Reading this on mobile? Click here to watch
Judging by your comments on our daily roundups of YouTube Comedy Week, the event has not been a huge success. "I don't really understand the thinking behind a 'comedy week'," wrote CGB1991, "on a website where comedy is uploaded every day anyway."
"This is a classic case of organised fun," added Dd2704, "they're all trying really hard to be funny, and it's gone tits up."
That's a bit strong, but, as the days have passed, it's been harder to see what Comedy Week is really trying to achieve. Much of the content has seemed in-jokey, or dependent on a prior familiarity with the acts involved. Most of it has been throwaway and lacking in satirical purpose, although Friday's video by The Onion website – a spoof TV medical show that administers plastic surgery to four reluctant women, arguing that they'd otherwise be unemployable – is a decent exception to that rule.
Reading this on mobile? Click here to watch
Most of the content has come from American acts little-known in the UK, or from web-based comics. It's been interesting to encounter the latter, whose talents and production standards can be as high as those of their TV counterparts. The Tea Chronicles, Friday's stylish if inconsequential short film by the UK writer/directors Khyan Mansley and Charlie McDonnell, is a case in point.
Reading this on mobile? Click here to watch
The fact that nothing's been as funny as David Brent's online guitar lesson may simply reflect the credit that Ricky Gervais already has in the bank. I find that character funny almost before he opens his mouth.
Most disappointing, given the supposedly pioneering, wild west (compare Sarah Silverman's comments on day one) character of the internet, is that Comedy Week has more often seemed tired than innovative. (Witness the video in which Jamie Oliver guests stars in an episode of the old hat Annoying Orange web series.) In fairness, it may not have helped that I'm not used to consuming comedy in short bursts, on my laptop, using the internet – which I've found a fairly sterile process.
As James May points out in his rudimentary anthropology of humour, we laugh most when we're in company. YouTube Comedy Week has raised the odd smile, but I'll be glad to get back to comedy clubs, theatres, and the sound of other people's laughter.
