Comedy actor Henry McGee, the 'straight man' for Benny Hill for many years and a regular in 60s and 70s sitcoms has died.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/obituary/0,,1701120,00.html
In the 1980s it became fashionable for 'alternative' comedians to label Hill's humour as 'sexist' and outdated. Much of this was mere snobbery: unlike our daring, new university educated 'alternative' comics, the comedy old guard were almost all working class. Hill's comedy was not sexist- as he pointed out himself- it's the girls who always end up chasing him. But while Hill's career hit the buffers in the new p.c. climate, the 'alternative' comedians who replaced him, formed a new comic 'establishment' of their own (with their own production companies of course)- and became very, very wealthy to boot. The most grotesque example of how yesterday's anti-establishment radicals become lackeys of money power is Ben Elton. Sixteen years ago, Elton co-wrote BlackAdder III, with its powerful anti-war message. Yet in 2003, Elton was expressing his support for that very 'alternative' project: the Iraq war.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Are we going to let them get away with this?
Of all the lies surrounding the Iraq war-one of the most insidious was that Iraq itself 'chose war'. Whatever Saddam had done, short of stepping down and appointing a pro-American puppet as his successor- his country would have been attacked. The US, we are told, was going to use ' arm-twisting' and threats' to get military action through the U.N. If that failed, they were going to go to war anyway. Bringing those responsible for this blatant act of international brigandry to account is the most urgent political task of our time. Here's a report on the steps Bush and Blair were prepared to take in order to start a war in 2003 from today's Times.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2023128,00.html
Read it, and then tell me why you don't think both Bush and Blair should be indicted.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2023128,00.html
Read it, and then tell me why you don't think both Bush and Blair should be indicted.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
The predictability of the bully-boys
Here's an excellent article on Bush's threats to the Middle East by Adrian Hamilton, from today's Indie.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/adrian_hamilton/
In 1999 we were told Yugoslavia was carrying out 'genocide' in Kosovo. It wasn't. In 2003, we were told Iraq possessed WMDs. It didn't. Now we're told that Iran is secretly making nuclear weapons....
No doubt in 2008 we will be told that Syria intends to drop the bird-flu virus over London and New York. Or something like it.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/adrian_hamilton/
In 1999 we were told Yugoslavia was carrying out 'genocide' in Kosovo. It wasn't. In 2003, we were told Iraq possessed WMDs. It didn't. Now we're told that Iran is secretly making nuclear weapons....
No doubt in 2008 we will be told that Syria intends to drop the bird-flu virus over London and New York. Or something like it.
Dear Laptop Bombadiers- what are you waiting for?
Come on Messrs Kamm, Pollard, Murray D, Cohen and Roberts A - what are you waiting for? Here's your chance to gain first-hand experience of a neo-conservative foreign policy in action. David Aaronovitch says that at 51 he's too old to serve, but what excuse do the rest of you have?
www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1700033,00.html
www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1700033,00.html
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
The trial the West would rather forget
Here's my piece for The First Post on what was described as 'the most important trial since Nuremburg'. Fortunately for Tony Blair et al, it is no longer deemed quite so important.....
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=1&subID=274
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=1&subID=274
How we overthrew democracy in Iran
Here's a very timely piece by Patrick Cockburn on the historical background to the present Iranian 'crisis'.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=2&subID=230
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=2&subID=230
Comedy's Gone Wrong
Here's a brilliant piece from today's Times by Michael Gove- a man who talks an awful lot of sense- so long as he's not talking about Iraq or 'the war on terror'.
Comedy's gone wrong, and it's no laughing matter
Michael Gove
The Times 1st February 2006
What temperature is your telly set at? Chilled, super-cool or cosy? The idea that you should adjust your set — for warmth — might appear to be a technological fantasy conceived by an electronics manufacturer determined to render existing home entertainment systems and central heating arrangements obsolete by allowing you to Sky-plus your consumption of fuel alongside your consumption of Desperate Housewives. But the notion that TVs should provide warmth is not a radical plea for technical innovation. Instead it’s a call for cultural conservatism. Which has come from a surprising quarter.
The demand that our televisions, and in particular their comedy output, should generate a warm feeling has been made by Graham Linehan, the writer and director behind Father Ted and Channel 4’s new comedy, The IT Crowd, which begins on Friday. Linehan, who’s just 36, has raised expectations about his show by suggesting that it marks a departure from the comedy consensus. He argues that The IT Crowd is “a reaction against how crass a lot of television comedy has become, really vulgar and crude and unpleasant. I do think one thing that comedy should be is sweet. That’s where I’m trying to hark back to, classic sweet sitcoms like Dad’s Army.” Linehan’s attack on the trend towards noir comedy is certainly smart positioning for his show, but it is also a reflection of a wider, and deeper, sense among writers that comedy has taken a wrong turning. It might have been expected that Victoria Wood and David Croft, as representatives of the comedy ancien régime unseated by Little Britain, The League of Gentlemen and The Office, would be critical of the new darkness. But it is telling that Armando Iannucci, the genius who created the bleakly pitiable world of Alan Partridge and who has, with The Thick of It, painted a picture of contemporary politics far more contemptuous than anything you’ll find in a standard newspaper jeremiad, has signalled his concern at comedy’s current direction.
Iannucci, who is now a visiting professor at Oxford University, argued last week that comedy had become too successful at exploiting the niche and the cult and in the process had forsaken the mainstream. Iannucci, whose doctoral thesis was on Paradise Lost, was careful not to succumb to nostalgia for a departed comic Elysium and had some tart things to say about the limitations of the comfort zone comedy of Terry and June. But he did make a compelling case for comedy to re-engage with the mass audience it had lost, pointing out that the average viewing figures for Britain’s top five sitcoms had dropped from 14.7 million in the mid-1980s to 6.9 million at the turn of the century.
Of course, part of that decline is a function of multichannel broadcasting. But the success of some of those new channels, such as UK Gold, with its reliance on re-runs of classics such as Dad’s Army, only reaffirms the popularity of sitcoms which generate that sweetness, and warmth, that Linehan aspires to. It’s fashionable now to turn on Little Britain as the symbol of what’s gone wrong with contemporary comedy, and I’ve happily done it myself, but to understand why comedy is failing to reach the broader audience it once enjoyed it’s worth going beyond the easy targets and looking at the weaknesses in shows which still enjoy near universal critical acclaim, such as The Office.
The difference between The Office and a genuine popular classic such as Only Fools and Horses lies in the fundamental attitude we’re invited to take towards the central character. Both David Brent and Derek Trotter are self-deluding show-offs, clumsy mock-sophisticates whose attempts at social elevation are doomed to failure — characters in the rich comic tradition of Malvolio, and Molière’s Bourgeois Gentilhomme. But what makes OFAH not just more enduringly popular than The Office, but also deeper, is the affection the show’s writer manages to maintain in our hearts for Del Boy, despite his flaws.
We are invited to laugh at David Brent as he tries to insinuate himself into the affections of his co-workers with humour directed at those he considers life’s losers. But we ourselves are rendered complicit in that same process by the writers who are making us laugh at Brent. In OFAH, by contrast, we are invited to share Del Boy’s hopes and look beyond his scheming to appreciate his basic warmth. The fact that the centre of the Trotter universe is a dysfunctional but still happy home contrasts with the world of The Office, which has no place for the warm or the domestic. There is an inescapable cruelty about The Office which, for all the genius of its writing, betrays a chilliness of vision that the human heart resiles from. Artists excel by setting themselves challenges, and the real test of a comedy writer is the ability to make us laugh with as well as at. It is a test, as Professor Iannucci aptly reminds us, that too many currently fail.
Comedy's gone wrong, and it's no laughing matter
Michael Gove
The Times 1st February 2006
What temperature is your telly set at? Chilled, super-cool or cosy? The idea that you should adjust your set — for warmth — might appear to be a technological fantasy conceived by an electronics manufacturer determined to render existing home entertainment systems and central heating arrangements obsolete by allowing you to Sky-plus your consumption of fuel alongside your consumption of Desperate Housewives. But the notion that TVs should provide warmth is not a radical plea for technical innovation. Instead it’s a call for cultural conservatism. Which has come from a surprising quarter.
The demand that our televisions, and in particular their comedy output, should generate a warm feeling has been made by Graham Linehan, the writer and director behind Father Ted and Channel 4’s new comedy, The IT Crowd, which begins on Friday. Linehan, who’s just 36, has raised expectations about his show by suggesting that it marks a departure from the comedy consensus. He argues that The IT Crowd is “a reaction against how crass a lot of television comedy has become, really vulgar and crude and unpleasant. I do think one thing that comedy should be is sweet. That’s where I’m trying to hark back to, classic sweet sitcoms like Dad’s Army.” Linehan’s attack on the trend towards noir comedy is certainly smart positioning for his show, but it is also a reflection of a wider, and deeper, sense among writers that comedy has taken a wrong turning. It might have been expected that Victoria Wood and David Croft, as representatives of the comedy ancien régime unseated by Little Britain, The League of Gentlemen and The Office, would be critical of the new darkness. But it is telling that Armando Iannucci, the genius who created the bleakly pitiable world of Alan Partridge and who has, with The Thick of It, painted a picture of contemporary politics far more contemptuous than anything you’ll find in a standard newspaper jeremiad, has signalled his concern at comedy’s current direction.
Iannucci, who is now a visiting professor at Oxford University, argued last week that comedy had become too successful at exploiting the niche and the cult and in the process had forsaken the mainstream. Iannucci, whose doctoral thesis was on Paradise Lost, was careful not to succumb to nostalgia for a departed comic Elysium and had some tart things to say about the limitations of the comfort zone comedy of Terry and June. But he did make a compelling case for comedy to re-engage with the mass audience it had lost, pointing out that the average viewing figures for Britain’s top five sitcoms had dropped from 14.7 million in the mid-1980s to 6.9 million at the turn of the century.
Of course, part of that decline is a function of multichannel broadcasting. But the success of some of those new channels, such as UK Gold, with its reliance on re-runs of classics such as Dad’s Army, only reaffirms the popularity of sitcoms which generate that sweetness, and warmth, that Linehan aspires to. It’s fashionable now to turn on Little Britain as the symbol of what’s gone wrong with contemporary comedy, and I’ve happily done it myself, but to understand why comedy is failing to reach the broader audience it once enjoyed it’s worth going beyond the easy targets and looking at the weaknesses in shows which still enjoy near universal critical acclaim, such as The Office.
The difference between The Office and a genuine popular classic such as Only Fools and Horses lies in the fundamental attitude we’re invited to take towards the central character. Both David Brent and Derek Trotter are self-deluding show-offs, clumsy mock-sophisticates whose attempts at social elevation are doomed to failure — characters in the rich comic tradition of Malvolio, and Molière’s Bourgeois Gentilhomme. But what makes OFAH not just more enduringly popular than The Office, but also deeper, is the affection the show’s writer manages to maintain in our hearts for Del Boy, despite his flaws.
We are invited to laugh at David Brent as he tries to insinuate himself into the affections of his co-workers with humour directed at those he considers life’s losers. But we ourselves are rendered complicit in that same process by the writers who are making us laugh at Brent. In OFAH, by contrast, we are invited to share Del Boy’s hopes and look beyond his scheming to appreciate his basic warmth. The fact that the centre of the Trotter universe is a dysfunctional but still happy home contrasts with the world of The Office, which has no place for the warm or the domestic. There is an inescapable cruelty about The Office which, for all the genius of its writing, betrays a chilliness of vision that the human heart resiles from. Artists excel by setting themselves challenges, and the real test of a comedy writer is the ability to make us laugh with as well as at. It is a test, as Professor Iannucci aptly reminds us, that too many currently fail.
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