THIS paper’s TV critic is not a big fan of the BBC’s latest comedy.
Ally Ross has a history of slagging on BBC sitcoms – and the title Smoggie Queens alone would have him reaching for the smelling salts.
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Smoggie Queens was the latest disastrous sitcom brought to us by the defunct BBCCredit: PA
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Humour-phobic BBC director Tim Davie killed the corporation’s funny boneCredit: Getty
The Guardian, meanwhile, doing its best not to disparage it, gives it three stars for being nice, bless you, but wishes it had more jokes.
More jokes? What a revolutionary concept.
Only last summer, Jon Petrie, the BBC’s head of comedy, called on writers to be braver and come up with comics that make people laugh.
It was as if the head of Drama suddenly demanded that the scripts be more dramatic.
Let me puncture the Petrie bubble of blaming the writers.
None of his empire came close to Not Going Out, Blackadder, Little Britain or Fawlty Towers.
Even worse, none of them have any intention of aiming for the greats.
The death of comedy is no accident.
That’s on purpose.
It’s like the music industry ignoring Coldplay and releasing only 16th century choral music instead.
The many must come before the few.
What’s my beef? Well, Petrie passed on my five-star comedy series Hapless, first on Channel 4 and then again for a second series when it moved to the BBC, depriving the public of free access to my satire.
I had to put it on Amazon Prime. One caring, hardworking NHS nurse told me she couldn’t afford Prime.
Take the mic
That hit me in the stomach. Working nurses can’t afford Prime so Hapless can’t reach those on a budget.
It’s personal, yes, but personal because populist writers want to reach you, the people.
Instead, Jon Petrie’s reign included Black Ops, Juice and Smoggie Queens.
Forget industry awards, none of them have broken through to mainstream audiences.
Industry magazine Broadcast just reported that Smoggie did well with a (wait a minute!) 0.4 percent viewership share.
Jesus wept.
But it’s not Petrie who’s the problem. He’s just another commissioner who has no idea how to please a disgruntled, humorless crowd.
Comedy needs a blood transfusion that can save her life. Any self-imposed or Ofcom rules must go.
No, we won’t do comedies written by Scots or Northern Irish just because they live there.
No, we will not work specifically for black audiences or for menopausal women.
Not for the working class. We will make a comedy for everyone, wherever they live, whatever their religion or upbringing.
One clip from Hapless shows a Jewish journalist dressed as an imam, with a woman like Harry Potter’s Hermione, buying flavored condoms — from a Muslim shopkeeper who refuses to sell them because he doesn’t want to make grooming easier.
That clip was posted two weeks ago and has had 3.5 million views, tens of thousands of favorites.
And you know from whom? Well, everyone, including young Muslims.
That. Young British Muslims get satire. Why not make them part of the inclusive British experience?
That would be healthy and healing. Inclusivity does not mean making a Muslim sitcom.
That means making a sitcom that Muslims will find just as funny as non-Muslims.
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The BBC’s head of comedy passed on my comedy series Hapless with five stars
Astounding, it must be said.
The purpose of satire is to take idiots out.
Or strong bs. It gives us hope to see those we envy or dislike brought down by comedy.
It fulfills a key role. The ancient Greeks knew this.
The TV satire Do I Have News for You became smiley and self-satisfied.
The original Spitting Image annoyed the politicians mercilessly, but HIGNFY invites them as guests.
South Park did something rotten for Harry and Meghan. Where did we stop?
The dollar ends with . . . well, with Tim Davie, Director General of the BBC, who incredibly turned down Hapless when it was offered for 1/100th the price of a BBC sitcom!
Davie is a timid cat. If he allows satire on Netanyahu, he will be inundated with emails accusing him of anti-Semitism.
If he allows the slogan “From the river to the sea” to be satirized, he will be threatened on social networks.
If he had a cajon, he’d tell them all to load up because the bigger picture is a wider population that wants, nay, needs, unifying comedy.
We have a coward running our national television, perhaps protected by those who like him that way.
Who suffers? We all do it.
Since our TV industry is whining too much, I wanted to suggest some solutions.
First, state the importance of comedy to British culture and apologize for the BBC’s failure over decades to give the genre the weight it deserves.
Weepy society
Second, the writers and actors know comedy. Not the executives.
One wrote to me saying that she really liked Hapless, but they wanted to reach a younger audience, as if teenagers weren’t laughing at Basil Fawlty and Harry Enfield. No spirit.
Another executive wrote that my scripts were a bit like Curb Your Enthusiasm — generally recognized as the best American sitcom of the century. This guy compared it to Curb — and passed!
AI is a better judge than executives and gives better notes.
Third, stop cooperating with those bloated TV companies whose interests are high budgets to make a profit. Cut budgets instead.
It’s easy to cut the crew down to half of what it is now.
Same wages, less people. A painful battle with unions awaits and a lot of pain for freelancers.
But comedy is in crisis and it’s the only genre that can be very cheap and very successful.
Don’t wait for the same A-list actors. Actors unknown, but funny, and let them become stars.
These proposals would mean more comedy for less money. Who will argue?
Finally, put all your comedy on BBC One. Don’t hide it. Be proud of it.
Maybe our children will prove us wrong and have a longer attention span than we believe.
Put it on your biggest channel and it might be half an hour.
Maybe Clarkson fans can enjoy the same laughs as Friday Night Dinner fans.
Perhaps comedy can become a force for good in our anxious, divided, depressed and whiny society.
Tim Davie has allowed comedy to fall by the wayside in our divided world. Humophobic comic aside.
He can take his team with him because they can’t suddenly change tactics. Let the writers be petrified somewhere else.
We need a lot more comedy, we need sharp comedy and we definitely need satire that takes no prisoners.
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Black Adder is considered one of the best British comedies Credit: BBC
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Although controversial, today nothing comes close to Little BritainCredit: BBC
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The days of iconic sitcoms such as Fawlty Towers are long goneCredit: BBC
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: HIS Education