Radio 4 comedy - King William Rufus Hound, etc

Talking of interesting facts, star of ITV's The Chase Paul Sinha has a Radio 4 series called Paul Sinha's General Knowledge, where Paul puts a necklace of interesting facts are put around the listener's neck. I enjoyed the first two series but missed the third series when it was broadcast this July as I wasn't listening to Radio 4 at the time. Last week I gave the first episode of this missed series a go and was surprised to find it's now followed much of the rest of Radio 4 comedy and become less funny, and less interesting, and - of course - more political than ever. There were still some funny jokes and interesting facts, but I think I can give you a flavour of what it's become with a few quotes. It began with an attack on talkRADIO:

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. That applause means so much to me. You might be as shocked as I am by the words 'Series Three'. It's been a year in which facts lost their home with no place to go. Worst than that, turned into lies that any randomly picked 5 minutes of the station talkRADIO...

and continued with a bit about Megxit, with the expected take:

...which caused fierce temper tantrums from the sort of people who end sentences with 'and by the way this has got nothing to do with race'.

But this is where the programme got particular 'generic BBC Radio 4 comedy'-like, especially thanks to the 'very BBC Radio 4' audience:

But there has been a change, perhaps the biggest change since the last series: He's gone. [A collective 'yes!', whoops and applause from the audience]. It feels almost unreal after the last four years to say this out loud the obsequious, race-baiting, homophobic icon of all that is spineless about American politics, Mike Pence, is no longer Vice President of the United States. Yeah, Mike Pence. After four years of Trump I don't really care about the presidency anymore. I've had the spirit knocked out of me... 

But not enough is ever discussed about the third most powerful role in American politics after President and Russian President. After all, Kamala Harris is one ineptly-swallowed fishbone from being the most powerful person in the world. And she's female! And she's non-white! And that's got to be progressive, hasn't it? [Some members of the Radio 4 audience duly say 'Yep', virtuously]. I understand if you're a member of the Rohingya population of Myanmar you might feel rather differently. [Uneasy laugher, slight sharp intake of breath from the Radio 4 audience as they work out it's a joke about Aung San Suu Kyi  and wonder if they should be laughing]. Truth. She's following 48 men in the job. What does she have to live up to?

Funnily enough, Kamala Harris wasn't mocked herself. I doubt she ever will be on Radio 4, despite being the least-liked VP since polling began. No, the focus of the mockery was, of course, another Republican vice president - J. Danforth Quayle.  

Still - and tying it neatly with the mention of William Rufus in the previous post - there were some interesting facts still along the way:

One of the most remarkable stories is William Rufus King, not just that he was probably gay but that for 13 years he shared a home with the future President of the United States James Buchanan. It's extraordinary not least because everybody knew. One rival named them 'Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy'. But for me the amazing thing is that the only ever vice president, suspected of being gay was William Rufus King and the first English monarch ever suspected of being gay was King William Rufus. 

The audience oohed and aahed.

No change there then

  

I actually listened to a Radio 4 comedy programme today for the first time in many, many months - and quite possibly for the first time in 2021 (if memory serves me right). 

Seeing that it was that vehicle for The Actor Kevin Eldon which I didn't find overly funny four series ago when it started in 2012, I wasn't expecting much, but I did get a few laughs out of it. 

It was pleasantly silly. 

I particularly enjoyed guessing the punchline of one of the main running gags in advance [the one about the couple splitting up].

The biggest laugh I got out of it though was unintended. 

It was just one line, but it brought back happy memories of my old 'it's funny cos it's true (hopefully)' Radio 4 Comedians Bingo card.

The main quirk of that bingo card was that The Daily Mail appeared three times ''because just having it once would be far too easy, given how often Radio 4 comedians have a go at it''. 

Today's The Actor Kevin Eldon vehicle on Radio 4 also recalled that wonderful Harry and Paul sketch from The Story of the Twos, 'Panel Show', where most BBC comedy punchlines (if they weren't about sneering at Ann Widdecombe) ended up as 'Oh My God, the Daily Mail!' 

The one tart remark on today's The Actor Kevin Eldon Will See You Now on BBC Radio 4 was:

🎺🎺🎺

Before we go let's have a look at tomorrow's headlines...The Daily Mail has 'Everything we print is to some extent a lie, apart from this'.

Bingo!

In a rapidly changing world, it's almost reassuring that some things never seem to change.

The very curious incident here is that The Actor Kevin Eldon featured in The Story of the Twos too, as nervous-tic-afflicted General Disaster in Blackadder. 

He must have missed their satire on BBC comedy punchlines over-relying on attacks on OMG The Daily Mail. 

As Stephen Fry would possibly say, ''You bloody Disaster!!!''

Have They Got Bias For Us

In what must surely be the least surprising report into BBC bias ever produced, the Campaign for Common Sense analysed comedy programmes on BBC One, BBC Two and Radio 4 throughout November and found - across 364 slots - and found that 74% of the slots were occupied by comedians “with publicly pronounced Left-leaning, anti-Brexit or ‘woke’ views.”

So that's 74% of 141 comedians, with only two comedians - Geoff Norcott (of course) and Gyles Brandreth - holding openly expressed pro-Brexit or Conservative sympathies. 

Even DG Tim Davie has acknowledged that BBC comedy has a problem in this respect, so a letter outlining the findings from the CCS's director Mark Lehain won't be News For Him.. 

The Telegraph quotes Sir Robbie Gibb responding to the study:

This report starkly reveals just how much the BBC has to change to be truly in touch with the people who pay its licence fee. 

Comedy is not the exclusive preserve of the left and the BBC has a duty to reflect in its programmes the wide diversity of opinions held in this country, not just those with anti-Brexit or woke views.

But the real punchline here is the statement from "a BBC spokesperson". Its glib, dismissive tone couldn't be more BBC:

We don’t analyse our comedy by comparing numbers. We judge it on it being funny, how popular it is and whether it reflects a range of different voices and views.

The BBC always says "We don’t analyse our comedy by comparing numbers" to any quantitative study that comes their way - unless it's research that comes from, say, Cardiff University and tells the BBC what they want to hear! 

And "We judge it on it being funny, how popular it is and whether it reflects a range of different voices and views" is particularly galling as the study proves that the BBC's judgement is faulty and that BBC comedy barely even begins to reflect a range of different voices and views.

Well done to the Campaign for Common Sense for trying to prove the obvious, but the BBC have had a couple of decades of honing their responses to the kind of two-sentence brush-off quoted above and they were never going to get a respectful hearing from the BBC. 

***********

And then there's Nish Kumar....

As Charlie notes on the open thread, the Telegraph article recalls the following:

On a past episode of BBC Two’s The Mash Report, Nish Kumar referred to the BBC’s impartiality guidelines as a requirement to provide “a platform for widely-discredited views because the licence fee dictates we should pander to weirdos”.

The New Quiz, The Lenny Henry Show, and dead horses being flogged

The Daily Telegraph featured an interview today with Andy Zaltman, the latest series host of Radio 4's The News Quiz. 

Addressing the bias question, Andy says that a rebalancing is “clearly needed” and says he’s working hard to make sure The News Quiz has “a balance of pundits – politically, geographically”. 

I rather like Andy Zaltman, so I've listened his first two episodes of The News Quiz all the way through, without switching off. I laughed a few times too. 

I think it's an improvement, though, of course, still heavily leaning one way politically -  though one guest was surprisingly tough on Extinction Rebellion. 

I particularly enjoyed the emergency artificial intelligence Radio 4 satirist in the first episode - a robot primed to step in should the programme's Zoom link to one of the guest comedians fail thanks to technical difficulties (as happened). Its contributions were "What is up with Donald Trump?" and "Brexit? Schmexit?" - which pretty much sums up swathes of BBC comedy in recent years. 

Even funnier was this gem from the Telegraph's interview:

Zaltzman’s Wikipedia page mentions that in 2014 he “performed at the Lord’s Taverners charity Christmas lunch without incident.” Some wag has clearly added “without incident” as a joke directed at former News Quiz host and frequent Bugle guest Nish Kumar, who memorably had a bread roll thrown at him by an aggrieved audience-member during his own performance at that annual cricket-lovers’ do last year.

On the other hand, Radio 4 has revived The Lenny Henry Show yet again. 

After two short-lived TV revivals (one in the 1990s, one in the 2000s), this 1980s Lenny Henry vehicle has been brought back yet again, this time on radio. Few dead horses have ever been flogged so often. 

It's getting very few reviews. Even Twitter folk don't seem to care. 

And no wonder. I've given it a try. 'National treasure' though Sir Lenny may be, his new show is full of heavy-handed, sub-agitprop finger-wagging about race, and is not funny. 

It could very well be the ultimate, future-textbook example of the dire depths BBC comedy, especially Radio 4 comedy, sank to because of its woke agenda and because of the BBC's need to pander to its high-profile, ever-moaning and most-untouchable stars. 

It's a series that should have been quietly dropped before airing on quality grounds, but there's no way that would have happened in recent months.  

I think that should be added to Tim Davie's to-do-list: Don't give Sir Lenny another comedy series unless it's funny. 

Lost for words

The Times has an interview today with BBC Radio 4's new controller Mohit Bakaya. 

The funniest part of it came when Matthew Moore of The TImes raised the subject of new Radio 4 comedy, asking "When did Radio 4 last launch a format that actually made people laugh?" Mohit couldn't name any. He had to email Matthew later. 

Says it all really.

Mark Steel Really Goes to Town

Looking back on our posts here in praise of Mark Steel - my favourite far-left Radio 4 comedian - I revisited on old anonymous quote from 2017 which managed to sum up beautifully how I felt after falling in love with his wonderfully warm and funny Mark Steel's in Town on Radio 4):

I was talking to a friend today about Mark Steel. We can all see he is a complete lefty (and some of his leftiness I don't have a problem with) but (a) he still has a human sense of humour about him (b) he isn't vindictive and (c) he engages with a wide audience.

And then, post-election, he goes and tweets something like this (with apologies in advance for the language): 

Let me be gracious. All the people celebrating now are the most entitled, embittered, sneering nasty selfish racist foul f**kwits. I’d still rather be with the decent people, however gutted they are, than be you for a second.

That might suggest that his feelings towards parts of many of his Mark Steel's in Town audiences aren't quite as warm and free from vindictiveness as might have been supposed.

Oh, well, I'm sure this display of bitter intolerance won't stop the BBC commissioning further series of Mark Steel's in Town. I'm looking forward to the one from Redcar: 

Thank you very much for that, Redcar. Welcome to Mark Steel's in Town. Today I'm in Redcar, which means we're at the coast in North Yorkshire, which as places go is too windy. Places aren't meant to be this windy. Or racist. The name 'Redcar' comes from the Old Scandanavian word 'kjarr' meaning 'racist'. Singer David Coverdale, lead singer with Deep Purple and Whitesnake lived in Redcar as a youth and worked in the Gentry clothes shop on Coatham Road. I went in there the other day and told them they are all racists. Of course, Redcar is now Deep Blue, because entitled, embittered, sneering, nasty, selfish, racist, foul f**kwits like you voted Tory. Thank you very much for coming along. Thank you.

The comments beneath his tweet could be going better. Here's a sample:

• I see you’re taking it well.
• Someone is an angry elf.
• Love not hate membership lapsed?
• Perhaps if you hadn’t backed a nasty sneering racist you’d be in a position to lecture.
• Bless. How’d you carry that chip on your shoulder? It’s bloody massive!
• Mark, try sudocrem.

They SHOULD be Sorry

I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue has began its 72nd series. 

It's a programme I've enjoyed since the days of Willie Rushton, and praised several times on this very blog as being, by and large, an oasis of old-fashioned, funny, BBC comedy - rather than the usual humour-deficient, over-politicised stuff the BBC now churns out.

(I've even transcribed some of Jack Dee's funnier introductions for your delectation (assuming he wrote them)). 

So what's happened?

Well, yes, ISIHAC has always dropped in the odd political joke, but this week's programme began with what can only be described as a string of bog-standard, predictable, left-wing, Radio 4-style political jokes. 

I'll quote a tweet about it that is absolutely spot-on in describing what you missed, if you didn't hear it:

Mike Yardley: Just listening to BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue in the car. Switched it off. Ridiculous anti Brexit and anti Tory bias. No balance whatsoever. No jokes about Corbyn and McDonnell. Just spite about Farage & Boris & public schools and an effort to link Mosley to Tories.

Replies say:

Peter Charles: Yes I am afraid that the BBC's social engineering agenda has even infected ISIHAC. The changes in panel members is all part of that. 

Mark Lees: I am a huge fan of the BBC but unfortunately this is correct, a lot BBC produced humour is the same. Remain-centric jokes, written by Remainers for Remainers at the expense of Leavers.

Should I transcribe the 'offending' jokes? Yes!:

• Shropshire is famous for its rich folklore. A favourite story is that of the Magic Princess who found a toad in her garden that was very sad because he was very ugly. So she granted him a wish. The toad's wish was to have a human body. So the Princess kissed the toad and, sure enough, his body turned into human form. But not his head. So the Princess offered him a second wish and he said he wanted to be leader of The Brexit Party.
• Shrewsbury School is one of those public schools targeted for abolition under a Labour government as they are deemed elitist. But Shrewsbury protests the school is open to any pupil who can pass the entrance exam. Question 1: how many offshore investment funds does Father have? Question 2: List them, using both sides of the paper.
• Sir Oswald Mosley was brought up near Market Drayton, became a Conservative MP and in 1920 married Lady Cynthia Curzon. And during the marriage Mosley conducted affairs with his wife's younger sister Lady Alexandra and with her mother Marchioness Curzon. As an MP back then this would have made Mosley the object of severe party disapproval. Today it'll make him Prime Minister.

Couldn't they have left us ISIHAC? Is that too much to ask?

Plenty Of Offence

As every right-minded person (of whatever gender, or none, or every) knows, jokes aren't a laughing matter these days.

And rightly so. 

If you make or laugh at an inappropriate joke you shouldn't just be ashamed of yourself, you should actually be shamed. 

Publicly. 

Painfully.

Preferably with milkshake. 

Or just get clobbered within an inch of your racist life with one of Owen Jones's highly-reasoned, heavyweight tomes.

And you should then be banned from social media.

And lose your job.

And, hopefully, die - especially if you're also old and voted for Brexit.

*******

I saw a list of the top 10 jokes at this year's Edinburgh Festival today and found all but one of them highly offensive.

To laugh at any of the nine so-called 'funny ones' is akin to abetting genocide. 

It's time to either ban the Edinburgh Fringe once and for all, or (better) to no-platform anyone whose is considered 'funny', as 'being funny' is a gendered, racist synonym for 'being bigoted'.

Let true comedians, like BBC comedian Milton Jones (who gave us the only truly successful joke in the Top Ten), take the truly edgy route of true comedy and attack those who truly deserve to be milkshaked or clobbered by jokes - namely, Brexit supporters, the Duke of Edinburgh and the old. 

"What's driving Brexit? From here it looks like it's probably the Duke of Edinburgh", quipped the mighty Milton - surely the equal of John Milton (another noted wit).

That's the kind of biting, bang-on-the-mark joke right-thinking BBC Radio 4 audiences laugh their well-chosen, vegan-sympathetic socks off about every day on BBC Radio 4, uproariously. So, therefore, it must be funny. 

*******

But, alas, not everyone's like Milton:

For instance, to make a joke out of mental illness is appalling.

We can all agree about that. 

All my multiple personalities are unanimous about that too. 

And France's greatest heroes - Napoleon and President Macron and St. Dominic of Grieve (who are also me, as you probably know) - also agree about that.

The 'second-best' joke this year - "Someone stole my antidepressants. Whoever they are, I hope they're happy" - is, therefore, one of the most offensive things EVER. 

I've spent the entire day sobbing with rage over it and re-reading my teenage Sylvia Plath tribute poem over and over and over again. "Aunty, Aunty, you bi*ch, I'm through", etc.

The white, middle-aged, male so-called 'comedian' behind it should be hounded off every stage in the country and then arrested and put in solitary confinement in the same cell with like-minded bigots like Tommy Yaxley Casciani of the EDL.

*******

The 'fourth-best' joke - "A cowboy asked me if I could help him round up 18 cows. I said, 'Yes, of course. That's 20 cows'" by Jake Lambert - fails to give testimony to the suffering of native Americans at the hand of cowboys - white racists like him. 

This so-called 'comedian' (white, middle-aged, male) is, and let's speak truth to power here and tell it straight, nothing but a racist. 

He - as a racist - needs to educate himself by watching the Disney documentary 'Pocahontas' which detailed the oppression of native Americans (like the story's lead character, voiced by leading American actress and follower of the Stanislavski system Dame Elizabeth Warren) at the hand of white, racist, middle-aged, male cowboys like this racist racist Jake Lambert. 

*******

But it was the 'winning joke' that REALLY made my blood boil. 

I literally couldn't be more offended. David Lammy should find out the white, racist bigot of a so-called 'comedian' who told this and punch his *%^&*$£ing fascist lights out, gently and kindly. 

Arse. 

This *%^&*$£ing fascist mocked sufferers of Tourtette's Syndrome. I stand shoulder-to-arse with all Tourette's sufferers in finding this arse truly beyond the *%^&*$£ing pale: "I keep randomly shouting out 'broccoli' and 'cauliflower' - I think I might have florets." 

I was going to *%^&*$£ing complain but, according to the *%^&*$£ing BBC arse, someone got there first:

People with Tourette's angered after Swedish comedian Olaf Falafel's joke wins award at Edinburgh Fringehttps://t.co/nVcjdgxTds

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) August 19, 2019

Deep respect there for the BBC for doing their woke duty and leaping to make that a serious headline news story.

Rod on Jo

Jo Brand, not being carted off to prison

Rod Liddle is, as so often, on form today in The Sunday Times. He takes the line that the BBC shouldn't have sacked Jo Brand, "the Clare Balding of comedy", because "we all knew Brand was making a joke" and because "the suggestion that people might douse Farage in battery acid is an absurdity". He believes that "viciousness is a crucial element of comedy" and that if you "start punishing comedians for viciousness...you’ll have much, much better comedians, such as Stewart Lee, in the dock."

We have to get ourselves away from this hyper-liberal sensitivity, this insistence that words by themselves should be samizdat. We have to value context and nuance. That the police are now involved [or were] is another absurdity. What Brand said was a joke, and intended as such, and she should not be sacked.

But...he also takes the line that the BBC should have sacked Jo Brand:

But still, the BBC should sack her. By its own lights. Because it does not agree with any of the stuff I’ve written above. It signs up to the whole panoply of liberal idiocy, the whole rank, totalitarian caboodle. Had Brand made that joke about Syrian refugees or Anna Soubry, she’d be gone by now.  

Yet because it was about Farage — who has suffered myriad violent assaults — BBC bosses take a more lenient view. Like Brand herself, and the odious Frankie Boyle, they are hypocrites. Sack Jeremy Clarkson, Danny Baker, Carol Thatcher — but not Brand. Liberal double standards — a joke funnier than anything she’s come up with in 30 years.

When driving into a tree becomes a strong temptation

I agree with Bruce:

• Jesus. Radio 4. Marcus Brigstocke doing a Brexit “comedy” slot on Radio 4 for half an hour. Exactly as you’d expect. Clichéd anti-Brexit rubbish. Totally unfunny too. I’m tempted to drive my car into a tree at high speed to end the misery.
• The good news is I changed the radio channel. The bad news is I got Wave 105 FM blasting out Phil Collins. Now where’s that tree?
• Honestly BBC comedy. Is this the best you can do? Tired old, clichéd rubbish rehashing the same material that seems prevalent with all your “woke” “comedians”. Not funny. Not interesting. Not original. Try harder to spend my money on something better please.

"Supposed to be entertaining" was one four-word phrase from the script, and it might serve as a four-word summary for Giles Wemmbley Hogg Goes Off... Article 50 as a whole.

If you didn't hear it, here's a sample. Marcus plays Giles, "Budleigh Salterton’s biggest idiot". Here he's just received an in-person delivery of fudge from Mr Figgis, a local fudge manufacturer:


Sir Michael: Excuse us Mr Figgis, we were discussing the dreaded B-word. Brexit.
Mr Figgis: Oh, I don't know about any of that. All my fudge is made right here in Devon.
Sir Michael: So you'll be fine then after we leave?
Mr Figgis: Oh yes.
Giles: Course he will. Traditional Devon fudge. Right Mr F?
Mr Figgis: That's right. The sugar comes in from Malta and the vanilla's all from Cyprus. I get the cellophane wrapper from a factory in Estonia. Good value they are.
Giles: But what about the labels with the thatched Devon cottage on?
Mr Figgis: Oh, they're off the internet, all printed up in Ireland. The gingham frillies on the lid all come from Croatia. The jars are French.
Sir Michael: What did you decide on polling day?
Mr Figgis: I voted leave.
Sir Michael: Why was that?
Mr Figgis: Cos David Cameron left his kid in that pub and George Osborne has those small little eyes.
Sir Michael: Of course.
Mr Figgis: Mind you we might have to shut the fudgery down now.
Giles: WHAT!!!
Mr Figgis: Sorry Gilesy. We even contended with the supply chain uncertainty and the risk of a  WTO tariff regime, so SME's are struggling to carry through forward investment.
Giles: WHAT!!!
Mr Figgis: And Mrs Figgis broke the big pot on Wednesday.
Giles: But the fudgery CAN'T close! I mean, it's what Devon's all about! I won't let it close!

Another post featuring Andrew Neil

Hope he's not going to get told off by the BBC for this one as well, as he's only telling it like it is:

He also calls The Mash Report "thirty minutes of self satisfied, self adulatory, unchallenged left wing propaganda" and says The Now Show is "contrived ideological commentary" - and he's not wrong there either. 

Here's the whole exchange:

Simon Pinsa: I would be happy if the BBC were just impartial. When was the last time they had a right wing comedian on the BBC?

legalclaret: Geoff Norcott on the Mash Report last Friday.

Andrew Neil: For three minutes out of thirty minutes of self satisfied, self adulatory, unchallenged left wing propaganda. It’s hardly balance. Could never happen on a politics show. Except this has become a politics show.

Marchal: Like HIGNFY and The Last Leg the show exists so that audiences can applaud themselves at how clever and progressive they are.

Dave P: HIGNFY is on its last legs. Never heard of The Last Leg.

jeff: I've only managed to watch some moments of each but, incredibly, I'd say it was more left wing. It's hard to imagine how broadcasters get away with the continuous overt propaganda.

Andrew Neil: When it comes to so called comedy the BBC has long given up on balance, on radio and tv. Nobody seems to care. And I don’t want right wing comedy, whatever that is. I’d just like comedy. Which is in really short supply. On tv and radio.

Louise Rowntree: Or is it just that liberals are wittier than... illiberals?

Andrew Neil: If you think Mash or The Now Show is funny as opposed to contrived ideological commentary then we have a different sense of humour. Jon Stewart in US was left wing but also intelligent and so funny. Loved it. Mash a pathetic imitation.

Stuart Baggs: You simply do not look hard enough for comedy. In fact it’s clear you don’t look at all. You should look at BBC Sounds. There are absolute amazing non political comedies on there. It’s a shame you make such ignorant comments from within the BBC to be honest. Shocking in fact.

Andrew Neil: I have BBC Sounds. Interesting you don’t name a single show. Give me one. That will make me laugh out loud. I use BBC Sounds to listen to the Goon show and Round the Horne. Brilliant. Anything more a la mode.

In which Craig yaps on about Jake (and BBC comedy) again

Yake Japp's Media Circus (courtesy of Seurat)

Having listened to the first two episodes of Jake Yapp's Media Circus - a newish BBC Radio 4 6.30 comedy - I came to the conclusion that it needs a much sharper script. 

Its satire, for the most part, has all the bite of a toothless Yorkshire terrier. 

Maybe Rod Liddle (or Richard Littlejohn) could help out with the next series?

*******

Does that sound mean? I didn't mean it to. So here's me being almost nice:

My favourite joke from the first two episodes fell in the 'it's funny cos it's true' category.

It concerned Radio 4's The Listening Project - the BBC's  years long project in partnership with the British Library that might prove to be a remarkable document in a hundred years time but "right now" is "a bit rubbish". "

"I feel they have to broadcast it a bit just to justify doing it," said Jake. And I know how he feels about that.

And then came the line that made me laugh:

Alfred Hitchcock said, "What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out?", and The Listening Project sounds like all the bits that got cut out. 

Doesn't it just!

*******

This week's episode, however, saw Our Jake popping in a set of novelty false teeth and taking some proper nips at a few heels.

His subject was....wait for it!....newspaper columnists.

Aha! Are you thinking what I think you think I'm thinking?

That it's a Radio 4 comedy show, so it will inevitably be lazy and predictable and just bang on and on about how evil and racist Katie Hopkins is?

Well, I wouldn't blame you for thinking what I think you think I'm thinking because that's precisely what bog-standard Radio 4 comedy would do and do do. They know it's expecting of them, targets-wise, and they dutifully oblige. The studio audience goes along with it and a second series becomes a possibility. It requires no effort and entails little risk. It's straight onto the BBC comedy gravy train - and the BBC comedy gravy train is a darn sight more luxurious than any Northern Rail gravy train. 

Well, as regular readers will know, I expect better from Our Jake. So I hoped for plenty of digs at eminently mockable Guardian/Independent types like Owen, Polly, Gary, Yasmin and Afua, and maybe even - if he were being especially bold - Stewart Lee. (Imagine!)

Well, more fool me! Alas, Jake Yapp has turned into a fully-fledged Radio 4 comedy lickspittle!

(Can lickspittles fledge? I'll have to email Chris Packham about that). 

Yes, he really did make Katie Hopkins the show's main target and come back to attacking her again and again and he even made unequivocal jokes about her being a racist.

And he even slagged off poor old Richard Littlejohn - and how lazy and predictable is that? Even every other living Radio 4 comedian has finally moved on from Richard Littlejohn, so Jake was being somewhat 'retro' there, taking his audience back in time to The News Quiz circa 2006.  

Jake's other targets? Donald Trump, Sarah Champion, Kevin Myers, Michael Gove, Kirstie Allsop. Boris Johnson, Sarah Vine, Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson...and Jeremy Corbyn. 

Ah yes! Big Bad Boris was second only unto Katie in being the central object of Jake's satirical desire. He'd been mean about the EU in his columns and that was a bad thing. (The show was obviously recorded before Letterboxgate.)

The presence of Sarah Champion MP's name on the roll of dishonour there is very intriguing. Her newspaper piece about Pakistani grooming gangs must have struck R Jake as not being a good thing. 

And he even slid into saying that free speech isn't a good thing either, as the likes of Katie Hopkins (and Sarah Champion presumably) have got us where we are today. 

Hmm. I think it's now past the time when I can still reasonably hope that Jake might be different from the rest.

He's obviously not. He's become an identikit BBC Radio 4 comedian, loving Big Brother like the rest of them - and willing to stamp a boot forever on the face of easy targets with the 'best' of them.

Please excuse me while I wipe my eyes and blow my nose. Sniff. I'm so disappointed. Sniff. I hoped for so much more from Jake. He's become a bog-standard, predictable, go-for-the-easy-targets BBC Radio 4 comedian. Sniff. Sniff. Blow.

Paging Dr. Rod Liddle. Emergency surgery to BBC programme's script needed urgently. Please go to 6.30 on Tuesday on Radio 4 as soon as you can. 

Natalie Haynes Doesn't Stand Up for (Dead) Christopher Hitchens

Natalie Haynes, standing up

One Radio 4 series I've always rather enjoyed is Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics. 

It's in its fourth series now and I've heard and, up till now, enjoyed every episode of it.

It's USP is that it's a BBC programme about Classical Greece and Rome presented by a former stand-up comedienne. 

I like quirky Natalie's enthusiasm for the classics. She makes me smile and, every so often, laugh even. And her enthusiasm spurs me into exploring things I've not explored before. 

It's not hard to see it as classic old-fashioned BBC: Inform, educate and entertain. 

But it's also very contemporary BBC. 

Its mock-amateurism-plus-experts is just for starters in that respect...

This week's episode talked about Phryne, the beautiful Greek courtesan who inspired the great Athenian sculptor Praxiteles of Athens to create a trend-blazing full-sized female nude, the Aphrodite of Knidos (which aroused at least one Athenian male to embarrass himself to the point of disgrace and suicide), and who was tried for impiety.

According to tradition, at her trial her lawyer Hypereides (the Michael Mansfield of his day), with the trial seeming to be going against here, disrobed her and showed the jurors her naked body and, "out of pity", the jurors acquitted her. 

Alas poor bare-breasted Phryne (her name a Tommy Robinson-style moniker that meant 'Toad') struggled to retain her position as the episode's focus. Her champion Natalie Haynes usurped her place and spent a remarkable amount of time ranting....yes, ranting....about herself and how upset and hard-done-by she felt personally about a Vanity Fair piece by the late Christopher Hitchens called Why Women Aren't Funny.

We were in full feminist rant mode here. 

And, to my shocked astonishment, Natalie banged on and on, and joked on and on, about how she's still alive while he's dead.

She really did. 

(He died of cancer in 2011). 

And the ruder she got about her aliveness and his deadness the more BBC audience whooped and clapped.

Now, why did that BBC audience whoop and clap rather than gasp, groan and boo (or stay stonily silent)? How do I know? But...

Phryne (as Aphrodite)

Probably they did so because they - or the most vocal parts of 'they' - felt that it's the right thing to do when you're in such an audience and faced with such jokes: applaud a right-on feminist rant from a BBC comedienne because it sounds like the right thing to do, and whoop and clap even harder if you think it reaches Frankie Boyle levels of offensiveness against a deserving target, even if you know next to nothing about that target or his views {and even when the jokes come nowhere near Frankie's jokes, quality-wise}. You're a BBC Radio 4 audience after all. That's what you do.  

So, am I just being a snowflake here? Shouldn't I just laugh along with Natalie here?

Yes, she's not died from cancer yet but Christopher Hitchens has. (You go girl!) And he upset her with a provocative article in an American magazine and now he's dead. (Karma!). What's to object to?

And BBC Radio 4 must have thought the same way. They gave this edition of the programme a pass.

Everyone's a critic!

Listeners to BBC Radio 4 this week won't have failed to hear the endless adverts for a new Friday night comedy panel show with the 'edgy' title Where’s the F in News?

I think there is a feeling in certain quarters now that women are everywhere, that we've become rather uppity, what with our demands not be groped at work and whingeing on just because there are more men called Dave in boardrooms than there are women. We're out of control. Well those people had better brace themselves for a brand new topical comedy show which is all female but - and this is the extraordinary thing - it is still going to be funny.

Well, on the last point there it's time to quote Evelyn Waugh and say "Up to a point Lord Copper". The social media reaction to it has been overwhelmingly uniform. Here's a flavour of it:

Tim Footman: I was never under the misapprehension that women aren’t funny. Until a few minutes ago.
SwaziRodgers: It was dire, wasn’t it? I’m handing back my feminism in protest.
Tim Footman: Zoe Lyons can be bloody hilarious in the right context. Here, it was tumbleweed city.
SwaziRodgers: It was so disappointing after all the hype they put behind it
ρhαετhøṉ: I got to the 13 minute mark, a full 12½ minutes after I first thought 'Delivery is awful...". The kind of voice & cadence you use to read out the nutritional information on a pack of bran flakes.

Sue: Really not sure about BBC Radio 4 new 6:30pm Friday comedy slot "Where's the 'F' in news?". What do you reckon?
Moira Walton: Synopsis : shite.
and_the_like: It's worth trying but the test of success can only be "is it funny?", and in my view it failed that test.
Graham Bolton: Still waiting for the political balance. No doubt the cast and producers were too busy blowing up baby Trump balloons. 

Bev: This is appalling. All the reasons why all female line ups do not work. There’s nothing new in this programme that isn’t on other, progs which include women panellists. Switched off. 

Mrs Trellis: I don’t know who the woman yelling about avocados is on BBC Radio 4 is right now but she needs to shut the F up. 

Andrew Booton: I've endured 9 minutes of this all-female tosh that's supposed to be comedy but even by BBC Radio 4's low and still-falling standards, it is dire. Ooh they're all so edgy and incisive and... so predictably London middle class Grauniad. Wake up Radio 4 and get a grip of this shit. I think almost everything trumps quality on the BBC now, especially on Radio4. The comedy is so edgy, they've actually taken the funny bits out to make it even more profound. Damn, I'd forgotten #c4news was on. This is even funnier than BBC Radio 4 comedies. That's not hard.

Tosh: They're making a great point about why they should not be given their own show.  

Ms Person: Getting really tired of this Radio 4 programme. Is it all going to be about Donald Trump? Is it all going to be this smug?  

Ed ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°): BBC Radio 4, can you get this anti-Trump bullshit off the radio? It isn't even at the point where its funny anymore. Give it up. It's absolute trash, not informative, not entertaining and definitely not factual. Absolute joke.

kmj: BBC Radio 4, what is this rubbish on at the moment? How about a bit of balance? The centre of your crass humour is a democratically-elected president. I’m seriously thinking about skipping my tv licence. Shite radio.

Les Busson: BBC Radio 4 'comedy' show consisting of 20 min of anti-Trump rants. Where's the effing comedy? How about impartiality rules?

Ellen Le Brun: If this is the best of all female comedy please bring back the men! Despite the mediocrity of many recent so called comedy programmes we could always rely on the BBC Radio 4 Friday 6.30 slot...Not any more!

titter an' bwisted: Where's The F In News? New 'comedy' described as: 'An energetic, intelligent female-anchored show with a female panel'. More like shouty women shouting shoutily at each other.

FLATTLINER: Checked out new BBC Radio 4 “comedy” tonight - Where’s The F In News? Didn’t even smile once. Once again, they’ve managed to sacrifice humour on the altar of political correctness. Reminds me of when The Now Show became more representative…and less funny.

Ian: I’m sorry but this is shite.
George Cook: I'm trying to enjoy it..  It's not well written. I really like Zoe Lyons tho. Lol.. I'm sure she neither knows not cares...
Ian: I really wanted this to work. The trailer was brill. By minute 3 I knew it was a sham. There’s already so much of this crap format on R4.
George Cook: I concur. Maybe it'll evolve.... I think comedy on radio has to be about quality writing. Sitting and chatting shit/trying to be clever doesn't work.. it's a TV thing.

Still at least someone (who works for the BBC) liked it:

Anita Rani: Love this new all woman panel show. 

Chortle

According to the comedy website Chortle, Laurence Howarth, the script writer for Radio 4's Dead Ringers, has conceded (a) that his show may have an inherent anti-Brexit bias [you don't say!], (b) that it does more jokes against Brexit than for it [well, know me down with the late Sir Ken's tickling stick!], and (c) that it has a writers’ room that's "intrinsically partisan" because it has more than its fair share of "typically London-centred, broadly left-wing people", who were also predominantly Remain voters [who'd have guessed?!]...

...but it's all OK really because, being conscious of this inherent, intrinsic bias, they can counteract it, and, "overall", the show doesn't have a point of view, and "a natural balance" emerges between and during sketches. (So there you go: there's nothing to worry about after all!)

And why does Lawrence think there are there more jokes against Brexit than for it? Because "that’s what’s happening" and because "the ones doing Brexit are in power".

Hmm. There's a huge effort to stop Brexit, and plenty of the 'stoppers' are also plum targets for satire. And even if we except his "the ones doing Brexit are in power" argument why exactly does that justify there being more anti-Brexit jokes than pro-Brexit ones? It possibly explains the people targeted for satire, but surely doesn't explain the preponderance of jokes against Brexit itself? Or am I missing something?

Anyhow, here's a joke: Took the shell off my racing snail this weekend. Thought it might speed him up. If anything, it made him more sluggish.

Recommendation Time

"How YOU doin'?"

Simon Evans, the only right-wing comedian in the BBC Radio 4 village (and, no, unlike Daffyd from Little Britain, he's probably not imagining that!), has a new series of Simon Evans Goes to Market going out at the moment on Radio 4. It's not your run-of-the-mill, predictable BBC comedy show. I came away having laughed a bit and having learned a lot, this week about the big social media corporations. It was genuinely illuminating. Very good!

I'd also like to recommend this week's The Infinite Monkey Cage on 'The Secret Life of Birds'. (Forget your 'hatred' of Brian Cox and Robin Ince please!). Yes, the 'secret life' turned out to be mainly the 'sex life', but this programme is so valuable for giving voice to some wonderful scientists. This week it was the University of Sheffield's Professor Tim Birkhead, who did himself great credit, especially for his bit on male ducks - particularly the Argentine lake duck (a veritable Peronist duck if ever I've heard one)..

I'll summarise:

Not many bird species have a penis, but male ducks (including the mallard) have. Their penis isn't like ours though. It's a spiral, explosive structure powered by lymph rather than blood. The male Argentine lake duck (about a foot in length) has an 18-inch penis. The female duck has a complex vagina to match - at the most extreme, three side branches and a very vigorous spiral. The female's vagina spirals in the opposite direction to the male's spiralling penis. If a female is forced upon (raped) she can close her ovary duct and send the male's penis off down a blind alley.

One for Jane Gravy that!

Lesser spotted right-wing comedian sighted on BBC

Rod Liddle has a piece in The Spectator registering his surprise and pleasure at the appearance of a right-wing comedian - yes, a right-wing comedian! - on Radio Four’s The News Quiz. 

And is if that wasn't unprecedented enough, the aforesaid comedian (Simon Evans) went on to defend Donald Trump and criticise the NHS.

The audience wasn’t sure what it should do, and Evans was of course ribbed for his opinions by the other three panellists and indeed the compere. Which is when I thought: hang on, why should I be grateful to the BBC for allowing one single representative of majority opinion on air? And yet it was such a breath of fresh air. Not because I’m a conservative, but just for the sake of diversity of opinion. 

This is the thing. You think the BBC news programmes are bad? It is away from the news programmes that the BBC really shows its bias. And so we end up being grateful when someone who speaks for the majority – or at least a very large minority – actually gets airtime.

Having listened to it myself, I can confirm that it was a breath of fresh air - and funny too. 

A fellow comedian made a telling point, however, in reply to Simon (on Twitter): "I thought you were brilliant. It's notable how jarring it is to hear those opinions on Radio 4." Very true.

Of course, not everyone's happy:

Anyhow, I've got a potential cutting for the show. It comes from The Guardian (well it made me laugh): 

Light entertainment

Me

Nothing to do with BBC bias really (well not much), but I read a couple of comments at Biased BBC this afternoon concerning the dastardly anti-Brexit activities of "My Lord Matlock Brown". 

I scratched my brains for a while, having never heard of him, and then Googled around and found it was actually the infamous Lord Malloch Brown, of Gordon Brown Era 'fame'. (Oh, I remember that bounder all too well!). 

My well-scratched brain then set about thinking how that particular Freudian slip on the B-BBC commenter's part might have come about.

So, Kelly Holmes-like, I donned my deerstalker, reached for my magnifying glass, called Nigel Bruce (rather than Martin Freeman any day), and set out (over 1500 m) in hot pursuit of the answer. 

I recalled that Mark Steel's latest (very funny) episode of Mark Steel's in Town came from Matlock/Matlock Spa, and it all then became elementary. 

Yes, that B-BBCer must have heard that very edition of Mark Steel's in Town, and it must still be fresh in his mind. 

I further deduced that that B-BBC commenter must be a closet Mark Steel fan - though I bet he'd never dare admit that at Biased BBC!

I myself have been open about my Mark Steel enthusiasm here before (despite deep differences with the old commie politically), so I'm not afraid (he says with an over-cocky flourish of his violin bow) to confess that my deduction as to the B-BBCer's likely thought processes were based on having listened to that very episode myself. 

(I recommend it, if you've not heard it. Yes, Mark labours the main joke a bit, but it's worth labouring). 

My ulterior motive for mentioning all of this was merely to add to the festive jollity of this pre-Christmas/mid-Hanukkak weekend, by posting (purely in the interest of disinterested blogging, and because it made me laugh a lot) a classic ITBB distillation of a Twitter thread which Mark Steel himself described as "so funny" today. 

It's a list of 'curses' on someone (a politician) who the Tweeter really doesn't like. 

Given that the BBC Radio 4 comedian who is recommending it is a Radio 4 comedian, I bet you can (if you think about it for while) quickly guess just who the particular politician in question is likely to be. 

Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, see if you can guess it right!

(The answer is here: Answer!)

Mark, Man of Steel (Stalin?)

Ignore that if (like me) you rather like that particular politician and just enjoy the 'curses':

• I hope his boiler breaks down.
• I hope he loses his car key, and getting it replaced is a costly bureaucratic nightmare.
• I hope the delivery he was waiting for arrives when he's at the sorting office picking up the delivery he missed two days ago.
• I hope his favourite pub gets turned into a Zizzi.
• I hope his bank makes him change his online banking password to something he'll never remember, and he has to go through a needlessly complicated reset password procedure every time he tries to log on.
• I hope he goes to a toilet in a shopping centre, has a shit, then realises there's no toilet paper.
• I hope he puts a washload on, forgets about it for two days, and when he finally opens the machine all his clothes have attained a permanently damp smell.
• I hope he has to spend a day repeatedly going back to B&Q.
• I hope he gets home hungry, puts a ready meal in the oven while he has a shower, then comes back downstairs 25 minutes later to find he didn't turn the oven on.
• I hope the chip in his passport breaks, so he has to stand in a queue every time rather than going through the e-gates.
• I hope he drops his phone in the urinal, leading to it only working intermittently, but being fine when he takes it into the phone shop to see if he can replace it for free under contract.
• I hope he gets a cotton bud stuck in his ear while trying to dewax it, then has to explain it to a nurse who keeps saying: "You do know it specifically says not to do that on the box, don't you?"
• I hope he spills a glass of red wine on his carpet, then when frantically trying to clean it, knocks the table, sending the rest of the bottle onto another bit of the carpet.
• I hope, while wrapping presents, he slightly misjudges the amount of wrapping paper needed, and has to start over again. Then, when there's one present left, to run out of wrapping paper.
• I hope he's horrifically hungover and gets stuck in traffic with a really chatty taxi driver who just won't take the hint.
• I hope Windows 10 does a massive update on his computer when he's trying to print out tickets at the last minute.
• I hope he's away for bin day after Christmas, and his neighbours don't put his bin out for him.
• I hope his favourite Quality Street is discontinued.
• I hope his hotel room has really inadequate curtains, and there's a streetlamp directly outside.
• I hope there's a little icon at the top of his phone, indicating that he has new messages, but he never has any new messages and doesn't know how to make the icon go away.
• I hope he has to wait in all day for an electrician, and when the electrician finally arrives, he doesn't have the part needed and it's too late to go and buy one.
• I hope he loses the pub quiz by one point, following an answer that is technically correct, but the quizmaster won't allow it because it's not what he's got written down.
• I hope he changes mobile phone service provider to save £5 a month, then realises the reception is really poor in all but the least used room in his house.
• I hope he orders a lot of furniture from John Lewis that he thinks will be delivered ready-assembled, but actually requires a whole weekend of flat pack self-assembly.
• I hope he cuts his lawnmower cable while mowing the lawn, spends £75 on getting an electrician to repair it, then immediately cuts it again in a different place within three minutes of restarting lawnmowing duties.
• I hope he gets a document that's slightly too big for the drawer in the filing cabinet it belongs in, meaning he has to change his entire filing system to accommodate it.
• I hope his credit card company blocks his card as a precautionary measure every time he tries to use it abroad, even though he repeatedly tells them he spends a lot of time abroad for work.
• I hope all the chargers for his electrical devices require slightly different connections.
• I hope the alarm on his phone has failed to go off on at least two occasions, so that he's now eternally paranoid about it not working, and can never get to sleep when he's got an early start the next day.
• I hope all supermarkets remove his favourite sandwich from their Meal Deal.
• I hope every time he fills in a passport application form, he absent-mindedly puts the current year instead of his year of birth, then has to go back to the Post Office the next day to get another form.
• I hope that when he's using the self-service checkouts at the supermarket, he always has just one item that requires age verification, and that it always takes him at least five minutes to catch the attention of a member of staff.
• I hope he orders pizza over the internet, then has to phone 45 minutes later when it hasn't arrived, and the local Domino's branch clearly missed the order coming through.
• I hope he goes to the zoo and all the good animals are asleep inside where he can't see them.
• I hope every hotel he stays in signs him up to their marketing email list, despite insisting they won't when he gives them his email address.