Television - Andrew Billen on a new American sitcom that breaks taboos

Do you remember your dawning realisation that the Seinfeld ensemble were actually not very nice people, that Jerry was every kind of dating snob, that George's meanness was no joke, that Elaine's feistiness was mainly aggression and that Kramer was probably not only insane, but criminally insane? The four ended up on trial for their misdeeds. In the final episode, the show that was ostensibly "about nothing" condemned them for caring about nothing but themselves, which was why they ended up both romantically and physically alone with only one another for company, in jail.

Turning up on BBC4 now, of all places, comes Curb Your Enthusiasm (Wednesdays, 10.30pm) a cultish sitcom by, about and starring Seinfeld's co-creator and chief writer, the former stand-up Larry David. The source of the Seinfeld unpleasantness is revealed to be Larry David himself. Here we see the worst traits of the Seinfeld characters encapsulated in David himself: his misanthropy, misogyny, obsessiveness about hygiene, intolerance of old people and, just to add something new, materialism. He does not even have Jerry Seinfeld's looks and youth on his side. David is bald, bespectacled and 55.

Although in its documentary realism and its use of celebrities, such as Ted Danson, to guy themselves, the comedy resembles The Larry Sanders Show more than anything, its plots bear comparison with Seinfeld's beautifully meshed storylines. The plots' points, mostly minor social faux pas, intricately converge by the end of an episode to ensure David's humiliation. Larry David's days end unfairly with him looking morally shabbier than when they began. He is a bad man, but not as bad as the obstacle course of banana skins make him appear.

In the first episode of the two shown on Wednesday, an innocent bunching in David's trousers gives rise to the misunderstanding that he has an erection when being innocently stroked by a friend of his wife's in the cinema. Meanwhile, the Jewish-refugee parents of his agent have overheard him referring to his wife as "Hitler" and believe he is a racist ("It was a rotten thing to say!"). Back in the cinema, David has skirmished with his best friend's new girlfriend without realising who she is. All the parties end up in a fashionable restaurant together, where an innocent remark about the restaurant's owner ("I love to see black entrepreneurship." "What does that mean?") becomes further proof of his racism.

The story is moved along by the most idiotic carnival music, as if we are watching silent comedy. In fact, the humour could not be subtler or more verbal. Yet Curb Your Enthusiasm's breakthrough is to have done away with the banks of scriptwriters traditionally employed by American sitcoms and rely instead, once an outline for each scene has been drafted, on the actors' improvisations.

The result was seen at its best in the row between David and his friend, the comedian Richard Lewis, over his new girl. Lewis throws everything on to the pyre of his self-pity over David's antipathy towards her. He has "never" been mar-ried and is "a little" in love with her, she knows seven languages, he is a recovering alcoholic, his cholesterol level is 272, he does not "need" this . . . He expects a phone call of apology by "sundown" and, when David wants to know if he is talking to Gary Cooper, without straying out of character, Lewis concedes he is trying not to laugh. The exchange recalls the wonderful improvisations of Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks on their 2,000-Year-Old Man albums, which were rightly mentioned by Mark Lamarr in his excellent new documentary series Stand-Up America (BBC2, Saturdays, 10.25pm).

Indeed, Curb Your Enthusiasm proves the Lamarr thesis that American stand-up has taken over the world. It also illustrates the continuing dominance of Jewish humour. Of 11 writers of Sid Caesar's Show of Shows in the late 1950s, ten were Jewish men. So, obviously, is David, although, being as insensitive to history as to everything else, he can call his wife Hitler without the slightest sense that he is breaking a taboo. If Jewish humour originally came out of oppression, Curb Your Enthusiasm burlesques what happens when a self-hating Jew becomes rich and successful: he still feels rotten about himself.

In Hollywood circles, everyone is asking whether Curb Your Enthusiasm is a comedy at all or another form of reality television comparable to the damaging self-exposures of The Osbournes or The Anna Nicole Show. The similarities are certainly there on paper. The TV Larry David is Seinfeld's co-creator, his office wall sports the poster of his real-life flop movie Sour Grapes, he drives the same car he does in real life and his screen wife, Cheryl (Cheryl Hines), is, like his off-screen wife, an environmental activist. On the other hand, the real Mrs David is called Laura and, unlike the screen couple, they have two children.

The second episode was more contrived and less funny than the first, but the premier of the third season on HBO, which I caught last autumn in America, was excellent and deserved to win the Golden Globe in its category. The best British comparison is with The Office and, if it is not as good as that, it is not far off, either. Between Larry David and David Brent lies the choice between a louse and a flea.

Andrew Billen is a staff writer on the Times

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