The boat that sucked

Rating: 1/10 (17 December 2011)

And so another embarrassing brit com hoves into port. Much like that other dud, "Sex lives of the potato men" this largely revolves around dismal sexual adventures, this time of a group of radio DJs. It could have been called Sex lives of the pirate men, actually.
Sporting a fairly distinguished cast and being written by Richard Curtis (who remembers when he last wrote anything funny?), this has no excuse to be so awful. The story, of pirate offshore broadcasting in the 1960s, actually has a good deal of potential. However Curtis takes the lowest common denominator route. The characters are anachronistic stereotypes from late night TV rather than 1960s individualists. Curtis lazily pitches these drones against the forces of Conservatism, conveniently rewriting history. It was actually The Labour party (to which Curtis is a signed up member) that banned the pirate radio stations. But putting in a leftist ideologue like Tony Benn to oppose the pirates would stretch Curtis's talent even if it suited his agenda.
Instead he creates one-dimensional puritans. One would think his heroes would be shooting against an open goal. But since their only ambition seems to be to say the F-word on air along with lots of other potty mouthed obscenities (which do not sit readily in the mouths of 1960s djs), one starts to think that the puritans may have a point. The idea that Tony Blackburn or Dave Lee Travis wanted to offend their audience is ridiculous.
The real rock rebel DJs of the 1960s just wanted to play music the kids liked without the encumbrance of the state. The BBC had a stranglehold on culture then, a lesson which is worth knowing even today. At one point a character "the government hates people being free." Fair enough. But just in case it may be taken as a pro-Tea party sentiment, it receives the immediate reply "ok comrade" as if these free marketeers were actually socialists.
It is sentiments like this that remove this from the category of the excruciatingly bad to actually dangerous. It is propaganda, albeit bad and counter-productive.