20 of the most absurdly funny quotes from Nathan Barley It might have been an under-the-radar ratings flop when it aired on late night Channel 4 back in 2005, but […]

It might have been an under-the-radar ratings flop when it aired on late night Channel 4 back in 2005, but Nathan Barley lives on in pop culture memory.

Thanks to its cult DVD success and easy availability on All 4, Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker’s innovative sitcom about an outrageously empty-headed but infuriatingly successful “self-facilitating media node” from the London borough of Hosegate (read: Shoreditch/Dalston) has left an uncannily prescient legacy.

The hipster attitude the six-part series was parodying has become absorbed into the mainstream, to the extent that we’ve all encountered versions of Nathan at bus stops, bars and creative agencies over the past 13 years.

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The nonsensical utterings of Barley (Nicholas Burns) and his fellow “idiots” at Sugar Ape Magazine may have infuriated his nemesis Dan Ashcroft (Julian Barratt), but here we take a look back at some of the show’s most brilliant lines.

‘The Rise of the Idiots’

The Nathan Barley character started life in a column called C*** on Brooker’s TVGoHome website, an outrageously witty parody of TV listings (sample entry: Nicky Campbell: Swimming With Cats).

Morris had guest-written listings for Brooker and suggested they collaborate on a show based on the East London hipster type that was starting to emerge in the early Noughties.

Ironically, having two of the sharpest minds in British comedy working on the script was partly why it wasn’t a ratings hit – it was probably a few years too far ahead of its time, predicting a a collective attention deficit disorder brought on by smartphones and viral videos.

“They babble into hand-held twit machines about that cool email of the woman being bummed by a wolf. Their friend made it. He’s an idiot too.”” – Dan, on the idiots

Whenever Dan encounters these idiots, which he does a lot, they’re impervious to his disdain:

Rufus Onslatt: Dan Ashcroft! “The Rise of the Idiots”. Awesome fu****’ opinions, dude.

Ned Smanks: Yeah, well plastic.

Rufus Onslatt: Laterz, dude.

Ned Smanks: Keep it foolish.

‘Geek pie’

While the writing was brilliant and the observations scalpel-sharp, the art of physical comedy wasn’t lost on Brooker and Morris either.

This is best exemplified in an infamous scene where Ashcroft inadvertently kills his barber’s cat, and thereby starts a new trend for the ‘Geek Pie’ hairstyle when he has to make a sharp exit.

Nathan, believing this to be the new hairstyle-du-jour, then goes into the barbers to request a “Geek pie”:

“It’s kind of long here, yeah, but short here like it’s been done at random, but if you look closely, eh, you can see that it hasn’t, ‘cept you can’t tell that… and it’s got a few of these in it, yeah paint… lids.”

And when he’s out and about with his new style, he points at his head and says to a passer-by: “Day the world changed, yeah.”

A one-man media empire

Nathan Barley is a walking, talking media start-up, as he keeps telling everyone:

“Check it out yeah, trashbat.co.ck, my web site. Dot cock yeah, registered in the Cook Islands.” “Check out my website, yeah? It’s well f***ing futile.” “It’s an online urban culture dispatch.” “I’m a self facilitating media node.” “It’s gonna be totally f***ing Mexico.” “It’s been out for three weeks in Japan. Where’s yours?”

‘Two columns’

Some of the scenes in the offices of Sugar Ape (a blatant dig at the likes of Vice) are among the show’s highlights. Featuring Charlie Condou as editor Jonatton Yeah? and a young Richard Ayoade as staffer Ned Smanks, the editorial conferences – during which Ashcroft sits ashen-faced – are utter genius.

Rufus: We should give Nathan Barley a column.

Ned: Yeah, we should give Nathan Barley a column.

Rufus: Yeah like call it…”Nathan Barley’s Column”?

Ned: Hey, let’s just call it “Barley”, yeah.

Rufus: Yeah, man, or like “Nathan”.

Ned: Yeah, cause like, that could be like two columns.

Dan: [sarcastic] Two columns.

Rufus: Yeah, and like maybe one would be better than the other one.

Ned: Yeah, yeah, and you’d only read the good one.

Dan: How would you tell which one was the good one?

Ned: Check ’em out. Direct comparison.

Rufus: Like, you’d read them both to find out which is the best one.

Ned: Yeah, and then you’d just read the good one.

Dan: Are we gonna’ do this?

Jonatton Yeah?: Yeah? OK.

Ned: [to Dan] Take the day off!

Rufus: Can we go home early?

Ned: I’m gonna’ do laps, basically, after that.

‘Dutch wine’

Brooker and Morris didn’t let the weekend supplements of the broadsheets off the hook either.

Dan Ashcroft (played by The Mighty Boosh’s Julian Barratt) is the epitome of the sardonic newspaper feature writer, paid handsome sums to write 5,000 word thinkpieces on London fashion tribes.

Ashcroft tries to land a gig at one such broadsheet, where they suggest he writes a wine column:

Newspaper commissioning editor: “Your top five supermarket wines?”

Dan: “French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French… err …Southern French. Danish.”

Editor: “French and Southern French?”

Dan: “Yeah. Em… Danish.”

Max: “The labels? Chateaux…”

Dan: “Yeah, the Côtes, Eau de Côte, Chateau Neuf. Any of the Papes – 97 through to 81… Is that alright?”

Unfortunately for Ashcroft, Dan has to turn to Sugar Ape for work, and is sent on gonzo-like assignments to cover social phenomena like “the stray scene”.

So Dan has more run-ins with the spaced-out Ned Smanks, played by a young Richard Ayoade:

Ned, on Dan’s article ‘Rise of the Idiots’: Oh yeah. I rate that easily the best thing I ever read.

Dan: What’s the second best thing you’ve ever read?

Ned: Like, books and shit?

‘Smoked salmon coffee’

Nathan and Dan’s paths cross frequently, despite the latter’s barely concealed disgust at everything Barley says. At least the cynical Ashcroft can make Barley do anything he says, as this coffee shop scene proves:

Nathan: “Dan! I read your piece about jerking off a builder. Well specious. You know it was partly my idea.”

Dan: “Get your coffee.”

Nathan: “Get you one as well yeah. Skinny ‘cino with… what’s your poison preach?”

Dan: “Black coffee please”

Nathan: “Actually I’ll get a black coffee as well yeah.”

Barista: “Sugar?”

Dan: “No thanks.”

Nathan: “No sugar for me either. Sugar’s rubbish.”

Dan: “Can I have one sugar please?”

Nathan: “Actually I’ll have sugar as well.”

Dan: “And can I have some scrambled egg in there as well please?”

Barista: “Egg?”

Dan: “Yeah”

Nathan: “Put some egg in mine as well.”

Dan: “Thank you. And some smoked salmon as well.”

Nathan: “Put some smoked salmon in mine too. This is mental.”

Nathan: “That piece on the Rise of the Idiots, awesome.”

Dan: “Thanks.”

Nathan: “Totally sums up my credos.”

“Keep it…”

Nathan Barley shows remarkable creativity in his greetings:

“Keep it foolish.” “Keep it livid.” “Keep it dense.” “Keep it chopped out, yeah?” “Keep it dusty.”

But it was Dan Ashcroft who summed up the show in one line:

“The idiots are winning.”

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