Having heard about this "prize-winning comedy" (a description the BBC seems unable to separate from the show's title) I tuned to see what it was all about.
I'm no curmudgeon. I love to laugh as much as anyone. I just found myself asking why I was being asked to find this funny. An old lady who swears like a truck driver, a snob who tells everyone off for their lack of manners then breaks wind at a funeral, a couple who are disgusted at finding "dried shitache(sic) mushrooms" in the soup at a restaurant. Just to take the last example, what am I supposed to laugh at here: the couple's ignorance of new food fads, the mispronunciation of 'shitake', or am I just supposed to feel smug because I know what is really meant by 'shitache'?
My wife (a teacher) tells me Lauren the bored teenager is all too typical of her students, but she was truly offended by sketches showing a woman with red hair having to enter a 'ginger refuge' where she could be with similarly afflicted people and kept safe from the prejudices of the outside world. Our son has red hair and throughout his school life was a convenient scapegoat because he stood out in a crowd. If he was bullied on account of his colouring and stood up for himself it was always his fault because we 'know' redheads have bad tempers. This 'comic' scenario left a very nasty impression.
I think the trouble today is that humour has to be seen to be terribly 'clever' and 'ironic' - you have to be able to get the joke behind the joke. I prefer the days when comedians were funny just because they were funny: Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson and - if you wanted character comedy sketches - Dick Emery, whose characters were broad without being spiteful.
I won't be watching Ms Tate again.
I'm no curmudgeon. I love to laugh as much as anyone. I just found myself asking why I was being asked to find this funny. An old lady who swears like a truck driver, a snob who tells everyone off for their lack of manners then breaks wind at a funeral, a couple who are disgusted at finding "dried shitache(sic) mushrooms" in the soup at a restaurant. Just to take the last example, what am I supposed to laugh at here: the couple's ignorance of new food fads, the mispronunciation of 'shitake', or am I just supposed to feel smug because I know what is really meant by 'shitache'?
My wife (a teacher) tells me Lauren the bored teenager is all too typical of her students, but she was truly offended by sketches showing a woman with red hair having to enter a 'ginger refuge' where she could be with similarly afflicted people and kept safe from the prejudices of the outside world. Our son has red hair and throughout his school life was a convenient scapegoat because he stood out in a crowd. If he was bullied on account of his colouring and stood up for himself it was always his fault because we 'know' redheads have bad tempers. This 'comic' scenario left a very nasty impression.
I think the trouble today is that humour has to be seen to be terribly 'clever' and 'ironic' - you have to be able to get the joke behind the joke. I prefer the days when comedians were funny just because they were funny: Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson and - if you wanted character comedy sketches - Dick Emery, whose characters were broad without being spiteful.
I won't be watching Ms Tate again.