by Thom Yee
I like British stuff. British cars, British landmarks… even British people. There’s just something about their fundamental sensibilities, a mix of pride, integrity and understanding combined with an over-developed sense of perversion. Now that’s pretty easy to say having not grown up there and having never visited, but everything British I’ve been exposed to — whether it was the Daniel Craig James Bonds, football hooligans, Warren Ellis, or even Top Gear — all seemed to have a certain wit (even if it didn’t need to), a certain understanding that there’s always more under the surface and that that’s where everything important is. When it comes to British comedy, it’s not about landing jokes, it’s about hiding something funny in everything you say and the certain understanding that the only audiences worth pursuing are the ones picking up what you’re putting down. It’s not about fast-paced wisecracks or sophistication (and in many ways it’s the polar opposite of those), it’s the winking notion that you only really recognize if you get it. That moment at the end when you lay your soul bare to the only person you’ve ever really cared about, and all they say, all they have to say is, “I know.”