After watching a single episode of The Royle Family , you might believe that a show of this type could never have been made in America. The truth of the matter is that it could but not without considerable changes. The ’successful’ remodeling of The Office, the show’s closest English relative, is proof that it could be done. Not that I would suggest that mind you. How it is presented seems closer to something like Curb Your Enthusiasm or, Gervais and Merchant’s latest vehicle, Extras. Still it makes the former look, well, enthusiastic and latter extravagant. At their heart, there is more than a little DNA in both of these that belongs to the sit-com. The Royle Family, despite its cinema verite documentarian look, is different from both of these. It feels like the epitome of the anti-sitcom.
While all of these slice of life comedies focus on the laughter of discomfort and the cruel lulling aspects of the day to day, The Royle Family is most extreme in its sense of realism. It is shot in a way that recalls both the kitchen sink realism of early 60s UK films and its descendents, the early domestic dramas of Mike Leigh or Ken Roach. This isn’t simply a matter of medium because it was shot on film rather than the video. It is a model of realism that eshews any notion of compression or high drama that can be found in pseudo-documentary. It moves at a pace that confounds notions of what is considered plot. Things happen but never in a manner that plays towards dramatic gesture. It points up how staged and artificial what passes for Reality TV really is.
The debut episode, “Bills, Bills, Bills” offers no set-up of the situation, you are simply dropped in The Royle’s middle class home and left to figure what the dynamics are. With most of the action taking place in the living room, we are not allowed release from the static nature of their everday life. With nothing but the most basic of surroundings for the eye to see, the viewer is forced to listen to what people are saying. Also it enlarges the importance of a single look or physical gesture in a way that would seem unbearable to the viewer looking to be overstimulated by camera tricks and differing surroundings. Make no mistake, however, the work of Dick Dodd, the Director of Photography, is not stagey. Constantly the camera is cutting through a series of establishing and reaction shots which give the actors and the viewer what they need. The Royle home though painfully plain is a three dimensional space that insists that its characters do indeed live there.
By live, though, we don’t mean animated. There is a wariness of their surroundings which suggests that everyone has their spot and they rarely venture from it. Jim Royle (Ricky Tomlinson) sits in his easy chair and watches television, only looking away when he must deal with whomever is speaking or moving into his field of vision. Barbara and Denise (Sue Johnston and co-writer Caroline Ahme) dominate the couch, an overstuffed ashtray between them, sharing a lighter and exchanging glances. Other members of the family, the son Antony (Ralf Little) and Denise’s fiance David Best (co-writer Craig Cash) are more active but eventually settle into their spots to await orders and to relate their actions in the outside world respectively Barbara’s friend Mary Carroll, Jim’s shady drinking buddy Twiggy and Denise’s friend Cheryl Carroll, all present themselves to the resident couch potatoes who only interact with those who move into their line of vision. Slowly the unbearable inertia turns to rapt interest as we are drawn into this mundane world of wedding plans, part-time jobs and casual insults.
The Royle is a family that is disconcertingly real in their interaction. What intially seems like dysfunction becomes a muted web of love and concern. These characters do not easily express emotion, if at all, and they each seem self-possessed with their own situations. Compared to most other television families they are awful and irresponsible. They do not try to be likable, they say hurtful things without batting an eye. But they remain engaged in the process of being together. Whatever they think they have accepted that they are stuck with each other.
Nothing much happens in Bills, Bills, Bills and that is the point. We feel frustrated by their unability to take action. As we look on critically, we find ourselves having to consider our interactions and indifference to our surroundings. What are we doing? And this theme is presented right from the start of the show’s credits. With The Royle’s living room awash in cathode blue, the theme song by Oasis, Half A World Away, intimates a desire to escape, we see them from the perspective of the invisible fifth member of the family, the TV. We are watching them watch us and, like or not we are part of the family.
Tags: BBC, black comedy, cult television, DVD, The Royle Family
