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John Shuttleworth - Sheffield Legend


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General thread for Shuttleworth appreciation. Sheffield's premier singer/songwriter and Bontempi operative, and subtle but oh-so-good humourist. 

 

I'm currently having a binge of The Shuttleworths on BBC Sounds and it's great. I love the first episode of series 1 where John's tape heads need cleaning - "I can't send this to Paul Young", he bemoans ruefully. But all of it's great, enhanced by the super-local references. 

 

Graham Fellows is an under-sung Sheffield treasure in my opinion, and we should celebrate him more.

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10 hours ago, butlers said:

Incident on the Snake Pass always amuses

There's a very silly live version of that here

 

I'm sure there are people who could listen to an episode of the Shuttleworths or another of John's programmes and not even smile - there aren't jokes in the traditional sense, it's absurd humour found in the mundane. There's an episode where John and Ken (sole agent) decide to go out on the spur of the moment and John says "But Ken, we haven't got a flask" and Ken says "it's alright, we can stop at a carvery on the way". It shouldn't be funny, it isn't funny written down, but it made me laugh out loud.

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2 hours ago, Delbow said:

There's a very silly live version of that here

 

I'm sure there are people who could listen to an episode of the Shuttleworths or another of John's programmes and not even smile - there aren't jokes in the traditional sense, it's absurd humour found in the mundane. There's an episode where John and Ken (sole agent) decide to go out on the spur of the moment and John says "But Ken, we haven't got a flask" and Ken says "it's alright, we can stop at a carvery on the way". It shouldn't be funny, it isn't funny written down, but it made me laugh out loud.

Got to say , just watched that and never smiled once.

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7 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

Got to say , just watched that and never smiled once.

It's very much character comedy. If you enjoy or buy into the character(s) then it becomes funny, otherwise it leaves you cold. When I watched the first episode of BBC comedy This Country I barely raised a titter, but as I've got to know the characters it's really working for me. Similar concepts I think.

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Went to see him at Oldham Coliseum Theatre (much missed) a few years ago and he put on a great show. I spotted an Australian friend at the interval - he didn't get it at all, not sure he stayed actually.

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