BBC’s tawdry comedy of errors fails to raise a chuckle
The youths of today, they think they’ve got it all, that they know it all, when the truth is they really don’t know what they are missing.
Sure, they’ve missed out on the bad bits – like rickets, bottles of warm milk at break-time and Wings. But there are the good bits, too, like intermittent sobriety, British cherries and politicians who dressed as bad as your dad. It was a world without Subway, world without end …
Then there are the really good bits – the stars of our small screen, the magic people who appeared after the telly had been “warmed up,” characters like Fletcher (Norman Stanley), Rigsby (Mr), and George and Mildred Roper, of Hampton Wick.
The comedy could be hit and miss (terminally in the case of the latter, probably never in the case of the former two shows). But as one read the closing credits and listened to the jaunty theme tunes, a collective inner glow cloaked the souls of those gathered in the front room. A celebratory packet of Wagon Wheels might be cracked open to mark a night of pleasurable home viewing.
Not so today. There are no comedy shows that a family can sit down and watch together. Absolutely none. Zilchamundo.
The question then over the whole Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand debacle is not so much “why?” as “why did it take so long?” Specifically, “why exactly did it take so long for someone to get steamed up about this tripe?”
The BBC’s light entertainment or “comedy” out-put has been infested with coarseness for years now. I am thinking about any number of the interminable panel shows with apparently “edgy” comedians who say hilarious things like: “I wouldn’t mind shagging that, Gary.”
There are the limp, one-trick pony sketch shows, like Little Britain, and the pitiful Little Britain Does America Large thingy, which reportedly earn its “stars,” Matt Lucas and David Walliams, £6 million over three years.
Now I like a smutty joke as much as the next chap and marvel at the comic form of the limerick (“There was a young woman from Crewe/With an unheathy appetite for stew …”).
But why is the Beeb sloshing out millions on this mediocrity when it can’t afford to go into bat and win Test match cricket for taxpaying terrestrial viewers? No cash for popular sport, but dosh for Ross, whose Friday night show was never as good as his Radio 2 show. And that wasn’t as good as he probably thought it was either.
The truth is the BBC has commissioned only one great comedy series (The Office) and one good one (Gavin and Stacey) in the last decade.
So, please, Auntie: find some fresh talent. We’ve had enough of Terry and June with Tourette’s.
