The comedians who inspired Edgar Wright’s sense of humour
No matter the genre Edgar Wright finds himself working in, comedy is always present. From the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy to Scott Pilgrim versus the World and Last Night in Soho, Wright has explored horror, action, buddy cop, and documentary genres, honing a recognisable style scattered with humourous jokes and quips. While American audiences know Scott Pilgrim and Baby Driver the best, in his home country, England, he’s best associated with Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, which are fantastic examples of his British humour.
Dedicated fans of Wright’s work will be familiar with his early television projects, directing episodes of series such as the sketch shows Mash and Peas, starring David Walliams and Matt Lucas, and Alexei Sayle’s Merry-Go-Round. However, he gained further recognition when he directed Spaced, a popular British sitcom starring Simon Pegg, who he would come to collaborate with many times. The show was pretty successful, acting as an influential addition to the comedy canon, notable for its unusual use of camera angles and editing techniques – ones which came to define Wright’s cinematic work.
Evidently, comedy is Wright’s bread and butter; he can’t make a movie without imbuing it with his British humour. However, his comedic influences span countries and time periods, with Wright telling Film Pie about the figures who have shaped his taste: “I used to love Woody Allen films and still do. There’s also Monty Python and The Young Ones.”
Let’s start with Allen, the disgraced director whose days of making good films are long behind him. In the 1970s, he rose to prominence in movies like Annie Hall and Manhattan, where the director starred as the protagonist. It’s hard to deny the cultural impact that the former film had over the comedy genre, with Allen taking centre stage to talk us through his romantic wins and losses, utilising a self-deprecating tone.
Neurotic and self-parodying, Allen is irritating but often relatable, showing the parts of ourselves that we’d rather ignore, such as when he refuses to go into a cinema with Annie because he’s missed the first five minutes. It’s unsurprising that Wright is a fan – there’s something rather British about Allen’s cynical remarks at times. In his list of top 100 comedy films, Wright listed four of Allen’s movies: Annie Hall, Sleeper, Take the Money and Run and Bananas.
Then there’s Monty Python, the classic British comedy troupe who made movies such as Life of Brian and The Holy Grail. Adored by many across the world, but particularly on their home turf, Monty Python was also championed by Wright in his list of favourite comedies, with the director selecting the latter film. Monty Python’s penchant for absurdism is definitely reflected in much of Wright’s work, particularly Spaced, which really dialled up the strange and surreal factor to create a genuinely original set of episodes.
Finally, The Young Ones – a comedy series starring some of Britain’s most beloved ‘alternative’ comedians, such as Rik Mayall (who co-wrote the show), Ade Edmonson, and Alexei Sayle. The show follows several university housemates who couldn’t be more different if they tried. While Edmonson’s Vyv is a heavy metal-loving, violent owner of a talking hamster, Nigel Planer’s Neil is a long-haired hippie who attends university for peace studies, for example. Wright is a big fan of the show’s offbeat humour, and he even called the scene where Motorhead perform “the greatest scene in TV history”.
