SMH.com.au – Mark Dapin
What makes Little Britain different from The Footy Show?
I am in the heart of London’s Little Australia, watching the Little Britain stage show in a theatre full of little British people (and some big ones). I’m sitting with my British little brother, who is excited we have tickets to the sell-out show. He is a fan and I’m hoping he can explain Little Britain’s appeal to me.
Like the rest of the audience at Hammersmith’s Carling Apollo, my brother has heard all the jokes before, because the Little Britain TV series has exactly the same number of gags as it has regular characters.
Identical things happen to each person in every sketch in which they appear. Grotesque, ridiculously dressed Daffyd Thomas, who believes he is “the only gay in the village” is blind to the evidence of homosexuality in everyone else around him. Grotesque, ridiculously dressed transvestite Emily Howard says, “I’m a laaaady,” then does something unladylike.