedic material is huge and delightfully varied, in terms of both content and delivery. There are 236 episodes available to us, but each one has something uniquely special about it; they all manage to be different in some way. So, even though we’ve watched these episodes a million times, we never seem to get bored of them.

Setting

By definition, a “sitcom” means that you’re using same environment for every episode. However, how you use that setting is up to you. A lot of sitcoms overlook this, but there was something so warm and homely about how Friends “looked” onscreen. When we see a Friends soundstage, it doesn’t scream high budget (however high budget it was). Obviously, a great deal of money, time and meticulousness was invested in creating the perfect environment for the gang to inhabit, but it is done with such art that that’s not what you see when you look at the stage. You see the story, and the setting functions solely to compliment it. That’s how it should be. The setting is used to bring out the best in the characters; they make the setting. Monica’s apartment is, in its essence, a wonderful, colourful jumble of “stuff”; a space that truly seems lived in. This is what brings the show alive.

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Most Importantly: It Gets Life Spot On

One thing will never change, and that’s the basic fact that life sucks. Life has its funny way of throwing obstacles at us on a daily basis. Work, family, love…every element has its more difficult moments from time to time. Friends has a wonderful way of making these moments seem a) a little worse for the characters onscreen (making us feel a lot better) and most crucially, b) funny. Whether it’s Chandler’s espresso-fuelled break-up with Janice, Joey’s endless struggle to fulfil his career (who can forget “Ichiban – Lipstick for Men”?) or simply Ross’ epic tanning mishap, Friends has all life-struggles covered.

Even the most depressing scenarios are presented with an eventual touch of light-heartedness and are an effective medicine for many things in life. Hands up: how many of us have, at some point after a nasty breakup, found temporary solace in a Friends marathon? As Phoebe points out, the gang’s “collective dating record reads like a Who’s Who of human crap”; the show has a delightful way of making us feel like we’re not alone, and really, it’s not all that bad. And as long as life keeps on being a little rough around the edges, there will always be a place in our lives for Friends.

Going to the theatre is supposed to be a fun, enjoyable experience. It’s a chance to get away from the hustle and bustle of day to day life, even if it’s just for the afternoon or evening. It’s a chance to de-stress and immerse yourself in the drama that’s unfolding on stage. During the Christmas holidays, it can even be a treat for all the family with pantomimes and an invaluable way of keeping the kids entertained. However, this experience isn’t always enjoyable. For some people, an evening at the theatre begins long before the lights go down and continues after the audience have left. I’m referring to the invisible troopers in black, armed with the door wedges and torches, the people that carry those ice-cream trays like a cross: the front of house ushers.

During the holidays, I work part-time at my local theatre as an usher. Most people seem to think that this is the ‘easiest job in the world’, as all ushers have to do is let the audience in and sell some ice-creams, right? Not quite. Front of house is so much more than that. The woes of the job tend to fall under two categories: obnoxious customers and demanding directors with their pretentious actors.

To begin with, let’s examine the customers. One of the many lessons that I have learned from working as a front of house usher is that Harry Gordon Selfridge and Marshall Field were wrong; the customer is not always right. First of all, there are the ‘guests’ who think they’re entitled to free tickets and programmes because the lead in the show is their brother’s wife’s cousin or similar. These ‘guests’ sometimes have the nerve to push for other audience members to be moved so that they can have their better seats just because they didn’t book in time. 

Then, there are the latecomers, the bane of every usher’s life. These customers will turn up five, ten minutes after the doors have closed and then become angry at the ushers when they can’t be let in straight away because the latecomers point hasn’t been announced yet. They’ll shout and rant about how ‘London theatres let people in straight away’, no matter how many times the ushers try to explain that every show is different, and that letting people in at the wrong time can be very distracting for the other audience members and actors on stage. But they still won’t listen and they’ll insist on sitting in their actual seats, even if it’s right in the middle and they have to walk past fifteen people to get to it.

Last but most definitely not least, there are the litterbugs. Do you ever wonder whose job it is to clean up the melted half eaten ice-creams, or the many other weird substances that people leave behind in auditoriums? Why, your friendly, neighbourhood usher, of course! Over the years, I have seen many delightful things such as bits of skin, used tissues, damp handkerchiefs and the colourful vomit from children who went a bit too wild over the ice-cream, to name a few. It’s safe to say that the job is never dull.

Now for the demanding directors. These kind of directors definitely need to be taken down a peg, or three. They’ll completely ignore ushers most of the time (in the theatre hierarchy, ushers are at the bottom, apparently), pretend they can’t see them when they’re giving notes to their actors on stage before a show and only talk to them when they need impossible errands to be done. Ushers will also get the occasional ‘shhhh’ and death glare from directors for breathing too loudly when they’re giving notes. Pretentious actors are exactly the same. I once came across an actress who was arrogant enough to be completely rude to an eight year old fan, just because she ‘knows’ Matt Smith. Actors, eh?

Life as an usher is not all bad though. There are many perks of the job such as the wide variety of shows that we get to see for free (theatre is definitely not cheap on a student budget); operas, ballets and even classic films from time to time. Sure, having to watch the same show over and over again can become tedious. Even panto can get very irritating (oh yes it can!) after hearing ‘He’s behind you!’ for the millionth time, but so much exposure to theatre is absolutely incredible as the arts are so important.

Some of the ushers that I know could give most theatre critics a run for their money because they’ve seen it all; actors and shows come and go but ushers are always there. Also, not all customers, directors and actors are as frustrating as the aforementioned ones. Ushers get to meet people from all different walks of life; from the elderly couple who have been going to the theatre since they were children and still dress up for it, to the four year old who is gushing about how amazing his first ever panto way. It’s always a pleasant feeling to know that you helped make someone’s theatre experience enjoyable.

The biggest perk of being an usher is getting to work with a great team of people. As corny as it sounds, the various trials and tribulations of the job tend to bring the ushering team closer together and as they say, a team that cleans up dead skin together, wins together. Or something like that. So, the next time you visit a theatre and you come across a member of the front of house staff, play nice. 

★★☆☆☆
Two Stars

If you’re reading this review on this website, you’re probably already aware of the publicity surrounding The Riot Club, and its potential for pernicious influence on Oxford’s PR persona. You’re probably also expecting a scathing attack on how it depicts the University as a cesspit of classist tension and Cassanovian debauchery. Sadly this isn’t the case. If I had left the film feeling anguished over its attitude towards Oxford, it would have had to have been far more engaging and convincing. As it is, Lone Scherfig’s film is a lukewarm attempt at too many different things. 

The Riot Club follows Miles, a new student at Oxford, who becomes involved in the eponymous society, itself a not-at-all veiled parody of the Bullingdon. The film follows his love life, his initiation into the club, and the eventual shock which occurs when privileged elitism meets real life. The real focus of the film, though, are the members of the club; in the same way that you spot animals at a zoo, a moviegoer is invited to gawk at their uniqueness, their strangeness, and how far divorced they are from normal life. 

It’s undeniable that elements of the film are enjoyable. A scene early on involving an Aston Martin and vomit set the tone well, and during the club’s annual dinner, very much the film’s centre piece, a drinking game based on Latin was well executed and fun. Two performances also really stand out; Tom Hollander as the deliciously sinister ex-club member with an overwhelming sense of self-worth, and Sam Claflin’s Alistair Ryle, who is the epitome of cockiness, twattishness and passive-aggressive jealousy that all the other club members should have been.

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The problems for the film can be traced back to its status as an adaptation of a play. As a piece of theatre, originally called Posh, it’s easy to imagine the film working well in a perverted History Boys sort of way, but on the big screen, it becomes glaringly obvious from an early point that not nearly enough was done to turn the play into something extensive enough for a film. If I could level one main point of criticism at The Riot Club, it would be that it feels deeply uncinematic. There’s nothing at work to suggest this wouldn’t have worked better as an adaptation for TV, or even as a live broadcast of a theatre production. 

A perfect example is the set-piece dinner sequence. On stage, I can see it being an extravagant scene that used the design of the stage perfectly. Unfortunately, on film it comes across as a distinctly underwhelming apogee for what is meant to be a hotbed of iniquity and the climax of the plot. Consequently, it quickly becomes tiring, repetitive and far, far too long. Even the perspective that the audience views the action of the film is evocative of a theatre production, the camera staying perpetually at the middle distance of imaginary stalls instead of utilising the full breadth of depth that film can.

A concurrent problem that seems to be a result of the source material, rather than the adaptation, is that the film never decides what it wants to be. It begins as a satire of classism at a top university, before adding a nebulous love story, then morphing into an ensemble drama-comedy and culminating as a tragedy. Yet none of these strands are done effectively. The satire is simplistic and juvenile, reducing the depiction of classism to a battle between accents north and south of the M25. The love story is so superfluous that the film eventually abandons interest in it, just like I did, and relegates it to a purgatorial no man’s land of irresolution. Worst is the ensemble aspect, which is let down by characterisation of the Riot Club members that is so indistinct that they far too quickly become a blob of chiselled jaw lines and tail coats. Their dialogue is also nowhere near as snappy or quippy as it should be, consigning any chance of consistent humour or engagement to the imagination.

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Moreover, the eventual tragedy of the story is done with such cack-handed obviousness that anyone who didn’t see it coming would have to have entered the screening 15 minutes before the end, and have blocked their ears from the almost laughably menacing soundtrack that pre-empts the denouement.

If it had had the courage in its convictions to carry through just one of these strands effectively, the film would have worked. The satire on classism seems the easiest, given how the caricatures of pompous, extravagantly wealthy and breathtakingly supercilious Hooray Henrys essentially write themselves (and are extremely easy targets for villainisation). Yet, rather than creating characters that are hateful in anything close to a meaningful way, instead they are childishly condensed into two-dimensional, violent goons as if to effusively underline that we are meant to hate them.

An hour and forty-five minutes is a long time to spend in the company of people who try your patience from the word go. It would have been completely excusable if the result had been much wittier, or more focussed or even more caricatured. Instead, The Riot Club presents a group of characters that aren’t evil enough, distinct enough, or funny enough, and who end up being grating companions, accompanying the audience on an aimless and dull journey to nowhere.