Shortly after I moved to New York, a British friend and I got slightly lost in Manhattan – a difficult feat when the streets are arranged in a grid, but somehow we managed it. This prompted my friend to belt out: “Wrong way down a one way street!” We were on foot, so this didn’t make much sense to me. She proceeded to direct me to a sketch on YouTube featuring the Glaswegian comedian known simply as Limmy. In the video, Limmy observes a passing car violating the rules of the road, and he is inspired to sing the words my friend had uttered.
His companion is blown away by the sheer musical genius Limmy has displayed. Limmy reluctantly performs the one-sentence song for his family, some of whom are moved to tears. Soon, he’s playing his four-second hit to stadium crowds.
I found this absolutely hilarious, but I soon learned that others didn’t share my passion. I showed it to my girlfriend, who is usually a pretty good barometer of hilarity. She just looked at me funny – I’m still trying to win back her respect. Few others that I spoke to here in the US had ever heard of Limmy. (Stephen Fry likes him, though.)
His unknown status could, however, change now that his BBC Scotland program, Limmy’s Show!, has been added to Netflix in the US. Perhaps soon many of my fellow Americans will be watching it. But I kind of doubt it.
I spent this week watching Limmy’s Show, not really knowing what to expect; I only had the “wrong way” sketch to go on. The first thing I noticed was that I couldn’t understand a word the characters were saying. That, of course, doesn’t reflect poorly on the show – only on me. I like to pretend to myself that I am very worldly, so it was highly embarrassing to have to turn on subtitles to watch a show in my own language. (I admit it: I did the same for Trainspotting.)
But only a little. In terms of traditional comedy, the “wrong way” sketch looked like I Love Lucy compared to what I was now experiencing. The first sketch on Limmy’s Show is pretty simple: he keeps spotting other versions of himself in the distance, pointing back at him. That’s the whole thing.
It’s fairly representative of the rest of the show. Limmy is the only person in many of the sketches. He often seems to be playing himself: there’s the sketch where he walks into a crowded elevator and exclaims: “We’re all thinking about each other, aren’t we?” Everyone says yes. End of sketch. Weird, but probably accurate. In another, we hear his inner monologue as he considers how two “friends” on an unnamed social network aren’t friends at all. But he gets furious at his own brain when it refers to “strange bedfellows” – “Since when have I ever used the phrase ‘strange bedfellows’?” he angrily says.
Other sketches see him playing different characters. One of my favorites features two metalheads, one of whom is trying to convince the other to get into A-ha. Limmy’s character scoffs at the pop music, until the distorted guitars come in. Then there’s the recurring scene of a man covered in boils shouting as he tries to barge through a locked door, accompanied by the sound of a woman screaming. That one left me deeply disturbed.
By the end of each episode, I’m unsure whether to laugh or cry. Despite a handful of other actors in the show, the whole thing is permeated with an atmosphere of loneliness: for the viewer, it’s a bizarre, stream-of-consciousness glimpse into Limmy’s dark mind. Sometimes that leaves you wanting to run away screaming. Other times, it feels like a twisted version of Seinfeld: you find yourself nodding in agreement as Limmy points out the oddities of everyday life – except instead of a sarcastic New York standup comic, he plays a recovering drug addict or the host of a call-in show who dresses as some sort of mythical creature.
Occasionally, the action will pause, and Limmy will walk out in front of the scene and lecture viewers. In one such case, he says it’s come to his attention that “some of you … think the show is crap. It’s not crap. The reason you think it’s crap isn’t because it’s not funny – it’s because you’re thinking about it too much.” So I’m going to take his advice, and stop.
