Documentary Now! somehow manages to invent a sport even more brutal than boxing

When I first sit down to an episode of Documentary Now!, I often find myself a little bit distracted: half immersed in the reality the show is weaving—the style of the credits, the music, the look of the fake-distressed film-stock or tape, all those little details that make this show so rewarding for the attentive viewer—and half waiting for whatever the big turn of the night’s installment is going to be. It’s a natural outgrowth of the show’s status as a sort of hyper-focused, extended take on sketch comedy, predicated, as it so often is, on taking normal reality and giving it one particular, absurdist twist.

I didn’t have to spend long doing that with “How They Threw Rocks,” though, because said turn arrives swiftly, and with all the clarity of a massive stone being chucked at someone’s head. Because…it’s a stone, getting chucked at a guy’s head, a.k.a. our introduction to the exciting Welsh sport of Craig Maes. As explained, first by the irreplaceable Helen Mirren, and then by the talking heads in the doc itself, Craig Maes (literally: “Field rock”) is the time-honored sport of two men standing in a sheep pen, throwing rocks as hard as they can at one another until one can no longer stand.

The joke here isn’t subtle, and doesn’t especially need to be: In somehow creating a sport even more brutal than boxing—that sweet science where the goal is to turn off the other person’s brain by punching it as hard as you can, sweetly, and scientifically—credited writer Seth Meyers deftly highlights the absurdity of intellectualizing a sport rooted in raw and vicious violence. Which is exactly what boxing pundits like Norman Mailer and George Plimpton have so frequently done over the years, and specifically (and, undeniably, entertainingly) in Oscar-winning boxing doc When We Were Kings, the inspiration for tonight’s outing. As we periodically cut back to Jonathan Pryce and John Rhys-Davies as two Craig Maes commentators, crafting poetry about “The Melon And The Felon,” the sounds of rocks thudding and cracking on torsos and heads—beautiful foley work tonight, as it happens—regularly remind us that we’re not just talking about bloodsport here, but a particularly goofy version of one.

Meanwhile, where documentarian Leon Gast—who spent decades working to craft hundreds of hours of footage captured before, after, and during 1974's famed “Rumble In The Jungle” into a cohesive film—had Muhammad Ali as his charismatic central subject, Meyers (and usual episode directors Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono) has Alwyn “Allie” Lewis-Ifans (Trystan Gravelle). The parallels between the two fast-talking, loyalty-inspiring men are obvious, albeit heightened to absurdity: Whereas Ali lost his heavyweight title because he refused to be drafted to fight in Vietnam, Allie loses his own championship status because he put an unrepentant sheep-thief into a coma with a well-thrown rock. (Sir Tom Jones, apparently cast in the episode solely to give it claim to true Welsh superstar status, rues having to arrest him for such a righteous “crime.”)

Gravelle (who’ll be familiar to audiences from recent turns in The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, A Discovery Of Witches, and The Terror) acquits himself perfectly well in the part, gifting Lewis-Ifans with the scoundrel’s blend of ego and charm necessary to capture a little bit of the Ali appeal. Only a little, mind you: This is one of those times where Doc Now! has set itself an unenviable, possibly impossible task, in trying to channel some portion of the power Ali commanded in 1974, riding the line between living symbol and simply being the funniest, smartest, toughest guy in any room you might care to name.

At the same time, the show runs into a problem it often hits, and which is more-or-less baked into its whole concept: That teensy, sitcom-style run-time. (There’s the reason it pulls those regular two-parters when all involved are feeling especially ambitious.) Condensing the story structure of a full sports doc down into 20 minutes is a brutal thing to do at the best of times; here, that means shoving Lewis-Ifans’ opponent, the taciturn Sior Strawboss (Sam C. Lewis) firmly into the background for most of the episode. There’s also no room for any of the wider cultural explorations that are a key part of When We Were Kings, as it looks at what Ali was trying to do with all this self-promotional bluster; instead, Meyers cherry-picks just a few elements: The Ali parallels, the blustering talking heads, and, of course, the fight itself.

Which, credit where it’s due, manages to pull that magic trick that really good boxing films can: Finding some genuine nobility in footage of men trying to hurt each other extremely badly while people around them cheer. It helps that all involved have the actual structure of “The Rumble In The Jungle” to pull from. Where Ali leveraged his brain against George Foreman’s brawn with the legendary rope-a-dope, Lewis-Ifans goes for a slightly less cerebral strategy to battle a younger, stronger opponent: Turning around and “turtling,” taking 519 free shots to the back, then knocking his now-exhausted opponent out with a couple of quick rocks to the head. (And then intentionally disqualifying himself, because he was determined to both win and throw the match on behalf of his bookies.)

In comparing this week’s episode to last week’s “Two Hairdressers In Bagglyport,” I’m inclined to note that I’m much happier with an episode of this show that’s less beholden to its source documentary, rather than moreso. “How They Threw Rocks” derives a few of its jokes, and a decent chunk of its shots, from deliberate riffs on Kings, but it’s much happier sketching out its weird little world of enthusiastic Welsh sportsmen and bickering commentators. (Pryce and Rhys-Davies are both unsurprisingly good, with Rhys-Davies’ Garth Davies-Gruffudd getting increasingly enraged at Pryce’s Owen Teale-Griffith efforts to craft witty little observations out of the stuff of sport.) It may not have the room to serve as a full reflection of When We Were Kings, but it’s a funny, silly story with just enough satirical heft to deliver a couple of solid jabs. Er, rocks.

Stray observations

• Doc Now!’s regular co-director, the Welsh Rhys Thomas, gets a namecheck in this extremely Welsh episode of TV, showing up as one of Lewis-Ifans’ hapless opponents in archival footage.
• Is this the silliest bit of introduction they’ve ever made Helen Mirren read? I would be fascinated to know what her experience of this show is, considering she presumably spends about an hour per season on set.
• Seriously, the foley. I couldn’t stop wincing every time a rock connected.
• From a strict comedy point of view, Rhys-Davies and Pryce are the stars of the episode; their sniping about whether to call the fight “The Melon And The Felon” or “The Quarrel At The Corral” is especially good. (Pryce is right: “Corral” is too much of a stretch.)
• That ’70s TV sports intro for Craig Maes 1974 is just a pure shot of dopamine to the brain, huh?
• I love the little touches added to Craig Maes as a “sport,” especially the narrowing of the pen each round to ensure harder hits. (It’s fun to imagine Meyers coming up with the rules for this incredibly stupid game.)
• Anyone else get flashbacks to The Kids In The Hall’s “Shirling” throughout the episode?
• I know Rhys-Davies has taken some heat for being an old conservative grump in recent years, but hearing him take a chunk out of a word like “masochistic” here remains a thing of beauty.
• As far as I can tell, that’s an original poem Allie recites.
• “And when he’d finished, I turned to Garth and said, ‘It’s not a poem…it’s an elegy.’”
  “And I said, ‘Shut the fuck up, will you? Just for once, shut the fuck up!’”
• And that’s a wrap, friends. See you next week for “My Monkey Grifter,” a take on 2020's My Octopus Teacher.