Post by Teddy Bear on Jan 23, 2011 1:35:01 GMT
In its constant attempt at social engineering the BBC strays again from its remit. In this instance a privately educated BBC controller says it makes too many comedy sitcoms about well-off families and needs more 'blue collar' shows.
As the author of this article explains quite succinctly that what people really want is good humour, and each class depicted can be shown in a humorous way which can be appreciated across the board, be it Yes Minister or Only Fools and Horses. This controller really shows the ignorance that is so prevalent at the BBC, and clearly takes his job title too literally.
As the author of this article explains quite succinctly that what people really want is good humour, and each class depicted can be shown in a humorous way which can be appreciated across the board, be it Yes Minister or Only Fools and Horses. This controller really shows the ignorance that is so prevalent at the BBC, and clearly takes his job title too literally.
Blue collar comedy? How patronising, foolish and old-fashioned
By Jeremy Lloyd
Last updated at 11:02 PM on 22nd January 2011
A producer friend of mine recently sent the BBC a script for a new comedy I have written called Care Of The Savoy. It’s about two businessmen rather down on their luck thanks to the credit crunch.
Once regular guests at the Savoy Hotel, they have been reduced to living in cardboard boxes by the tradesman’s entrance where they are looked after by staff who remember them from better-off days. They had been very good tippers.
Word came back that the BBC exec¬utives had found it funny, which was gratifying, but that it was not ‘blue collar enough’, which was both disappointing and puzzling. I had never heard of blue collar comedy.
Now, though, I am starting to understand. According to information leaked to The Mail on Sunday, the new BBC1 controller, Danny Cohen, is worried that the Corporation and its comedy are ‘too middle class’.
He believes the current offerings, including shows such as My Family and the sharply observed Outnumbered, do not reflect the country as a whole, especially in the current austere climate.
As a result, he is launching a drive for comedy that he believes will reflect ordinary life – shows such as Bread or Birds Of A Feather.
Don’t get me wrong, both programmes were fantastic and deserved their
success. But they were successful because they were funny, not because they focused on a certain class or section of society.
Danny Cohen is missing the point. Comedy is not about the differences between us – rather it is the glue that holds us all together.
Someone with money can laugh at the same things as someone without it. We can all enjoy watching Mrs Bouquet, a woman constantly trying to be better than she is in Keeping Up Appearances, just as we can all appreciate the Royles, a family conspicuously short of social airs or graces.
In the same way, we can laugh at Yes Minister just as loudly as we laugh at Only Fools And Horses. They are shows that can be enjoyed by everyone.
The definition of a good comedy is quite simple. It relies on good writing, good acting and a good ear for dialogue.
Experience and observation help, of course. When I wrote Are You Being Served?, it was based on the three years I spent working at Simpsons, the grand department store in Piccadilly.
I started out by helping arrange the displays before moving up to work as a salesman – albeit a salesman banned from the third-floor ladies department because of too much flirting.
The pneumatic Miss Brahms was not just a figment of my imagination.
But a good eye is a good eye whichever side of the tracks you are born – or choose to write about. To single out the working classes is not just wrong, it is patronising.
It is also terribly old-fashioned. It is not the case that there are only two social groups in this country, one with flat caps and the other sporting bowler hats.
In fact, after 50 years of writing comedy, I truly believe there is no such thing as class, only people.
It is a mistake, too, to assume that a setting, be it a housing estate or a mansion, is what defines the humour on offer.
Mr Cohen has reportedly concluded that Porridge, starring the late Ronnie Barker, is the sort of ‘blue collar comedy’ that we need.
Porridge is certainly funny, but is it working class? There is an argument to say that it has a rather sanitised, middle-class view of life in jail – a comedy of manners in a Victorian nick.
Or take The Good Life, another enormous success in its day. Did it promote the woolly idealism of the middle classes, or make them look absurd? Or was it just plain funny?
Humour is universal. German broadcasters, for example, bought the rights to broadcast 80 episodes of ’Allo ’Allo! two years ago, despite its wartime setting and relentless – if gentle – mockery of all nations, including the Germans.
It is an example of the open-mindedness that I feel is draining out of the BBC, or some parts of it at any rate.
Other countries, by the way, do not seem obsessed with class in the way that we are – or in the way people such as Danny Cohen think we are.
My own origins are middle class, but I have done so many working-class jobs in my life, including digging the roads, that I sometimes struggle to make sense of the distinction.
Friends often tell me how much their grandchildren enjoy Are You Being Served?. It doesn’t matter that they were not even born when it was broadcast, or that they belong to a very different world. Laughter crosses boundaries of class and age.
Nor is the woeful state of our economy a reason to focus on blue-collar Britain.
At times of difficulty we want to be taken out of ourselves, to laugh, to enjoy flights of fantasy. We do not always want to see our lives reflected back at us. That is what soap operas are for.
I quite understand the wish to cater for all viewers. The BBC is publicly funded, after all, and must do its best to give us value for our money. It is true, also, that not every show will be to everyone’s taste.
But you cannot write comedy through social engineering. Television is in enough trouble as it is without having to overcome prejudices about class.
The BBC has become a sort of monolith in which only the views of the commissioning editors are accepted.
Yes, there are creative people in the Corporation, but I am sorry to say they are not the ones who make decisions any more.
I am also fairly confident that the white-collar executives who make these choices are not people burdened with the greatest sense of humour.
In the past they gave writers a chance. First there was the script, then they would make a pilot and next, and most crucially, would give the show a run.
Now, as I understand it, they sit the writers down and tell them to read out the script. That is as far as most people get.
I was lucky enough to write when there were few such restrictions. I was not expected to reflect the working, middle or upper classes.
I was simply expected to write something that was funny. It’s comedy, not politics, after all. Danny Cohen would do well to remember that.
By Jeremy Lloyd
Last updated at 11:02 PM on 22nd January 2011
A producer friend of mine recently sent the BBC a script for a new comedy I have written called Care Of The Savoy. It’s about two businessmen rather down on their luck thanks to the credit crunch.
Once regular guests at the Savoy Hotel, they have been reduced to living in cardboard boxes by the tradesman’s entrance where they are looked after by staff who remember them from better-off days. They had been very good tippers.
Word came back that the BBC exec¬utives had found it funny, which was gratifying, but that it was not ‘blue collar enough’, which was both disappointing and puzzling. I had never heard of blue collar comedy.
Now, though, I am starting to understand. According to information leaked to The Mail on Sunday, the new BBC1 controller, Danny Cohen, is worried that the Corporation and its comedy are ‘too middle class’.
He believes the current offerings, including shows such as My Family and the sharply observed Outnumbered, do not reflect the country as a whole, especially in the current austere climate.
As a result, he is launching a drive for comedy that he believes will reflect ordinary life – shows such as Bread or Birds Of A Feather.
Don’t get me wrong, both programmes were fantastic and deserved their
success. But they were successful because they were funny, not because they focused on a certain class or section of society.
Danny Cohen is missing the point. Comedy is not about the differences between us – rather it is the glue that holds us all together.
Someone with money can laugh at the same things as someone without it. We can all enjoy watching Mrs Bouquet, a woman constantly trying to be better than she is in Keeping Up Appearances, just as we can all appreciate the Royles, a family conspicuously short of social airs or graces.
In the same way, we can laugh at Yes Minister just as loudly as we laugh at Only Fools And Horses. They are shows that can be enjoyed by everyone.
The definition of a good comedy is quite simple. It relies on good writing, good acting and a good ear for dialogue.
Experience and observation help, of course. When I wrote Are You Being Served?, it was based on the three years I spent working at Simpsons, the grand department store in Piccadilly.
I started out by helping arrange the displays before moving up to work as a salesman – albeit a salesman banned from the third-floor ladies department because of too much flirting.
The pneumatic Miss Brahms was not just a figment of my imagination.
But a good eye is a good eye whichever side of the tracks you are born – or choose to write about. To single out the working classes is not just wrong, it is patronising.
It is also terribly old-fashioned. It is not the case that there are only two social groups in this country, one with flat caps and the other sporting bowler hats.
In fact, after 50 years of writing comedy, I truly believe there is no such thing as class, only people.
It is a mistake, too, to assume that a setting, be it a housing estate or a mansion, is what defines the humour on offer.
Mr Cohen has reportedly concluded that Porridge, starring the late Ronnie Barker, is the sort of ‘blue collar comedy’ that we need.
Porridge is certainly funny, but is it working class? There is an argument to say that it has a rather sanitised, middle-class view of life in jail – a comedy of manners in a Victorian nick.
Or take The Good Life, another enormous success in its day. Did it promote the woolly idealism of the middle classes, or make them look absurd? Or was it just plain funny?
Humour is universal. German broadcasters, for example, bought the rights to broadcast 80 episodes of ’Allo ’Allo! two years ago, despite its wartime setting and relentless – if gentle – mockery of all nations, including the Germans.
It is an example of the open-mindedness that I feel is draining out of the BBC, or some parts of it at any rate.
Other countries, by the way, do not seem obsessed with class in the way that we are – or in the way people such as Danny Cohen think we are.
My own origins are middle class, but I have done so many working-class jobs in my life, including digging the roads, that I sometimes struggle to make sense of the distinction.
Friends often tell me how much their grandchildren enjoy Are You Being Served?. It doesn’t matter that they were not even born when it was broadcast, or that they belong to a very different world. Laughter crosses boundaries of class and age.
Nor is the woeful state of our economy a reason to focus on blue-collar Britain.
At times of difficulty we want to be taken out of ourselves, to laugh, to enjoy flights of fantasy. We do not always want to see our lives reflected back at us. That is what soap operas are for.
I quite understand the wish to cater for all viewers. The BBC is publicly funded, after all, and must do its best to give us value for our money. It is true, also, that not every show will be to everyone’s taste.
But you cannot write comedy through social engineering. Television is in enough trouble as it is without having to overcome prejudices about class.
The BBC has become a sort of monolith in which only the views of the commissioning editors are accepted.
Yes, there are creative people in the Corporation, but I am sorry to say they are not the ones who make decisions any more.
I am also fairly confident that the white-collar executives who make these choices are not people burdened with the greatest sense of humour.
In the past they gave writers a chance. First there was the script, then they would make a pilot and next, and most crucially, would give the show a run.
Now, as I understand it, they sit the writers down and tell them to read out the script. That is as far as most people get.
I was lucky enough to write when there were few such restrictions. I was not expected to reflect the working, middle or upper classes.
I was simply expected to write something that was funny. It’s comedy, not politics, after all. Danny Cohen would do well to remember that.