Reviews of Varan-TV (1997) and related work
- Sequel: Varan-TV: Stories (2022)
Varan-TV (1997
) – previously
Sketch comedy in the style of Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969). It was a hit with my generation in Sweden, and for good reason.
References here: Riget (1994).
‣ Varan-TV: Stories (2022)
Seen in 2022.
Kidnapped by a fan with a suicide bomb, all seven members of the original Varanteatern are forced to produce new material to save their captor’s romantic dream of recapturing his youth with Malena.
The most entertaining part of the crowdfunding campaign for this production is the detail that one of the members, Olof Wallberg, has become a teacher at Polhem High School in Lund: The same school where the troupe formed as students. There is no better way to symbolize middle-aged men trying to recapture their youth like The World’s End (2013) than teaching at their old school.
The troupe has lost the hard edges of youth: The aggression and scattershot zaniness of the original series. In their place, they’ve become more reflective. Jonas Sykfont, the guy who was seen spitting on a fan’s autograph pad in the opening to the 1997 series, now exudes the same gentle masculinity as Per Fritzell did in En himla många program (1989), and it is good. The TV parodies are still funny, they just carry an undertone that comes with understanding the medium on a deeper level after 25 years.