Selling out is no laughing matter

When I was a teenager I had a couple of mates who were ‘music snobs’.

They knew a lot about the indie scene and would eulogise about bands of which the rest of us had never heard.

Then, when they’d made it big and we had heard of them my mates would drop them like a copy of the Daily Mail from the hands of a socialist.

“They’ve sold out,” they always said. I always had mixed views on that stance. On the one hand I admired them for liking the music in its raw state before producers got hold of it; while on the other I thought the band members wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it now they were raking in the royalties.

I now know – in a strange way – what my mates were going through. I’ve realised I’ve become a ‘comedy snob’.

Down the years I’ve seen and heard many up-and-coming stand-ups at small clubs and pubs or on obscure radio shows; some were never seen again. Others impressed me so much I would follow them to further smaller venues and delight in their burgeoning reputation.

Yet last night, as three such comedians – Miranda Hart, Marcus Brigstocke and Paul Merton – came together on Have I Got News For You, I felt a tinge of envy that others could now share in the joy they had brought me.

There had been some kudos in knowing that, how ever many years ago it was, if I had said their names to my nearest and dearest they would have shrugged and said “never ‘eard of ‘em”. I suppose there’s an element of one-upmanship involved.

But, with the advantage of maturity – and the knowledge that I could do bugger all about it – the envy passed quickly and I realised that who am I to even subconsciously deny anybody else the joy these people can bring into our lives.

There have been others whose name I noted when they were on the bottom rung of the comedy ladder – but I’m now glad to say they’ve made it big and are delighting millions of people through radio, comedy and DVDs (yes, they’ve ‘sold out!’).

People like Mark Watson, Frank Skinner, Punt & Dennis, Jim Tavare, Patrick Kielty, Milton Jones, John Oliver and Rufus Hound, all had an immediate effect on me when I first heard them. And yes, I’m glad they’ve made it to the top of the tree.

And I hope that the likes of Tony Cowards and Patrick Monahan are soon just as well known. It’ll be great to be able to tell people that I think they’ve ‘sold out’…

Comedy's breath of fresh air

Miranda Hart - such fun!

If you know me well – and I can only assume you must do if you’re prepared to read this tripe – then you will know I love my comedy.

Whether it’s the slapstick antics of Laurel and Hardy, the unforgettable vintage radio half-hours of Hancock, The Goons and Round the Horne, the stand-up of Max Miller or Mark Watson, or the TV comedy from Dad’s Army through to Scrubs, I have a passion for the stuff that makes us laugh.

So last night it was with childish glee that my beloved and I queued up in freezing temperatures outside BBC TV Centre in Wood Lane, to be members of the audience for the Christmas episode of the wonderful Miranda.

Wonderful? Yes, wonderful. It might not be the critics’ favourite but that’s because it’s a throwback to more gentle times. The eponymous Ms Hart is a breath of fresh air in the current comedic climate.

Unpretentious, self-deprecating and a master – or should that be mistress? – of the slapstick turn, she exudes a feel-good factor which evidently rubs off on fellow cast members who appear to enjoy making the show as much as we enjoy watching it.

No bad language, few sexual references, just a rich panoply of embarrassing scenarios, misfortunes and neuroses to which many of us – male or female – can relate.

It is what I call very funny. Such fun…

■ If you’ve yet to discover the joy of Miranda, watch BBC2 8.30pm today. You won’t regret it. Oh, and she's from Petersfield. Hurrah!

■ Check out a recent interview with Miranda Hart here.

Comedians on the road to career change?

Comedians seem to be branching out.

On the way to Birmingham today we passed a coach from a company called A&J Carr and a lorry belonging to Fry Transport.

Now there's a funny thing...

Hello, my name's Jules and this is my friend Sandy...

"'Ere, Mister 'Orne..."

I’m a big fan of BBC Radio 7, the DAB station which outputs a load of vintage radio comedy shows.

I’m also keen on the 6.30pm comedy slot on BBC Radio 4, but in recent weeks the contrast between the two has been palpable.

Take Tuesday’s Radio 4 output – Too Much Information – and the 8am slot this morning on Radio 7, Round the Horne.

The latter episode was 42 years old and still makes me chortle; the former, which claims to be a comedy based in a tourist information office, simply made me shake my head in disbelief. I’ve heard funnier news bulletins.

What is it that commissioning editors look for currently in new shows? One would hope it was humour, but that clearly is no longer a pre-requisite.

Shows of the quality of Round the Horne would, quite simply, never be given the go-ahead in the BBC of the 21st century. It’s far too concerned with being politically correct, and inoffensive – the BBC’s ‘fun police’ are the broadcasting equivalent of the health and safety executive.

Round the Horne is too near the knuckle; too dangerous; too camp; just too damned funny.

Take this morning’s episode. Kenneth Horne is a special agent and catches Robin Day trying to climb the BBC’s equivalent of the Berlin Wall.

“I’m trying to defect over the wall,” explains Bill Pertwee as Day.

“Well,” says Horne, slowly,, in that wonderful deep brown voice, “it’s a clever trick if you can do it.”

It requires the art of innuendo – and it is an art in its highest form – and, in the listener, a decent command of the English language.

Perhaps that’s the answer. The general population is no longer able to appreciate clever or subtle humour so we get programmes devoid of any form of it.

Too many of today’s shows pander to the lowest common denominator. And I’m not saying that because I’m in my 40s. I can see why the younger generation would like things like We Are Klang. I’ve laughed at it myself, despite the fact it’s not aimed at the likes of me.

But the BBC wouldn’t let Round the Horne through these days for myriad reasons, not least for fear sketches like Jules and Sandy might offend homosexuals or that minors might be corrupted by the cordwanglings of Rambling Syd Rumpo.

Rambing Syd was completely inoffensive; it’s only in the mind of the listener that it becomes suggestive. A classic example of the British love of innuendo.

And as for Jules and Sandy, Kenneth Williams was as camp as a row of tents in real life and if he had no problems playing the part why should people be offended by hearing it?

Indeed one of the biggest Round the Horne fans I know is a gay woman. She loves it. And she’s quite keen on Round the Horne… did you see what I did there?

The gist of what I’m trying to say is that anybody out there with a modicum of comedic writing skill should be haranguing the BBC with anything they’ve penned. And anybody with an interest in enjoying comedy should be haranguing the BBC to commission some decent stuff without running it past the fun police first.

It's shocking to think that had the current climate been prevailing 30, 40 and 50 years ago we would never have had Round the Horne, Are You Being Served, It Ain't 'Alf Hot Mum, Til Death Us Do Part, The Goon Show, Monty Python's Flying Circus and many other great comedy shows.

It doesn't bear thinking about.


*And if you’re really interested in following my advice, the controller of BBC comedy commissioning is Cheryl Taylor (http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/network/genres/comedy.shtml)

And now for something completely different

Today is the 150th anniversary of the death of one of my heroes: Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Obviously I never met him, though I have taken to wearing a stovepipe hat and growing mutton-chop whiskers. I draw the line at smoking cigars the size of Mother Teresa, however.

His work can still be seen today all over the south and west of England and his influence is tangible worldwide.

As a fellow son of Portsmouth I’m immensely proud of his achievements. Personally, I never quite mastered Meccano, so, as you can imagine, my admiration is boundless.

One date I missed, however – as it would seem did an awful lot of people – was the 40th anniversary of the first recording of the seminal Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which took place on September 7, 1969.

Maybe more will be made of the 40th anniversary of the first airing on October 5.

Python wasn’t of course universally popular when it launched. It seems bizarre now, but there were some in the BBC who were outraged by it.

And certainly there was no chance of me as a six-year-old being allowed to see it. Indeed, it wasn’t until I was well into my teens that I first watched an episode.

I would imagine I wasn’t alone. In those days there were things called long-playing records (LPs) and much of Python’s catalogue was released on this format allowing the crackly pirate recordings of same on cassette tape to be passed around my school with the same reverence as the centre-fold spread in a girlie magazine.

Live at Drury Lane even saw the use of the F-word – our parents would have been outraged. It was mainly the boys who were taken with this humour; girls didn’t seem to ‘get’ it. And, I fear, if SWMBO is an example of the modern female generation, nothing has changed in 40 years.

Now, the Oxbridge team who, along with the anarchic Goons changed the course of British comedy, are far from outrageous – indeed they have become mainstream. The DVD of the very first series carries a 12 rating.

Does this mean society has lower standards today? Or simply we’re more tolerant of irreverence? What it undoubtedly does mean is that 12-year-olds in 2009 are lucky little sods, because I never got to watch this sort of brilliance at the same age. When I was their age I was already 19!

But today’s 12-year-olds won’t want to see it. It’s not ‘in yer face’ enough; it requires too much thought; and a great deal of imagination.

Today’s 12-year-olds wouldn’t see anything funny in Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky producing a painting while cycling up the A3 past the Tolworth roundabout – yes, that classic was in the very first episode.

Closeted in my bedroom with my woolly old cassette player, Python introduced me to names I’d previously not heard of; it was an education: Picasso, Kandinsky, Henri Bergson, René Descartes, Sir Kenneth Clarke and Jack Bodell.

Python didn’t play to the lowest common denominator.

Forty years on the standards have indeed been lowered; but not socially, merely in the quality of comedy on offer.

I can’t imagine clandestine exchanges of VHS copies of My Family taking place in comprehensive schools nationwide, can you?