Pappy's: the boys who never grew up Jul 20th 2013, 05:00
The much-loved comedy sketch troupe have finally got their own TV series after years of false starts. We meet them on the set of Badults to find their enthusiasm intact
Performing in a studio sitcom is hard work. Minutes after wrapping the latest instalment of Badults, Ben Clark is a sweating, exhausted husk of a man. Hardly surprising, when he's spent the previous three hours dashing about the stage, running in and out of rooms, donning disguises, engaging in elaborate mimes and generally keeping the audience riotously entertained. "I've still got the adrenaline going," he tells me, "so I'm OK. I'm sure after two beers I'll crash."
Clark, along with Matthew Crosby and Tom Parry, is one-third of comedy trio Pappy's (formerly known as Pappy's Fun Club). They've spent a very long time as the Next Big Thing, beloved of audiences and critics who go mad for their ultra-exuberant, gloriously ramshackle brand of humour, but never making the jump into the mainstream. Live, they whip up an atmosphere that's more like a gig than a sketch show. But despite several pilots, they've never managed to find the right TV vehicle for their considerable talents.
That looks to be changing with Badults, a sitcom about young lads failing to grow up. Matthew, Tom and Ben are all playing versions of themselves, living together in a squalid flat (as they did in real life when they first came to London). They scrabble for cash, lust after women who aren't remotely interested in them and play endless pranks on each other. But rather than the quasi-realistic style of something like Peep Show, Badults opts for all-out silliness. At times surreal, at others gloriously childish, it's like an up-to-date take on The Young Ones.
Does it work? From what I can see it's a triumph, harnessing classic comedy chops to a modern sensibility. "We've always wanted to write a sitcom," says Tom. "We're putting this in front of a bigger audience than we've ever attempted to reach before. Whatever people think of it, whether positive or negative, we know this is genuinely exactly what we wanted to do."
Making a brand-new studio sitcom is not without its risks. People are notoriously sniffy about them. They talk about tacky sets. They complain about canned laughter (although the mirth I witnessed in the audience at the studio for Badults seemed genuine enough). After The Office, there's a sense that sitcoms without laughter are deeper, cleverer, more meaningful, rather than an excuse for getting away with scripts that don't have enough jokes. (Really, if it's better to watch comedy without being put off by the sound of other people laughing, why don't they insist on silence in the clubs?)
What would the Pappy's boys say to those who claim that studio sitcoms are out of date? Matthew thinks for a minute. "Fuck off," he suggests, cheerfully. "There's a bravery about putting your stuff in front of an audience and seeing if they laugh." Tom agrees: "When you're making a comedy show without an audience, it's like you're trying to do something cool. And we could never do cool. Studio sitcoms are the perfect housing for us in that respect."
Rather than going for something hip and critic-friendly, they've thought about their comedy touchstones like Bottom or Alan Partridge, and tried to do something similar. Because what Pappy's love more than anything is making people laugh. Instead of carving out a fashionable niche, they dream of appealing to as many people as possible. "I was watching Harry Hill with every generation of my family at Christmas," says Matthew, "and everyone was laughing. That's pretty incredible."
Pappy's have been operating as a comedy group for the best part of a decade, but their bond goes back even further than that. Ben and Tom grew up together in Wolverhampton and have been making sketches since they were precocious small children. After leaving university, they started running regular nights as Pappy's Fun Club. "If we'd known we were going to become so successful," says Matt, "we'd definitely have spent longer coming up with a name."
They soon hit upon a distinctive sketch-show style: no recurring characters, plenty of fourth-wall-breaking, and a propensity to launch into raucous singalongs at the first opportunity. You always have fun at a Pappy's show, and you get the sense that they're having fun too – especially when (as nearly always happens) they start giggling and forgetting their lines mid-show.
In Badults, Matthew, Ben and Tom play variations of themselves, just as they do in Pappy's live performances. The title came from Tom, and reflects the way the characters are struggling to grow up. "They can't let go of their childhood and act the way adults should act," he says. Tom explains that this touches on a central theme of the troupe's comedy. "Someone said once they liked our show because it reminded them of their sons putting on a play."
The three characters represent three different types of "badults". Tom's the dreamer who prefers make-believe to real life. Ben's the hopeless slob who "now that people have stopped doing things for him, doesn't do anything for himself". And Matt's the striver, whose misplaced ambition means he's always trying to better himself and failing. For the record, in real life, Matthew's a lot less uptight and obsessed with rules and routines, Ben's a lot tidier and more sober than his on-screen alter ego, and the real Tom doesn't spend his entire waking life sexually obsessing about Matthew's sister. You hope.
Playing himself is probably a relief for Matthew. At present, he's best known for his appearances on BBC1's teatime show Animal Antics, where he appears in a full dog suit as canine newsreader Sparky. Typically, a job that many comics would be appalled by simply appealed to Matthew's irrepressible sense of fun. "I was in the casting, and they put us in these dog costumes, and some of the other actors were saying 'This is degrading'. And I was like, 'You think this is degrading? This is the happiest day of my life!'"
The early shows: four legendary Pappy's gigs
Edinburgh, 2006
Pappy's first Edinburgh show saw them performing for free every lunchtime in a pub basement. They got very little press attention but huge audiences, and the production was full of classic moments, including the minstrel and the Eastern European Fun Club.
Christmas, 2007
The team's London gigs in a tiny room above the Old Coffee House pub in Soho are the stuff of Pappy's legend. This one featured repeated interruptions from Tom Parry as hoarse-voiced, bellowing drama critic "Billington", slamming the efforts of his co-stars and himself.
The world record attempt
Pappy's final show under the Fun Club moniker – and their last to feature the original quartet prior to the departure of Brendan Dodds – had them trying to perform 200 sketches in the space of an hour (sort of).
Last show ever
This was the title of the team's most recent touring show, a commercially useful but misleading one, since they have no plans to shelve live performance altogether. A tour de force which suggests just how much they've learned in the past decade, and featuring a truly extraordinary spoof of The Wizard Of Oz.
Badults starts Tue, 10pm, BBC3
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