Spaced: Art   Rewatch 
February 15, 2015 5:53 PM - Season 1, Episode 3 - Subscribe

Daisy goes on a job interview at "Flaps", a women's magazine, while Tim takes speed and employs "lateral thinking and extreme violence" in the game Resident Evil for 24 hours, while Mike just takes speed. The non-gender specific Vulva - with whom Brian had a "multimedia performance-art partnership" - invites him to a 2-hour performance, which Marsha, Daisy, Tim, and Brian all must endure - er, enjoy. Well, at least there's free booze.

Patrick Cox, who is name-checked by the interviewer at the fictitious "Flaps" magazine, is a fashion designer who was given several major awards in the mid-90s and was a hot commodity in the British fashion world at that time.

David Walliams appears in this episode as "Vulva" - he's done a lot of comedy work but is probably best known for "Little Britain" with Matt Lucas.

The zombie theme is a Shaun of the Dead precursor, and a joke that appears in this episode ("He's not my boyfriend!"/"Hello, Babe") was also used in that movie.

​Originally aired October 8, 1999.

"It was physical... not in a sexual sense, no, we were collaborative. I don't expect you to understand. Most people don't want to hear, they just switch off. It's hard to hear the story of a love affair between two straight men, one of whom is the most divine woman alive."
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (15 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
The performance piece by Vulva (and partner).
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 5:55 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Claire Rushbrook is in this episode, too, as the interviewer-from-hell at "Flaps". I recognized her from "Doctor Who", but she's done a bunch of stuff. The "girl power" phrase Daisy says in an effort to resurrect her painful interview is a thing is from The Spice Girls, huge at the time and 'girl power' was kind of their thing.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:00 PM on February 15, 2015


Vulva's partner Hoover is played by Paul Kaye, who at the time was best known for his "Dennis Pennis" character; and now amongst other things (and calling back to this comment last week) Thoros of Myr in Game of Thrones.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:57 PM on February 15, 2015


Feels like there were fewer direct film references in this one -- in favor of the video-game spoof and the general riff on performance art -- or am I simply not spotting them?
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:00 PM on February 15, 2015


Yes, it's Paul Kaye, meant to mention it. There *were* fewer film references in this one, perhaps to make way for the cascade of dick jokes (e.g., "spunk" said by the interviewer, "Huge Fat Cocks" magazine that Daisy peruses in the newspaper shop, etc.).
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:12 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Rabbit! Rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit!

There's a nice bit of arc here, where Tim is initially super-dismissive of Brian (Are you going to go?) but by the end, he evidently cares enough to save him from zombies.

I had to look up Twiglets.
posted by mochapickle at 9:57 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


I had to look up Twiglets.

You are missing out! Twiglets are great. Provided you like marmite. On tiny little sticks. I love twiglets, and cannot buy them because I will eat them all.

Note Simon Pegg playing Resident Evil in this episode, he actually uses the controls correctly (holds down the R1 button to fire. Ah, memories). They are a bit snobby about the failure of actors to properly mime video game playing in commentary then in Shaun of the Dead their miming of Timesplitters (I think they're playing timesplitters, its a little hard to tell) is pretty much all over the shop.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:00 AM on February 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


If you can get the DVD commentary, it's beautiful to hear them all shout "I can't believe some of the shit I used to do with YOU!"

Also, the hand-wavy gesture Daisy does is a Showgirls reference. And it's become my de facto "Transformation" hand movement.

For example:
"Oh my God, I am so nervous about this interview."
"You'll be fine - you go in there, take a deep breath, and --" *handwave* "--be awesome."
posted by Katemonkey at 12:57 AM on February 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Daisy: Right, I'm going to the shops. D'you want anything?
Tim: Porn.
Daisy: Tim, I'm not going to buy you porn. You can get it from railway sidings like everybody else.
Tim: I can't, I'm an adult. I'm supposed to leave it there.


I love this joke.
posted by billiebee at 5:52 AM on February 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Note Simon Pegg playing Resident Evil in this episode, he actually uses the controls correctly (holds down the R1 button to fire. Ah, memories).

The commentary is funny. Apparently, Simon Pegg spent two days on that beanbag chair actually playing Resident Evil. Folks were a little upset with him because he kept missing his cues.
posted by mochapickle at 6:39 AM on February 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh! Jessica Hynes is on BBC's "Up the Women" - so there's that.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 8:16 PM on February 17, 2015


So remember back in 2002/2003 when Boy George was going around London and New York in that weird makeup from the part he played in his musical "Taboo"? I never understood what that was all about until seeing this episode of Spaced and then reading an episode guide that stated Vulva was based on Leigh Bowery, who Boy George played in the West End and Broadway productions of Taboo. It suddenly all made sense.

(The episode's role in inspiring "Shaun of the Dead" was more obvious to me at the time.)
posted by Ranucci at 8:37 PM on February 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


I really liked the "if you lose the waist coat you might find it again" joke.

I've been watching Up the Women. I just wish it were something. . . more. The entirety seems be a running joke that there are actual suffragettes out there making things happen while this group is stuck in a meeting hall that they rarely leave. As the episodes merely rehash arguments for the rights women already have, it's hard to figure out who the audience for this is. Still, it's nice to see Hynes doing something.
posted by Ik ben afgesneden at 10:24 PM on February 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Really? I've heard that people love Up the Women - okay, Twitter folks tweetin' from Britain. Twitter doesn't really allow for an in-depth review, however.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 12:00 PM on February 18, 2015


The BBC is doing an entire series of "democracy" inspired comedies and so far it seems to be all about haha how funny it is to think that politics can achive anything worthwhile and how foolish idealists are.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:03 PM on February 18, 2015


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