Zeke Pliskin A lot of people will argue that Chris Morris has gone off the boil. Perhaps he has, but his sense of satire is still sharper than anyone. Before he had great success spoofing media sensationalism of current affairs with the groundbreaking BrassEye and years before that The Day Today (with Steve Coogan). Here he takes it a step further and spoofs London journo scenesters, always trying to stay ahead of the pack with the next trend and fad.It follows the career of struggling columnist Dan Ashcroft, a semi-intellectual trapped between the idiots he works with and a more astute crowd and a man who epitomises everything that Dan hates about his life - his biggest disciple - Nathan Barley. From the first episode it lays out Dan's dilemma and as the series unfolds shows us why he isn't so very different from the people he hates and is surrounded by, perhaps that he is in some way responsible for them. A philosophical tale that everyone can relate to on some level.Whether this is an accurate spoof I can't tell, as I don't know anyone of the crowd Morris pokes fun at here so mercilessly. On my third and fourth viewings I still try to decide whether the writing is minimalist genius or just lazy. But for some reason it is humorous and believable... you can imagine tabloid writers sitting round a meeting table surrounded by office toys, desperately trying to "outcool" the next paper by spawning meaningless catchphrases and reviewing supposed artists who are nothing more than shameless fools. Whether it's happened yet, or it's a prediction of the sort of culture we're heading towards, it certainly entertains and forces questions about the way we perceive and are led by mass media. 8/10

world_of_weird Chris Morris is undoubtedly a satirist gifted with genius, albeit a very dark and anger genius. He found his natural home on Channel 4 with the excellent BRASSEYE, a dead-on spoof of current affairs programmes, which was followed a few years later by the flesh-crawling pitch black sketch series JAM, which outdid its own radio origins simply by adopting a slurred, woozy visual style that perfectly matched the surreal flavour of the sketches and situations. Then, for some bizarre reason, he looked to the internet for inspiration, found Charlie Brooker's scabrous and wildly funny satire on vacuous media types on the TVGoHome website with the titular Barley as the loathsome protagonist, and this is the result.Laugh? I nearly dug out a Little and Large video.Save for a brilliantly dead-pan performance from Julian Barratt as the reluctant King of Cool, and some neat background touches (a light Gilbert O'Sullivan song recast as a techno dance track, a magazine cover trumpeting an interview with the minor TV celebrity Nicky Campbell as if it were the long-lost eleventh commandment), NATHAN BARLEY hardly works as satire, as comedy, as social commentary, or as anything rather than a confusing, headache-inducing whimper of impotent rage at the very people who are likely to watch this kind of thing. And there's the rub - satire has to have a target, the bigger the better, and if you restrict your satire to your target audience, it's not likely to have much of an impact. As a previous reviewer noted, punches are indeed pulled, and if there had been an ounce of the throbbing-vein anger and disgust that had made Brooker's website so addictive on display here, NATHAN BARLEY would have been a minor classic. Instead, it's the televisual equivalent of an executive toy, a shiny, modernistic gadget that exists only to occupy vacant mindspace.A thundering disappointment that should be avoided at all costs.

st ja I was a lucky man when i saw his the first time round... i was part of a small cult that rallied at the Morris mastered work. As I'm a fan id have to say the first time i saw it, i didn't think any of it was funny, i thought it was offence, racist, cultist and abstractly over torqued with ragingly bad seamless jokes. Oh... How i was SOOOOOOO wrong.Like Jam, and BrassEye. This was a comedy too advanced, i just didn't get it... When a friend called me up to tell me bout his new Chris morris DVD i shook my head... He came round stuck it on the box, and for the best part of 3 hours, i wet and shat myself in the intense humour of Nathan's Character. I just couldn't believe what id missed, i watched the whole DVD again and again, 6 times, I JUST CANT STOP LAUGHING MY ASS OFF!!!!A comment Nathan says in the Geek Pie epic, set up the whole series... "Today ridicule... Tomorrow ridicule..." Oh how right he is... The offence unintended through out the series just makes me laugh. His "Allright Treacle-slit" and "Hey Doll Sn4tch" phrases are so shared with the reality of todays youth. For most of the Series i was too busy barfing... stopping myself by swallowing, only to barf again.All those out there who are die hard fans of Morris, Will like me respect the comedy more and more they watch it.Peace and 4ckin, Believe!

rupebear26 I came to Nathan Barley one Friday night totally by accident, as i am usually out and about on weekend nights. I stumbled on it and was immediately sucked in by their world. It may have got the lowest ratings channel 4 have ever received on a Friday night, but its popularity in DVD format shows its cult following. HMV (Leeds)sold out in their first week and had to re-order another 200 or so due to unexpected sales. The comedy depicts an image-conscious world where most of the characters are working in the media spectrum, either in newspapers (Dan Ashcroft), documentaries (Claire Ashcroft) or in websites/music or anything else he can get his idiotic hands into (aka Nathan Barley). The show is the typical 6 episodes. It centres mainly around the 'friendship' between Nathan Barley and Dan Ashcroft. Barley loves Ashcroft and wants to be just like him (e.g. copying haircut, salmon/scrambled egg coffee) but Dan Ashcroft despises him for being 'the King of the Idiots' and for wanting to sleep with his sister. Just as Dan seems to be winning his little personal duel against Barley, things go wrong for him. The comedy is layered and warrants multiple watches. I have watched 'The Mighty Boosh' last week to see what all the fuss was about. I personally believe Nathan Barley to be a far better comedy. More development of characters, better use of language, more money spent on design, interesting take on London society. Futuristic yet still very accessible, i recommend Nathan Barley to anyone. Even my dad managed a few laughs. It has catchphrases and songs, and games (Barley's take on paper, scissors, stones) and slogans (Suga Rape)and a high number of laughs per minute. It is worth buying the DVD just for the booklet of stencils and slogans and 'political comments' which accompanies it. Futures yeah! Would have been nice if Vince Noir (off 'the Mighty Boosh') had been given a better part. If Peep Show was the comedy of 2004, in the words of Ricky Gervais, perhaps Nathan Barley will end up being the new comedy of 2005. Believe.