u/eeeeeep

First the technical stuff. The sound design is brutal and most of the dialogue sounds like it was done on a mic in the middle of a conference room table. Presumably the one closest to Ricky’s house.

Occasionally Ricky’s voice even goes up and down in the mix, probably because he’s reaching for a scotch egg and his mouth leaves the mic. Shall we do another take? Nah, crack on.

We’re quickly into a walking montage set to A Thousand Miles by Venessa Carlton. I thought this was going to be a joke that they’d puncture brilliantly. Nope. The cats are walking so there is a song about walking. Brilliant.

It’s very subversive, inline with Ricky’s earlier work. In The Office, for example, that subversion was holding a mirror up to the mundanity of British working life. In Alley Cats it’s saying “cunt” in every scene. So, different approaches for different needs.

If you can’t wait a few minutes for a “cunt” there will be two dozen “fucks” to tide you over, be patient.

The shifts in tone in the show are insane. It feels like coming in and out of a cheese dream, as its creator can attest.

Oh and did you know that Ricky doesn’t believe in God? He finally opens up about it, in the first episode, so there’s some great insight there. In fact almost every scene feels like it’s been crafted so that “Gus” can impart his working class hero home-spun common sense wisdom.

I’ve seen some scripts written like this before, but they were written in shit.

Three key hallmarks of this are emerging.

Tier 1: You’ll grab your pint, almost performatively point to it or yourself, announce “Hydration Break” and take a drink, looking around to see if this bit has landed.

Tier 2: You’ll initiate a “cheers” with the table, again announcing some variation of “Hydration Break lads, cmon!”

Tier 3: The natural break in the game gives you an opportunity to head to the bar for another pint, in a sense a genuine “Hydration Break”. You draw attention to this with an announcement to the table as you rise, perhaps even doubling down by also telling the barman that you’re here for a “Hydration Break”.

This isn’t a flat condemnation, just an observation of the evolving landscape.

The video is lovely and Zlatan “puts away” Henry pretty comprehensively, but streets-ing yourself feels like the height of hubris 😅

A full two hours of build-up to a friendly. A friendly charged with narrative, but a friendly nonetheless.

I could do something much more constructive with my time but there’s no chance I’m turning this off.

First they’ll have to show the VT packages they’ve made on all of our group opponents. They’ve already done Croatia, now we’re half way through Ghana.

That will maybe stretch to an hour, with some chat in between. Lots of “they’re not here to make up the numbers” and “don’t underestimate these”.

You can run the clock down by picking at some Premier League links. We’ve had some Modric at Spurs chat, we’ll have some Semenyo analysis too.

They’ve already shown Adam Richman of “Man v Food” fame giving a rundown of where to get the best oysters in Boston.

They’ll lean heavily on Scotland, too. If England were the only home nation going they’d really be struggling.

Say they get to 90 mins: that’s another half an hour even before KO. This is where you can really go postmodern, and fill up time by knowingly winking to the audience about how long they’ve been vamping.

I could practice a language during this time, get some insurance quotes, maybe wipe down the counter tops, but I can’t look away. I love it.

As an aside, I have the latent dislike of ITV international coverage which is baked into the blood-memory of all Brits. The BBC is the definitive broadcaster of record. However, the studio set-up ITV have pulled together in New York is genuinely brilliant, fair play.

Apologies if I’m making a silly mistake, I’m new! Thank you everyone.

Edit: Thank you to all those taking the time to respond, this is quite a new area for me and one that is very interesting!