Image via Wikipedia

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkc-feu7LeA#

Pedantic Note: the referencing in this article does not follow any sort of manual of style, is totally lazy and improvised, and yes I do know better. Think of it as ‘free-referencing’, like free verse poetry.

There’s something decidedly odd that only about 10-15 minutes after watching a 48 minute programme, I pretty much know what I feel about it. Channel 4’s Campus was the subject of an on-air pilot in 2009[1]. I found this out by Googling, which is appropriately the subject of one of the best moments in the opening episode: in it, Professor Matt Beer (of English Literature) at Kirke University (the fictional geography of the titular ‘Campus’) is interrupted in a corridor by a student, who asks him for some help. He asks them if they’ve ‘googled’ it, saying that if they can’t then he most certainly cannot: this is a silly interlude which exposes the reliance on technology which academia has. Take a site such as jstor.org or ebsco: these are academic search engines. Or you can just use Google Scholar. Why go to the library and spend forever researching when, in this digital, instant (postmodern?) age, we can just find things at some keystrokes. Furthermore, why not simply take that as a-given and the full picture of it- it’s easier, no? This also plays with the caricature that Professors (specifically Professors, so the trope goes) are ‘mad’, eccentric and are absent-minded.

But did the articulators of Campus mean this as a parody, or a satire? The show is made by much of the same team which made the superb hospital-based comedy Green Wing, basically the ‘British Scrubs’ (although I’d argue it’s so much better than that overly lengthy, soppy and cheesy series which ran for far too long). This shows – I could easily have guessed that either this was emulating Green Wing or that it was made by the same people. First, let me define a key term which may play with your knowledge of English- it’s from the title of this haphazardly written essay: ‘Pastiche’:

“A literary work composed from elements borrowed either from various other writers or from a particular earlier author” (check, Green Wing and other ‘absurd’ comedy- the comedy violence and plethora of sex jokes can be taken from fashionable contemporaries such as The Thick of It and others). “The term can be used in a derogatory sense to indicate lack of originality, or more neutrality to refer to works that involve a deliberate and playfully imitative tribute to other writers” (read all the way to the conclusion). “Pastiche differs from *parody in using imitation as a form of flattery rather than mockery, and from *plagiarisim in its lack of deceptive intent”… I wouldn’t call their imitation of themselves or of others, here, ‘deceptive’ or vindictive. It’s a bit shamefaced in how similar it’s technically edited together.[2]

Campus is full of mashups and pastiches of what seem to be archetypes of modern comedy: the violent, sexually obsessed boss (elements of David Brent of The Office and Malcolm Tucker of The Thick of It – two shows I consider to be fucking amazing), the ne’er-do-well maverick, the depressed bureaucratic employees, the awkward young woman struggling with the burdens that feminist integrity and the first two archetypes’ curveballs (etc.)… all these can be very successfully deployed. Not so in Campus. The only characters I genuinely had any sort of feel for were the awkward Maths lecturer-cum-author, the maverick Lit. Professor (if only because I so am him as a lit student…obviously it’s a Byronic activity to spend half an hour typing out an essay on a piece of TV) and the awkward accountant. But I know very little about them from an episode which focussed very much so on them, and although I was hoping through the utterly tiresome scenes with the Vice Chancellor (a.k.a. ‘over-paid boss of a University destined for a seat in the House of Lords’…at least in real life) and the lecturer who walked around with a Dictaphone, and by far the worst: a failed Literature student/athlete, who’s crow barred in as a seminar teacher by the anarchic Professor to shoehorn in some ‘awkward’ comedy- but it has none of the tension which makes awkward comedy good or successful. Imagine The Office with none of the reality (verging on Hyper-reality…high-five Jean Baudrillard!), none of the suspense or character which makes awkwardness successful. This isn’t a down-in-the-dumps, ‘gritty’, morose awkwardness, like the recent BBC comedy Lead Balloon starring Jack Dee, although that was quite good. It’s simply a ‘oh my god you’re so mad!’ awkwardness.

Let me elaborate. I fucking hate anyone who says “oh I’m mad/crazy/off-my-head” or describes someone else in this way. Ok, maybe I was being totally over the top there- but that’s the point, this is basically the comedic strategy of Campus summed up in a nutshell- take an annoying position, do it in the most ‘loud’ way possible. If I got a laugh out of you there, it’s probably because that annoys you too. Campus rarely seems to work even on that intuitive level where it speaks to our experience. It bypasses all of that.

It’s fine that it’s played it the way it has. It’s the freedom of the creators to envision their comedy in the way it’s played out. But universities are in the UK at the moment ripe for satire- dwindling budgets, expanding numbers, increasing fees, chock full of the usual ‘middle class’ things we want to laugh at and caricature (such as bookishness or social awkwardness). There’s some fine acting in Campus from what I can see. Then again, I’d expect little else from the highly paid (?) profession that is acting. And to be fair the pilot was written ages ago, before all the cuts. But then again you could say that these fears were floating around- I remember reading about them. This is some homework the writers should have done. I’m not demanding a deep, social satire, but just some adherence to the environment the theatre of the show plays out in- because it is so obviously aware it’s a sitcom, it’s self-reflexive and plays with editing and camera work…but to annoying effect. I didn’t laugh much. I laughed most at the clever stuff like I highlighted at the beginning. To go back to Chris Baldick’s definition, Campus is demonstrably…unoriginal. I could elaborate further but I don’t really care that much. Pastiche is awesome. I’ve actually used some of it in this essay- the self-referential call-backs and opening…I like to think that’s a bit more successful and appropriate than Campus’ ‘might as well have been set anywhere’ format.