Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights

A review of Frankie Boyle's new comedy: Tramadol Nights. Showing on Channel 4 at 10PM on Tuesdays.



"I don't mean it to sound horrible but.."



When I think of Frankie Boyle, borderline unacceptable and proud of it immediately spring to mind. And that’s exactly what Tramadol Nights is: the darkest of dark comedies created in the most hellish recesses of an unconscionable glaswegian brain.  

Strictly ‘adult only’, this new show is unique in that it blends hilariously distasteful sketches with Frankie’s notoriously harsh stand-up. Think Russell Howards good news but instead of a happy good news story at the end you get told to go fuck your selves until next week.

Back and bearded, Frankie opens the show with very off the cuff banter with the audience, and in true Boyle fashion he gives the front row a heavy grilling. Topics for discussion about funny news stories have become commonplace in other T.V comedies, and Frankie has followed suite. But not in a ‘Have I Got News for You’ way, more like turning human interest into complete filth, a notable example being a child birth story into having sex with pensioners. If you’re not offended in some way after the first five minutes you must be insane.

What one would assume not fit for broadcast is the exact essence of Tramadol Nights’ humour. How many other comedians could get away with references to fingering Susan Boyle on a Scottish field trip and developing a theory on stage that Michael Jackson created the moonwalk so that he could “move towards children while it looked like he was moving away.” Oh yes, celebrities are ripe pickings for this fearless comedian. Moving swiftly onto the death of Jade Goody, he exclaimed that Jack Tweed (her widowed husband) was the luckiest guy in the world because as she had cervical cancer she got “thinner and better looking and her pussy got tighter.” With lines that make the audience look ashamed to laugh it’s no wonder that he’s no longer featured in Mock the Week.

As for the sketches, they are if anything even more funny than the jokes. Hilarity ranging from cartoon mice being slaughtered by traps to a professor who has the ability to time travel by wanking with his students are just some of the clips shown. Mockery of the disabled and the Scottish as well as casual racism and plays on religion are, of course, all included. Frankie even mocks himself, opening with describing the show and his shaggy appearance as “like a children’s T.V channel, looking like a fucking tramp.”

Overall, though, I found the show to be hilarious yet inappropriate… to say the least. If you don’t mind incredibly crude jokes and, frankly, worrying comedy sketches, then this is not one to miss! I warn you though, it’s not for the faint hearted.