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This programme contains
strong language
and some scenes of a sexual nature

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In the 18th century, if you wanted
something rude, you went to the
print shop to see something racy.

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Phwoar!

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In Victorian times,
for a bawdy night out,
you would go to rude music hall.

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# I'm here, by the gate, alone... #

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CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

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But in the second half of
the 20th century, enjoying
rudeness became so much easier.

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Rude was now in your front room.

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Switch on the television any
night of the week, and there it was.

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Bloody blond ponce! Shut up!

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Watching together,
laughing together, we now lived
in a mass democracy of rude.

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# Staring at the rude boys... #

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But, in a changing Britain,
rude began to be seen as
offensive in new ways.

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Racist, sexist, you name it.

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Before we went in,
he used to say, here's that Paki
with them two arseholes.

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And, after centuries of mischief
making, rude was now provoking
outrage, and not just among prudes.

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Sacked for what it called the
"unacceptable and offensive
messages left on his answerphone."

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# Staring at the rude boys... #

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Liberals, once cheerleaders
for rudeness, began to believe

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that all this had gone too far,
even for them. 

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I'm the fucking...
Now fuck the fuck off.

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# Rule Britannia... #
So, just how far should you go in
the mass democracy of rude?

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Rule Britannia!

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You've never had it so rude.

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# Britain never never
never shall be saved. #

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It was in 1963 that Modern Rude,
like sex, began.

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Cartoonist Gerald Scarfe drew Prime
Minister Harold Macmillan starkers.

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I drew Macmillan naked,
and that was the thing I think 

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that shocked everybody at
that time.

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Because, up until then, 

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I have since read, no-one had been
drawing politicians naked

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since the 18th century.

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I drew Macmillan's breasts sticking
out and sort of vulgarly rude.

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I made them as fleshy and
round as possible as one
can with a line drawing.

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This image by Scarfe became
a devastating piece of satire.

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The inspiration?

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Macmillan's Defence Minister,
John Profumo, had a relationship
with call girl Christine Keeler,

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then covered the whole thing up.

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Gave him a nice big bum too.

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A provocative image of Keeler was
taken by photographer Lewis Morley.

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Gerald Scarfe took Morley's image
and, in a rude twist, substituted
the Prime Minister for Keeler.

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LIPS SMACK TOGETHER IN A KISS

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This cartoon appeared in
a new satirical magazine
called Private Eye.

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Private Eye was fantastic,
the amount of freedom they gave me.

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They actually
encouraged me to go for it,

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and I found myself drawing nipples
and pubic hair, and I found an
almost schoolboy relish

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in saying things or drawing
things that I shouldn't really.

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Yes, I definitely set out to be rude.

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I set out to try and shock.

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This was the beginning of the end
for a deference that had
protected politicians for years.

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From now on, Scarfe and others
could revel in a tradition of

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rude cartooning come back to life,
and attacking hypocrisy.

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I think it is healthy in society
to have somebody prick the bubble of

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pomposity that can exist around
politicians, and society in general.

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It's just healthy to have someone to
put the other point of view.

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Caught by Lewis Morley
in exactly the same

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iconic pose as Christine Keeler,
was '60s playwright Joe Orton.

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His plays were now
scandalising London's West End.

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A woman once threw herself at me,
I needn't tell you this is
in confidence. She was stark naked.

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She wished me to misbehave myself.
And do you know?

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All I was conscious of was
that she had a malformed navel.

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I think that, in
terms of the theatre,

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Orton is an exemplary figure,

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a master of rudery.

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Orton said he wanted to see
plays with a lot more fucking.

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Orton's short life
was one of rude theatrical adventure
and gay abandon.

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Joe Orton was the spearhead of
the idea that being gay is fun.

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It's not a criminal thing,
it's not a disease, 

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it's not a psychopathology.

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It's just fun.

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It's a lot of shagging, you know.
Excellent.

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Endless orgasms, that's the idea,
the Joe Orton idea of homosexuality.

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This was not the general view
of the British public at the time!

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The way Orton lived his life
translated into the writing of
bawdy, lewd and satirical plays.

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Plays like Entertaining Mr Sloane,
and Loot, with their assault on
taboos of sex, class and death,

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were a challenge to
theatre audiences.

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They pushed the boundaries
of what could be said and shown
on the British stage.

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What did he do?
He asked me to lie on that couch.

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Did he at any time attempt
to interfere with you?

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You'll be disappointed, Sergeant,
if you imagine that young
man has lost his virginity.

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I hope he'll be considerably
more experienced before
he loses that, sir.

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It's the fact that it is smut
on stilts that is so interesting.

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It's that it's a kind of,

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it's very cocky and

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show-offy use of language, that

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seems to somehow make it
even more offensive, you know.

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Because it's like jewels in
shit, is really what it is.

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Orton's last notorious piece of rude
theatre was What The Butler Saw.

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SHE CRIES OUT IN PAIN

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Oh, my darling!

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This is the way to sexual
adjustment in marriage.

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On its opening night,
there were shouts of "filth"

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and "rubbish" from the stalls.

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SHE PANTS AND MOANS

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And it's got rape.
Let me cure your neurosis.

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It's the only thing I want out
of life.

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There's cross-dressing, of course.

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Are you Geraldine Bartley?

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Yes.

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It has Sir Winston's member.

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RASPBERRY IS BLOWN

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SHOCKED GASP

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One young theatre goer was present
when the member of Britain's

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war-time leader was used for
dramatic effect.

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I can remember and audible
frisson of horror in the audience,

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that Churchill's penis
was being bandied about as

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a comic device.

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The great man can once again take up
his place in the high street,

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as the example to us of the spirit
that won the Battle of Britain.

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THEY GASP

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It might just be permissible
for rude to tread the boards.

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But, to the dismay of Middle
England, it was starting to enter
the front rooms of Britain.

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Now there was filth on the airwaves.

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And radio was at its rudest
in Round The Horne.

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RADIO: Round The Horne! Turned
to water when she sung that song.

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They did. He's sensitive.

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Touched. He gets touched,
he gets easily touched.

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And moved. 

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Touched and moved.
Every time he goes to the theatre,
he wilfully suspends his disbelief.

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The straight man of Round
The Horne was Kenneth Horne.

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The camp energy and wit came
from actor Kenneth Williams

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who, with Hugh Paddick
played Julian and Sandy.

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I particularly was drawn to Julian
and Sandy because,
I simply don't know 

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how that really happened now.

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Who is that lurking
behind that potted palm?

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Oh hello, I'm Julian and
this is my friend Sandy.

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A gay couple, absolutely nakedly,
openly gay couple, 

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that this dear old
Kenneth Horne, who was so proper.

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He was like the man from the
Prudential, always knocking on
doors saying, "Hello there."

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You never knew why he was going to
see Julian and Sandy. He just did.

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AS KENNETH WILLIAMS:
Ooh, hello Mr Horne.

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Ooh, hello Mr Horne.

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LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

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What brings you trolling in here?

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Well, I'd like to
invest in your enterprise.

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Ooh, ain't he bold!

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Round The Horne was listened to
by millions, Sunday lunchtime,
on the BBC's Light Programme.

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For the family of comedy
producer-to-be John Lloyd,
the show was a must-hear experience.

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RADIO: ..transport it to
another place. That's after
you've been touched and moved?

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LAUGHTER

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You'd
all be sitting down for Sunday lunch.

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And my dad was a naval officer.

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My mum would cook Sunday lunch.

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And we'd have Round The Horne on, and
everybody would laugh. It was filthy.

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RADIO: Gratuitous sex.
And gratuitous violence.

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And filth.
And swearing. And drinking.

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And carrying on, and being arrested.

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Because it was family listening,
from the first series in 1965,

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Round The Horne made
BBC management nervous.

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8th April 1965.

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Assistant Director of
Sound Broadcasting to HLES.

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"Quite a few reasonable
people inside the BBC,

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"as well as outside, including
myself on one or two occasions,
have thought 

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"that there was a tendency
for this otherwise excellent
show to get a bit dirty.

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"As it has always been intended for
family listening, I think we should
err on the side of strictness.

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"Would you keep a
personal eye on it, please?"

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Round The Horne used the gay
slang known as Polari to deliver

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a humour of double entendre and lewd
innuendo inherited from music hall.

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Mrs Olga Cremo.

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Lovely. But it never worked
out, did it? 

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Neither did Captain
Brassbound's conversion.

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The use of Polari allowed
Julian and Sandy to get away
with being outrageously rude.

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It waved, didn't it? Yes, it did.

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One of the most extraordinary
examples in Round The Horne,

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there is a sketch where Julian and
Sandy are talking about

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how talented they are playing
different musical instruments.

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And one of them describes the other
as being a "miracle of dexterity
on the cottage upright"

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which, of course, is a type of
piano to most people listening.

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Here, play him some of our
numbers, Jules. Shall I?

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Jules, is marvellous, he's a miracle
of dexterity at the cottage upright.

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LAUGHTER

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But, to gay men listening at the
time and to there clued-up friends,

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cottage upright means an erect
penis in a public toilet where
men met each other to have sex.

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This is going out Sunday
lunchtimes on the most popular
radio network in the country.

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It's unthinkable that if people had
got the full extent of the joke,
it could have been broadcast.

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# ...yes.... #

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APPLAUSE

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To ward off attacks from
offended listeners, a comedy

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like Round The Horne had an ally
at the highest level of the BBC.

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The Director General of the time,
Hugh Carleton Greene, defended
rude programming.

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He was keen that the corporation
should move with changing,
liberalising times.

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Auntie should be ruder.

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The Director General of the BBC at
the time, Hugh Greene, was seen as

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a figure that ahead of this
liberalising, of this allowing of
innuendo and filth and rudeness.

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People like Mary Whitehouse and
other moral campaigners at the time

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were always targeting him
as the person to blame.

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And, in some respects, whatever
their intentions, they were correct.

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He was overseeing a period of
loosening the shackles, of
widening the remit of what

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could be said on the BBC,
of trying to make it slightly more
contemporary and less stuffy.

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Yes, tell him what it was.

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Tell him, tell him what happened.
Go on, tell him.

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No. Go on. Get it out in the open.

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No!

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Unburden yourself.
Look, look, as this is the last show,
let's not have a "bona" contention.

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LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

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Also benefiting from
the new permissiveness

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was a younger generation intent
on creating a counter-culture.

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House journal of this
underground movement

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was Oz, which first surfaced
during the summer of love in 1967.

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It was a hippy propaganda sheet.

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It contained everything from
hard-left politics, to sex
and drugs and rock'n'roll.

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Oz, with the rest of the
underground press had its own rude,

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that was hippy bawdy,
and hippy lewd.

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Here was an attitude to sex and the
body that hadn't been seen since
the libertines of the 18th century.

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Oz was a process of exploration,
and an experiment to discover

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how much fun you could have without
either dying or being arrested.

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In 1970, co-editors Richard Neville,
Jim Anderson and Felix Dennis

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invited a group of teenagers
to guest edit Oz.

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00:14:35,520 --> 00:14:40,600
Amongst those selected to produce a
Schoolkidz edition was 18-year-old

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Charles Shaar Murray, introduced
as a Jewish Pantheist.

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00:14:47,960 --> 00:14:52,440
Ended up with a bunch of other people
aged between 15 and 18, in this

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very exotic, to me, basement, which
smelled of pot, incense,
vegetarian cookery, 

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and slightly stale laundry.

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which, to me, is always the iconic
smell of Notting Hill Gate.

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00:15:12,800 --> 00:15:17,320
The editor of underground
magazine International Times
was a witness to

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00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:19,600
what emerged from
hippy Notting Hill Gate.

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It was a completely worked-out
experiment to give a bunch of

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young teen school kids

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00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:33,040
free run of a magazine.

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This wasn't the product of
degenerate 25 to 30-year-olds.

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It was a bunch of kids let loose,
paste up and do their own magazine.

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And that's what they came up with.
And...

223
00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:49,080
Then all hell broke loose.

224
00:15:52,520 --> 00:15:58,000
Inside Skoolkidz Oz was a comic
strip featuring the head of the much
loved children's character Rupert

225
00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:03,880
Bear superimposed on an X-rated
cartoon by American Robert Crumb.

226
00:16:03,880 --> 00:16:08,280
Words and pictures
were a rude provocation.

227
00:16:09,800 --> 00:16:12,240
"Rupert finds Gipsy Granny.

228
00:16:12,240 --> 00:16:14,760
"It looks just like a ball to me.

229
00:16:14,760 --> 00:16:17,400
"Open it and see."

230
00:16:17,400 --> 00:16:22,800
The idea of suggesting
that Rupert Bear,

231
00:16:22,800 --> 00:16:29,560
offstage if you like, when he wasn't
doing his gig for the Daily Express,

232
00:16:29,560 --> 00:16:31,680
actually had

233
00:16:31,680 --> 00:16:38,320
a libido,
a sense of mischief and some

234
00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:43,160
possibly unsavoury internal urges

235
00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:46,720
was, I thought, hilarious.

236
00:16:46,720 --> 00:16:51,240
"Oh, good, that door is open wide,
pants Rupert as he runs inside.

237
00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:58,240
"And then he slips,
and down he slides to where dark
water glints and glides."

238
00:16:58,240 --> 00:17:00,280
WOMAN SCREAMS

239
00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:08,000
The rest of Britain found
these Schoolkidz antics
a lot less hilarious.

240
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:12,520
And for some, all this hippy
mischief-making was deeply shocking.

241
00:17:14,200 --> 00:17:18,240
A lot of people reacted
painfully to it.

242
00:17:18,240 --> 00:17:21,560
My own parents' generation,
for instance.

243
00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:25,160
They were just sort of
shocked and sort of hurt.

244
00:17:25,160 --> 00:17:28,040
Was this why people died
in the Second World War?

245
00:17:28,040 --> 00:17:32,960
So these young ruffians could
come and be rude about things that
we value.

246
00:17:32,960 --> 00:17:37,080
In fact, not just that we value
but that we feel sustain us.

247
00:17:37,080 --> 00:17:41,080
There was agitation that
something must be done about Oz.

248
00:17:41,080 --> 00:17:48,600
And it was. The editors were charged
with obscenity and put on trial
at the Old Bailey, in June 1971.

249
00:17:48,600 --> 00:17:56,360
Outside court,
white pantheist Charles Shaar Murray
supported the Oz three,

250
00:17:56,360 --> 00:18:02,120
whilst inside
the legal niceties got naughty.

251
00:18:02,120 --> 00:18:05,960
The hallowed halls of the Old Bailey
resounding to 

252
00:18:05,960 --> 00:18:10,560
a conversation between a lawyer

253
00:18:10,560 --> 00:18:18,360
and a witness about what would be
the appropriate size
for the penis of a young bear cub.

254
00:18:18,360 --> 00:18:22,520
Admittedly a young bear cub
who wore a scarf and sweater.

255
00:18:22,520 --> 00:18:26,320
The whole episode was
completely ludicrous.

256
00:18:26,320 --> 00:18:34,360
To the fury of their supporters
the defendants were found guilty
and sent down with harsh sentences.

257
00:18:34,360 --> 00:18:42,040
In prison, the Oz editors had their
hippy locks cut whilst waiting for
what would be a successful appeal.

258
00:18:42,040 --> 00:18:45,160
We weren't actually tied to the chair
but if we hadn't had our hair cut

259
00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:47,400
we would have been on
bread and water for three days.

260
00:18:47,400 --> 00:18:51,960
As bad as prison food is,
the prospect of bread and water for
three days was not delightful.

261
00:18:51,960 --> 00:18:58,640
People were genuinely frightened by
Oz. It did all sorts of things,

262
00:18:58,640 --> 00:19:03,200
which were beyond the pale, which
suggested they were out of control.

263
00:19:03,200 --> 00:19:06,800
Which is why, in fact,
the whole kind of machinery

264
00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:12,480
of repression came down
on them so savagely in that trial.

265
00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:19,600
On their release, the Oz editors
affectionately devoted their next
issue to the boys in blue.

266
00:19:27,160 --> 00:19:31,520
The hippy rude of the Underground
Press, rude cartoons,

267
00:19:31,520 --> 00:19:34,560
a rude theatre and rude radio -

268
00:19:34,560 --> 00:19:41,280
they had all contributed to an
emerging, modern kind of rudeness.

269
00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:49,080
Scene 36, take one.
But it was television that finally
introduced a mass democracy of rude.

270
00:19:49,080 --> 00:19:51,560
You, you bloody Scouse ponce!

271
00:19:51,560 --> 00:19:53,240
LAUGHTER

272
00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:59,280
By the early '70s, almost every
household in Britain owned a set.

273
00:19:59,280 --> 00:20:02,680
Here was a rudeness that was
easily available in your front room

274
00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:05,440
at the click of a switch.

275
00:20:05,440 --> 00:20:09,680
Telly rude we could all
comfortably enjoy together,
at exactly the same time,

276
00:20:09,680 --> 00:20:11,880
no matter who you were.

277
00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:14,320
..bolshie bastards like him!

278
00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:20,680
In all the other art forms, you made
a decision, you bought a ticket, 

279
00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:24,240
you made a journey in most cases.

280
00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:26,600
Or you went and bought a book and
brought it into your house

281
00:20:26,600 --> 00:20:29,920
But this stuff, television could
take you unawares.

282
00:20:29,920 --> 00:20:32,000
I'll never play this bloody game
with you again!

283
00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:39,280
And that's why it's been both
dangerous and brave things have been
able to be done.

284
00:20:39,280 --> 00:20:41,520
That's the trouble with the bloody
telly.

285
00:20:41,520 --> 00:20:45,320
Too many people getting too well
bloody informed, if you ask me.

286
00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:48,840
Too much of that going on,
that's what. Bloody BBC.

287
00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:53,120
It's also why there's been so much
caution, because of that awareness

288
00:20:53,120 --> 00:20:56,280
that people are not necessarily
choosing what they're viewing.

289
00:21:00,240 --> 00:21:02,840
It was comedy like
Till Death Us Do Part 

290
00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:05,520
that brought rude to
peak-time television.

291
00:21:06,360 --> 00:21:10,840
Writer Johnny Speight benefited
from the more open minded BBC.

292
00:21:10,840 --> 00:21:16,480
He could make the Garnetts
gloriously rude about politicians.

293
00:21:16,480 --> 00:21:24,480
In one episode, Alf's daughter has
a rant about Tory premier Edward
Heath and the 1972 miners' strike.

294
00:21:24,480 --> 00:21:26,560
Everyone wants to pay the miners
but old fatso won't.

295
00:21:28,080 --> 00:21:32,960
No. Oh, he makes me sick every time
I see him on there with his great
porky face wobbling with the fat.

296
00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:40,680
Now, this is the most popular
sitcom in Britain, and to have
somebody talking about

297
00:21:40,680 --> 00:21:46,120
the sitting prime minister with such
venom, such aggression, I mean you
wouldn't see it in My Family now.

298
00:21:46,120 --> 00:21:48,600
Zoe Wannamaker's not going to
suddenly start banging on about how

299
00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:51,320
Gordon Brown is disgusting
and he makes her sick.

300
00:21:51,320 --> 00:21:54,400
I think what that shows is that
in the '70s there was this kind of

301
00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:59,480
political frankness and this kind of
political aggressiveness.

302
00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:02,160
And this kind of naked partisanship.

303
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:06,960
And through the bigotry
of Alf Garnett,
the issue of race could be raised.

304
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:09,080
He'd put the coons down the pits.

305
00:22:11,120 --> 00:22:17,680
Colour, as it was called, was
something that was pre-occupying a
changing, more multi-racial Britain.

306
00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:20,480
Humour was a way of dealing with it.

307
00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:24,680
That's why
they wear all that war paint, innit?

308
00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:26,960
To see each other in the dark, see.

309
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:32,880
I suppose, if he did put
the coons down the pits...

310
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:36,760
..he could always
whitewash their faces first!

311
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:45,920
Here, rude could be agent
provocateur, forcing into the open
fears and prejudices.

312
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:50,000
Every time you see
rudeness of this kind, you feel

313
00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:55,400
either it's battering a door
which won't open, or, in other cases,

314
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:57,280
it's breaking through a door.

315
00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:02,200
Fair enough. Thanks very much. Do
you want a cup of tea, Sambo...John?

316
00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:07,200
Rudery always tests your response.

317
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:12,480
It's always a kind of litmus
paper of where you are and where
society is at any given moment.

318
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:14,240
That's what makes it so
interesting in my view.

319
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:19,240
Oh, if you want me again,
just beat the drums, eh?

320
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:30,280
Race was critical to another
tradition of rude humour

321
00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:33,280
that also entered primetime
television in the 1970s.

322
00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:40,800
This was performed in northern
working men's clubs by stand-up
comedians like Bernard Manning.

323
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:42,920
This Paki used to knock about with
these two Irish fellows.

324
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:44,880
The Paki got knocked down.

325
00:23:44,880 --> 00:23:49,320
And the copper said, "What was
his name?" They said, "We never
knew his name, sir.

326
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:53,600
"The only thing we knew about
him, he had two arseholes."
He said, "How do you mean?"

327
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:58,280
He says, "Every pub we went in
they used to say here's that
Paki with them two arseholes."

328
00:24:01,120 --> 00:24:06,320
These were comedians who luxuriated
in being blunt, in being direct.

329
00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:13,480
And in a way part of their appeal
was we say it direct, we say it to
you in an unvarnished way, we say it

330
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:16,920
to you because those people in
London won't give you this
kind of comedy.

331
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:18,440
CHEERING

332
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:21,200
Bernard Manning was a
king of northern comedy.

333
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:22,960
Thank you very much.

334
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:26,200
Manning made his part of
'70s Britain laugh.

335
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:28,440
We've got a wonderful
show for you tonight.

336
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:32,080
When's the best time to sell an
Irishman a plot of land? Do you know?

337
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:33,880
When the tide's out.

338
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,400
Nothing wrong with that.
That was lovely.

339
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:44,960
What would there be left to laugh
about if you didn't have nig-nogs
and disabled people and fat women?

340
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:47,440
There would be nothing
left to be funny about.

341
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:51,080
And we all merrily did Pakistani
accents and thought
that was terribly funny,

342
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:57,720
and jokes about Chinese
people eating Pakis,
and Irish jokes and so forth.

343
00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:00,000
They were very funny
and nobody batted an eyelid.

344
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:07,680
In 1971, Producer Johnny Hamp at
Granada TV decided to put the humour

345
00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:10,840
of northern comics such as Manning
on television.

346
00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:16,920
Hamp thought these comedians would
put a smile on the face of a nation
gripped by a mood of decline.

347
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:23,320
Everybody was a bit in
the doldrums and we
thought how about a belly laugh.

348
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:26,200
And so I

349
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:29,640
picked out
30 of the comics that I thought...

350
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:33,160
I don't know what I was going
to do with them, to be honest.

351
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:35,360
But I brought them into
the studio at Granada.

352
00:25:35,360 --> 00:25:39,800
Over three nights, ten a night,
and just put them all on tape.

353
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:43,880
Then edited up what became
the first show of The Comedians.

354
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:48,760
Irishman up in court,
for maintenance.

355
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,080
The judge said, "We decided to
allow your wife seven pound a week."

356
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:54,360
He says, "Thanks very much,
and I'll try and send her
a few shilling meself."

357
00:25:54,360 --> 00:25:58,480
The Comedians made national
stars of regional comics.

358
00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:03,400
But in this transfer to
television the bawdy blue humour
of the clubs was left out.

359
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:07,320
This would have been all too much
for '70s television.

360
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:12,400
I always pride myself that I
don't think we ever did a blue joke.

361
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:18,520
When I say blue, I mean a rude,
very rude, sexually rude gag.

362
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:24,200
What was left after the blue had
been washed out was comedy that
would soon be seen as unacceptable,

363
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:26,760
rudeness that was crude
and offensive.

364
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:34,000
I know a fellow spent
30 years in darkest Africa
looking for the lost Mazazuki tribe.

365
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:37,000
He found them eventually, living
over a chip shop in Bradford.

366
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:44,920
Corporation toilets in Birmingham are
losing a fortune. All these Jamaicans
keep doing the limbo under the door.

367
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:48,280
There's nothing
ironic about The Comedians.

368
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:51,080
There is something ironic about
Till Death Us Do Part.

369
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:55,000
Johnny Speight wrote that show
to show up Alf Garnett.

370
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:57,360
To make fun of him and to
make fun of his attitudes.

371
00:26:57,360 --> 00:26:58,920
That was the whole
point of the show.

372
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:01,840
It didn't quite work, because a lot
of people empathised with him.

373
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:05,600
But that was the design behind it.
Now Comedians isn't
doing that at all.

374
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:11,280
The Comedians is basically
saying we all think Pakis are funny,
let's all have a laugh at them.

375
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:12,840
That's the subtext behind the show.

376
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:17,560
There's no irony, no
attempt to debunk, it's wallowing in

377
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:22,880
those kind of prejudices rather than
interrogating them or questioning
them.

378
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:24,400
What's this? You,
a Jew, you don't serve Jews...

379
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:28,840
The Comedians
ran on ITV for 11 seasons.

380
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:33,480
At its peak in the mid-'70s,
audiences were reaching ten million.

381
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:37,560
But into the '80s,
the programme lost its mass appeal.

382
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:40,400
# Babylon's burning... #

383
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,920
Now the mood in Britain was
angry and fractious.

384
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:50,760
This was a time of conflict abroad
and the enemy within at home.

385
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:56,080
Rude satire now held up a mirror
to a nation on edge.

386
00:27:56,080 --> 00:28:03,600
And satirists focussed on the one
person whose aggressive conviction
politics were dominating Britain.

387
00:28:07,360 --> 00:28:10,800
It's complete gloom when
Thatcher came to power.

388
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:14,320
I remember vividly May 4th 1979.

389
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:17,560
Where there is discord,
may we bring harmony.

390
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:21,560
I can remember just the sheer
frustration of the Thatcher years.

391
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:23,760
It went on for bloody 11 years of it.

392
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:27,760
And where there is despair,
may we bring hope.

393
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:32,640
For a new generation of cartoonists,
Margaret Thatcher was THE target.

394
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:37,480
Steve Bell was a fan of the
political cartooning of
Gerald Scarfe 

395
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:42,240
and had been influenced by
the subversive ideology of the
counterculture.

396
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:45,280
Must never forget the neck.

397
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:49,000
One of the points about Margaret, the
brass Margaret, is her brass neck.

398
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:53,720
Continuing her monstrous cheek.

399
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:57,960
Anger made Bell's pen drip with
vitriol.

400
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:05,360
I attacked her as a psychopath.
That was my take on her. I thought
she was mad from the word go.

401
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,320
I thought there was something
really weird about this woman.

402
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:12,240
Not only did she stand
for everything I hated,
but she was deranged with it.

403
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:15,360
And there was a kind of
arrogance about Thatcher.

404
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:17,000
Utter self belief.

405
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,800
I have only one thing to say.

406
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:22,720
You turn if you want to.

407
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,280
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

408
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:29,120
Steve Bell in his comic
strips chronicled a period

409
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:34,040
when the lady was not for turning,
no matter what the consequences.

410
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:37,480
The lady's not for turning.

411
00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:43,880
I just wanted to be as rude as I
possibly could, I just wanted to
get at her, I wanted to attack.

412
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:45,920
I wanted to destroy her.

413
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:46,960
# Babylon's burning

414
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:48,280
# Babylon's burning. #

415
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:55,640
Television also satirised
Margaret Thatcher 

416
00:29:55,640 --> 00:30:01,640
in a comedy show
that first appeared on ITV in 1984,

417
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:03,920
Spitting Image.

418
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:09,360
We considered it fair game to
be as rude about Mrs Thatcher as...

419
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:12,400
Well, ruder than we could
possibly imagine. We tried to be.

420
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:17,120
Ah, Heseltine.

421
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:19,400
What are you covering up this week?

422
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:22,640
The idea of Mrs Thatcher
going for a pee with the lads 

423
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:28,000
seemed to be perfectly normal
and I think a lot of people thought
that's probably what she does do.

424
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:32,000
It felt right. And obviously she
wears Y-fronts - of course she does.

425
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:35,080
She's well hung,
massive swinging dick under there.

426
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:37,800
That seemed right.

427
00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:44,880
Spitting Image benefitted from
collaboration between illustrators

428
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:50,400
and sculptors Peter Fluck and Roger
Law and producers like John Lloyd.

429
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:55,040
# Grimly fiendish

430
00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:59,760
# Plays the game that never ends... #

431
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:03,080
I think that Spitting Image
was a sort of hybrid

432
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:07,720
between the tradition that Scarfe
comes out of, that we came out of,

433
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:13,680
English comic art, English
satirical art, and John Lloyd,
of course, is out of Footlights.

434
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:22,440
So it is that hybrid between Oxbridge
Footlights and a traditional form
of visual art, and Punch and Judy.

435
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:25,920
Spitting Image revived centuries
old traditions of puppetry

436
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:31,200
and caricature to mock and ridicule
the powerful, rich and famous.

437
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:34,360
When Spitting Image emerged,
with Fluck and Law,

438
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:39,200
who create these grotesque puppets,
it seemed to be 

439
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:44,800
a direct link back to
18th century political cartooning.

440
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:47,120
Millions began to
watch Spitting Image.

441
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:52,080
In the front rooms of Britain,
there seemed to be an appetite
for this kind of comedy.

442
00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:59,160
The mass democracy of rude was
voting for its peak time marriage
of puppets and political satire.

443
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:03,360
If the unemployed are hungry,
why don't they eat their own bodies?

444
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,320
All that good meat going
to waste. It makes me mad.

445
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:08,280
'Mrs Thatcher. Will you, yourself...

446
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:13,360
One of the sketches in the very
first six shows was Norman Tebbit,

447
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:16,880
who had liquidised - he put a hand, 

448
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:23,720
puppet hands were made
out of pink latex, into a liquidiser
and made a kind of pink soup,

449
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:27,760
and then drank this
sort of cannibal soup.

450
00:32:27,760 --> 00:32:31,560
The idea was that if
the unemployed are so hungry,
why don't they eat themselves?

451
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,200
It is very nutritious, human flesh.

452
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:39,520
This sketch made those who regulated
independent television uneasy.

453
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,960
I went to the IBA and they said,
"John, you see, is this funny?

454
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:48,080
"I mean, cannibalism,
do you really think that is amusing?"

455
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:54,000
But a little learned chat about
18th century satirist Jonathan Swift

456
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:59,320
between producer and regulator
persuaded them otherwise.

457
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:06,640
And I said, "Well, no, obviously I do
not think it is amusing, sir, but it
is really Swift's A Modest Proposal.

458
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:10,240
"As you will recall, the Irish
potato famine and so on." "Oh!

459
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:12,760
"Satire. Oh, well that is fine.

460
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:16,800
"I'm sorry, I did not realise it was
satire, I thought it was filth.
Jolly good, move on!"

461
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:20,560
But Spitting Image
didn't just attack politicians.

462
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:25,280
The programme also went for
the British Establishment
by making fun of the Royal Family.

463
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:28,840
..will be mine tonight.

464
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:29,880
I want you now.

465
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:32,920
Rude mockery of all
the senior Royals.

466
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:36,960
Something like this hadn't
been attempted for centuries.

467
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:39,280
Yes, dear.
Did you remember to set the bugler?

468
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:42,840
Yes, dear, seven o'clock.
The Queen was a secret communist.

469
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:46,400
I don't think you have met my
sister Margaret, dear, have you?

470
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:49,200
Margaret was a dipso.

471
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:56,320
Charles was really earnest and
rather out of touch with everything.

472
00:33:56,320 --> 00:34:00,400
One talked to the workers and
one cracked a rather amusing
joke about an outside loo.

473
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:02,040
Randy, you have got to help me.

474
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:05,920
The Duke of Edinburgh shot everything
in sight. Come on now...

475
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:10,320
That's right, boy. Good shot! 

476
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:15,120
The Royals were another
target that modern rude could
take on and get away with.

477
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:18,960
Now the Windsors were part of Rude
Britannia, just like anybody else.

478
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:22,920
Producer John Lloyd
had a rude awakening to the impact

479
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:26,960
Spitting Image was making
after one late recording.

480
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:34,880
I came back and I fell asleep on
the train back from Birmingham.

481
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:39,160
I woke up to the sound of
these two old ducks with a
bucket cleaning the train.

482
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:44,880
One said, "Oh,
did you see that Spitting Image
last night on the telly?"

483
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:47,280
The other one says, "Yeah, I saw it.

484
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:51,040
"I love that show because
I hate the fucking Queen."

485
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:53,440
And you think,
"What have I done here?"

486
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:01,280
The writers, producers and
artists who worked on Spitting Image

487
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:06,320
were part of a generation intent on
creating a new kind of comedy.

488
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:13,640
Here they arrive on the scene,
the Ben Eltons, Harry Enfields,

489
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:18,520
Jo Brands, and they wanted
to create something new.

490
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:26,360
Dubbed alternative comedians, they
tended to be younger, more middle
class and university educated.

491
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:33,720
And they consciously rejected
a rude humour of easy laughs
against Pakistanis or the Irish.

492
00:35:33,720 --> 00:35:38,480
The alternative comedy of the
'80s came into being as

493
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:42,600
a very self-conscious reaction to
older types of comedy.

494
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:46,280
Let's do away with the old-fashioned
comedy of The Comedians,

495
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:48,960
of those club comics, of those
older working-class comics.

496
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:55,680
I am not a virgin!
I am not a virgin!

497
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:04,080
The anarchic punky humour of
The Young Ones relied in part
on traditional slapstick.

498
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:06,360
Oi. If I am a virgin,

499
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:09,320
how come I know what a girl's
bottom looks like?

500
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:11,800
From looking in the mirror.

501
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:18,080
It is often rudeness that does go
back to a kind of clowning,
bodily parts.

502
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:24,400
The Young Ones has lots of violence
as rudeness, abuse of the body, which
is a different kind of rudeness.

503
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:27,960
UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE THEME PLAYS

504
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,560
Watching The Young Ones go and
be on University Challenge

505
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:33,840
and Vivian lose his head by sticking
it out of a train, which,

506
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:38,680
by the way, is an excellent safety
message, it has made me always not
stick my head out of a train window.

507
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:42,960
Do not lean out of the window.
I wonder why?

508
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:45,560
TRAIN HORN BLARES

509
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:48,040
AARGHHHH!

510
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:55,200
Yes, it was incredibly
juvenile and in a way that does
fit into the alternative remit.

511
00:36:55,200 --> 00:37:01,520
So much of alternative comedy was
young middle-class men behaving like
children. It cannot be got past.

512
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,760
You took your time, you bastard!

513
00:37:07,240 --> 00:37:09,400
This was knockabout stuff,

514
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:14,640
but also in a tradition of using
rude humour to challenge taboos.

515
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:19,600
There is a party episode when
Rik Mayall goes into a girl's
handbag and goes, "What is in here?"

516
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:22,680
And he gets out a white cardboard
tube and goes, "What's this?"

517
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:24,400
And she blushes and covers her eyes.

518
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:29,600
It's a telescope!

519
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:33,120
A telescope with a mouse in it!

520
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:39,280
I remember thinking at the time,
I was only 18 or 20, thinking,

521
00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:42,480
"Wow, I have never seen a
tampon on television before."

522
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:45,960
Menstruation is just not
referred to at all in public,

523
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:49,240
and he gets out this tampon,
and there's this huge laugh on

524
00:37:49,240 --> 00:37:52,840
the edginess of it and that rudeness
of it but actually it is liberating.

525
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:55,960
He is saying, yes, women menstruate,
yes, let's not be so embarrassed

526
00:37:55,960 --> 00:38:01,560
and not make women feel so bad about
it, which is what it is really about.

527
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:03,200
Have you? Honestly...

528
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:07,760
The Young Ones were getting
laughs out of new sensitivities.

529
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:11,280
Pay attention. Mary, who is
that tall girl doing Geoggers...

530
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:12,960
Oh! You mean

531
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:16,000
the one with the enormous tits!

532
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:19,680
They're minute... Vivian,
will you stop being so sexist!

533
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:22,440
They are called breasts
and everybody has them.

534
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:28,920
But comedians of all ages and
persuasions would increasingly

535
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:32,800
have to pay attention to a new code
of do's and don't's

536
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:35,720
in the manufacture
of their laughter.

537
00:38:35,720 --> 00:38:40,480
This was dictated by the emergence
of political correctness.

538
00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:46,840
It's all about not offending
the very groups who had been

539
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:52,640
the traditional butts of so much
comedy. Women, ethnic minorities,

540
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:58,160
people who were in any way different,
people who are weaker than you are.

541
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:02,320
Those people who had all been targets
for kind of comic bullying.

542
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,440
Political correctness says,
oh no, you can't do that.

543
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:08,520
Take that off the table.

544
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:11,200
See if we get any niggers
in here, you know?

545
00:39:12,720 --> 00:39:15,080
What political correctness demanded

546
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:21,320
was that comedians like Bernard
Manning should have no place in
television's mass democracy of rude.

547
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:26,560
This nigger walked in this pub with
a BEEP big parrot on his shoulder.

548
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:28,760
And the barman said,
"Where have you got that from?"

549
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:31,840
And the parrot said, Africa,
there's BEEP millions of them.

550
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:35,560
As a journalist rather
than as a punter,

551
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:38,880
I went a number of times
to Bernard Manning's club

552
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:42,400
in Manchester
and when they kicked him off TV,

553
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:46,800
when the on the whole liberals
who ran TV decided that this stuff

554
00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:52,280
was no longer acceptable,
he just went and did the same jokes

555
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:55,440
and even worse jokes in the clubs.

556
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:58,480
I said you'll get a BEEP
the way you are going on.

557
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:00,560
You slant-eyed, yellow face bastard.

558
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:09,200
Banished from television, Manning
became the new alternative comedy
that went underground.

559
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:14,720
I think it is absolutely
true to say that Manning
becomes the counter-culture.

560
00:40:14,720 --> 00:40:16,320
And not just Manning.

561
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:20,120
What is left of the survivors
of the working men's clubs

562
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:23,040
have retreated underground.
They have become the alternative.

563
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:24,920
INDISTINCT

564
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:28,920
Those working-class comics
slink back into their bunkers

565
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:33,600
and become something that has to be
sought out, like with native guides.

566
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:43,600
At the same time that
club comedy went back to its roots,
scornful of newly PC times,

567
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:47,920
another rude phenomenon
emerged from the north

568
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:53,880
that also refused to bow down to the
concerns of political correctness.

569
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:02,000
This was Viz, from Newcastle.

570
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:10,040
Our take on everything
was to take the piss.

571
00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:12,440
That was what we enjoyed doing.

572
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:19,760
We very much enjoyed

573
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:23,880
not being guided by the whole PC...

574
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:25,640
brigade bullshit.

575
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:29,680
Stop this show.

576
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:31,920
Equal rights for ugly women.

577
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:38,040
The whole politically correct
aspect of it was worthless,
as far as I am concerned.

578
00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:42,360
You see, comedy can't be righteous.

579
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:44,720
Comedy doesn't bear analysis.

580
00:41:44,720 --> 00:41:50,480
Whatever makes you laugh
makes you laugh, and you
can't be judgmental about it.

581
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:57,440
The manifesto of Viz proposed
that you had a right to be rude
about anything and anyone.

582
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:05,640
In their comic strips, Viz could
satirise the everyday delusions
of men like Sid the Sexist.

583
00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:09,240
This porn mag, mine?

584
00:42:09,240 --> 00:42:11,200
I thought you meant the newspaper.

585
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:13,520
Porn, me?

586
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:15,800
Well, I'll believe you, mind.

587
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:20,200
I don't suppose anybody would
admit to buying Big Jugs Monthly.

588
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:23,760
Big Jugs?
Oh, it was Mammoth Melons I wanted.

589
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:26,280
I've picked up the wrong one.

590
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:31,240
Sid the Sexist, for instance, I just
wanted to create a character,

591
00:42:31,240 --> 00:42:37,120
kind of inspired by a friend of
ours, but the point was he was
supposed to be this sort of Geordie

592
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:42,120
character who was useless around
women but felt that he had to do

593
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:47,640
all of the bravado and all the macho
stuff that peer pressure told him
he had to.

594
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:53,200
Sid isn't complete without his
comedy catchphrase.

595
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:14,640
As well as mocking Sid,
Viz would, with equal enthusiasm,

596
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:19,320
ridicule the PC absurdities of
Millie Tant and the Modern Parents.

597
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:21,280
Have you ever been fox-hunting?

598
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:23,000
Have you ever worn fur?

599
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:28,120
Have you ever had misogynist
fantasies whilst masturbating?

600
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:34,400
Viz could celebrate the lewd,
bawdy lifestyle of the Fat Slags.

601
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:35,960
Eh, Tracey, I forgot me knickers.

602
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:40,280
Well, you wouldn't be keeping them
on long anyway.

603
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:44,520
These two women with,
"Oh, I've forgotten to put
the purple blotches on my legs!"

604
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:48,120
And ending up shagging someone
outside the kebab shop.

605
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:53,080
You sort of laughed because you
recognised the stereotypes,
appalling though they were.

606
00:43:53,080 --> 00:43:58,560
I wouldn't stand up and defend that
to the Hackney Women's Committee,
but I did used to chuckle at it.

607
00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:00,680
You could eat at our place.

608
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:04,320
We want a pizza.
You'll get a shag later, don't fret.

609
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:11,040
And after all the clever satire,
Viz could just revel

610
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:15,280
in the centuries old,
rude delights of farting.

611
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:19,880
There is nothing like
a vigorous fart for...

612
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:21,960
overturning pomposity.

613
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:28,600
Viz was a welcome breath
of stale air...you might say.

614
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:41,800
Then in the late '90s,
it seemed that Britain might
just become a little less rude,

615
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:48,320
when Tony Blair came amongst us to
heal and unite after the wounds and
divisions of the Thatcher years.

616
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:54,960
Because Tony
was no rude boy, was he?

617
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:05,200
I think there was a sense that
he brought in a culture,

618
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:08,000
if not necessarily
of niceness,

619
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:11,800
then of decency and inoffensiveness.

620
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:17,600
That notorious quote which has
haunted him down the years of
"I am a pretty straight kind of guy."

621
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:20,440
That is what he ran on.

622
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:27,840
But despite the touchy feeliness
of the New Labour project, Britain
remained defiantly, stubbornly rude.

623
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:36,880
Cartoonist Martin Rowson for one
found a lot to be rude about
in the person and politics of Blair.

624
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:50,000
From the first moment I became aware
of him, there was something about him

625
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:52,440
which really, really irritated me.

626
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:57,880
He was like a Christian school
prefect, bursting into the Common
Room when everybody else is

627
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:03,400
sitting around reading copies of
Mayfair or having a crafty fag,
saying, "Hey, guys, come on, get up,

628
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:06,200
"let's go and do something,
let's all be enthusiastic."

629
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:08,160
And you go, "Oh, fuck off!"

630
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:14,160
I think we might have a slightly
anxious Tony thinking about God,

631
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:19,080
wondering what God is going
to say to him when he meets him.

632
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:22,800
Probably say hi, I should think.

633
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:24,880
Hi, Tony. Hi, God.

634
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:29,320
# This charming man... #

635
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:32,040
So many different things
you could do with his face

636
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:35,320
because you could reduce him
to just an eye and teeth and ears.

637
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:42,680
He would always hold his hands
in a certain way.

638
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:46,840
As if poised ready to spring into

639
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:52,520
prayer, or as if he was
clutching an enormous ball.

640
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:57,440
Tony Blair is responsible for
the deaths of more people

641
00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:00,720
he has never met than any prime
minister since Winston Churchill.

642
00:47:00,720 --> 00:47:03,320
And if that doesn't make people
angry I don't know what does.

643
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:06,920
It makes me incredibly angry
that he has got away with it.

644
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:09,640
And we should get angry about things,
because there are terrible, horrible,

645
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:12,880
appalling things happening
in the world all the time.

646
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:17,800
And one of the ways that we cope with
it, rather than topping ourselves
and going mad, is by laughing.

647
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:20,800
Staring, demonic eye.

648
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:23,560
And not forgetting,
blood on his hands.

649
00:47:25,080 --> 00:47:29,640
I get an enormous amount of
almost spiritual satisfaction

650
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:31,960
about being beastly about Tony Blair.

651
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:35,480
I think that's enough blood.

652
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:41,320
Just as rude cartooning
continued into a new millennium,

653
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:45,400
so the rude traditions of
northern clubland also lived on.

654
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:51,040
Here the reigning king
is now Roy Chubby Brown.

655
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:57,280
AUDIENCE CHANTS:
You fat bastard, you fat bastard....

656
00:47:57,280 --> 00:48:00,360
Fat bastard to his adoring fans,
Chubby Brown

657
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:04,840
gives his working class audience
just the kind of humour they want.

658
00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:09,320
Roy Chubby Brown is possibly
the idiot bastard son

659
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:11,920
of the club comics.

660
00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:15,040
He is a raw offspring.

661
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:20,600
There is no innuendo in
a Roy Chubby Brown act.

662
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:25,400
It is a full tilt, non-stop
juggernaut of filth.

663
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:27,600
Roy Brown, born with a black eye.

664
00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:31,680
My father fancied one more fuck on
the way to the maternity hospital.

665
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:35,840
He is so over the top
that you are drained of

666
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:39,360
any chance of being shocked.
If you can last the distance.

667
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:41,760
Bloke swapped his wife
for an outside toilet.

668
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:44,920
Said the hole was smaller and
it smelt a lot fucking better.

669
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:49,400
And on and on and on, and the
permutations of the things

670
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:52,160
he is going to do and the things
that are being done to him.

671
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:55,080
I'm going to singe the minge.

672
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:57,520
I'm going to bury the helmet.

673
00:48:57,520 --> 00:49:02,840
I'm going to break the
wife's back, I'm gonna
fucking snap the bitch in two.

674
00:49:02,840 --> 00:49:05,920
He is rude, the boy is rude.

675
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:12,720
Roy Chubby Brown has been able
to distribute his material
through changing technologies

676
00:49:12,720 --> 00:49:16,200
and he has a network of
live venues to perform in.

677
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:23,400
So, unlike earlier club comedians,
Roy Chubby Brown has no need for the
patronage of radio and television.

678
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:25,920
His real success and infamy grew

679
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:30,720
when he started selling audio
cassettes of his stand-up act.

680
00:49:30,720 --> 00:49:35,680
These were passed around almost like
banned documents in the Eastern bloc.

681
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:39,520
And then the VHS cassette and
the DVDs, that kind of rude comedy

682
00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:44,280
has now achieved mass impact
without using the broadcast media.

683
00:49:47,280 --> 00:49:51,640
If you take somebody like
Roy Chubby Brown, his story

684
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:55,200
is one of white working-class
clubland humour going full circle.

685
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:59,200
It starts off in the clubs, it comes
onto television in the 1970s,

686
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:03,240
and then disappears back underground
and is almost forgotten again.

687
00:50:03,240 --> 00:50:08,280
Somebody like Roy Chubby Brown, in
his own way, like it or loathe it,

688
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:13,440
he is keeping alive a tradition
of working class blue humour.

689
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:20,120
Yet quite staggering rudeness
can still be found in the
front rooms of Britain.

690
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:28,120
One comedy series proves that
television's mass democracy of rude
can still exist today.

691
00:50:31,080 --> 00:50:34,320
Little Britain
is a place where every tradition

692
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:38,040
of British rudeness is drawn upon
to provoke our shared laughter.

693
00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:40,000
INAUDIBLE

694
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:42,760
You little slut. You fat bitch.

695
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:45,000
Get your hands off me.

696
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:49,320
Matt Lucas and David Walliams
seem to have cast off the shackles

697
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:54,160
that political correctness
tried to put on rude comedy.

698
00:50:54,160 --> 00:51:00,000
Little Britain came along after years
of programmes that would never

699
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:03,600
have dared go into the places
where Little Britain went.

700
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:08,680
It is just because of the time lapse
that it suddenly had comic value,

701
00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:12,560
that detonating these bombs
in the middle of their sketch show

702
00:51:12,560 --> 00:51:17,160
was suddenly far more powerful
because the time was ready for us

703
00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:20,840
to go, "OK, I will laugh at that
again," but it still had shock value.

704
00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:25,640
Little Britain is shocking,

705
00:51:25,640 --> 00:51:29,320
confronting taboo after taboo
to reveal just how far we have

706
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:32,800
travelled since modern rude began in
the early '60s.

707
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:33,960
That's got it.

708
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:38,240
Yet Little Britain also
divides us as a nation,

709
00:51:38,240 --> 00:51:44,760
because today's responses to rude
are so conditioned by sensitivities
about race, class and sexuality.

710
00:51:44,760 --> 00:51:47,280
LAUGHTER

711
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:54,040
'The idea of a Prime Minister having
an outrageous, sissy PA'

712
00:51:54,040 --> 00:52:00,040
is a send-up of the Prime Minister,
but is also a parody and a
send-up of sissy gay men.

713
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:03,400
Be gentle with me, Prime Minister.

714
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:12,080
I very much approve of what I think
probably would be the Little Britain
charter of comedy, which is that

715
00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:15,320
anything can be laughed at.
And I really mean anything.

716
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:22,160
And I certainly as a gay man or
whatever, short stocky bearded man,

717
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:25,280
whatever I am,
any part of that can be sent up.

718
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:30,160
But some find Little Britain
simply offensive.

719
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:35,880
What I find so troubling about Little
Britain is their women are repulsive

720
00:52:35,880 --> 00:52:38,040
and they're not just repulsive
characters,

721
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:40,840
which all their characters are.

722
00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:44,800
They are physically, specifically
unpleasant.

723
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:51,160
So they constantly defecate, urinate,
lactate, vomit.

724
00:52:55,520 --> 00:52:56,720
< Sorry.

725
00:52:56,720 --> 00:52:59,600
Oh, is there a good one near here?

726
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:05,400
All these women are producing
fluid from some orifice at some time
all the time.

727
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:07,600
And it is impossible to
watch it without thinking,

728
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:10,240
"I get it already, you don't
like people who look like me.

729
00:53:10,240 --> 00:53:13,520
"That is just fine. Really that's
just fine, can we stop now?

730
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:15,400
"This is just so nasty."

731
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:20,160
What Little Britain confirms

732
00:53:20,160 --> 00:53:23,720
is that the opponent Rude Britannia
now faces has changed.

733
00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:29,600
'In the '60s, with
Till Death Us Do Part and others,'

734
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:34,760
it was essentially the right
who were saying

735
00:53:34,760 --> 00:53:37,600
this is filthy, this is sweary.

736
00:53:37,600 --> 00:53:42,400
Very little actually,
except a few members of the
left, saying this is racist.

737
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:49,080
When we get to the early
21st century, you have the
criticism coming almost entirely

738
00:53:49,080 --> 00:53:54,000
from the liberal left, saying
this is misogynistic,

739
00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:57,400
this is homophobic, this is racist.

740
00:53:57,400 --> 00:54:05,000
You can't have these men
blacking up and cross-dressing and
making jokes about breast-feeding.

741
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:09,840
And so the entire line of attack
across those 50 years has changed.

742
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:18,280
An explosion of television channels
and radio stations has given

743
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:22,120
greater opportunities for rudery
but also for offence.

744
00:54:24,720 --> 00:54:30,680
In October 2008, Jonathan Ross went
on the Russell Brand radio show.

745
00:54:30,680 --> 00:54:37,400
The two tried to contact actor
Andrew Sachs, then left offensive
messages on his answer phone.

746
00:54:37,400 --> 00:54:42,680
The BBC has apologised to the actor
Andrew Sachs for what it called the
unacceptable...

747
00:54:42,680 --> 00:54:45,360
Sachsgate was a rude own goal
for just about everybody.

748
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:47,640
..by the broadcasters Russell Brand
and Jonathan Ross.

749
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:50,440
I have still never met,

750
00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:57,560
even in private, a comedian or anyone
at all who will defend what they did.

751
00:54:57,560 --> 00:55:01,000
The BBC has so far received 1,500
complaints about the programme.

752
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:04,880
Like many people I think
that what Brand and Ross did

753
00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:09,040
was unforgivably pathetic,
and rude and not very nice.

754
00:55:09,040 --> 00:55:12,560
The furore led to a tightening
of BBC rules

755
00:55:12,560 --> 00:55:16,640
governing material
considered to be offensive.

756
00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:21,400
Now the C word used is compliance.

757
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:27,240
This is the internal procedure for
monitoring contentious material.

758
00:55:27,240 --> 00:55:30,520
Rude is still in the schedules.
But with stricter compliance,

759
00:55:30,520 --> 00:55:34,360
there is less of it,
and what rudeness there is,

760
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:37,760
has a cordon sanitaire
placed around it.

761
00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:41,440
What has happened
is that there are certain

762
00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:46,040
very small areas of the schedule
which are licensed to offend.

763
00:55:46,040 --> 00:55:50,240
And around that half hour or hour,
there are lots of people with red

764
00:55:50,240 --> 00:55:55,600
flags jumping up and down and saying
this is quite incredibly offensive,
please don't be offended.

765
00:55:57,720 --> 00:56:02,960
This programme contains very
strong language from the outset.

766
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:06,280
You get her into the sack,
you bang her fucking brains out.

767
00:56:06,280 --> 00:56:08,080
This is really crossing the line.

768
00:56:08,080 --> 00:56:10,440
Don't start with moral objections,

769
00:56:10,440 --> 00:56:13,040
you fucking
Blue Peter badge-wearing ponce.

770
00:56:13,040 --> 00:56:16,360
Go and make a contribution to fucking
Amnesty International, go and buy

771
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:19,560
a goat the whole village can fuck.
But you are doing this for me.

772
00:56:19,560 --> 00:56:24,720
The rest of the schedules,
people are frightened and cautious

773
00:56:24,720 --> 00:56:32,520
and nervous and taking out words
which were routine in programmes
even four or five years ago.

774
00:56:32,520 --> 00:56:38,960
And so you have a few licensed
bad boy or bad girl programmes,

775
00:56:38,960 --> 00:56:42,640
but the rest of it are on
Sunday best all the time.

776
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:50,280
This reining in of rude has led
to accusations that compliance
is just another word for censorship.

777
00:56:50,280 --> 00:56:55,120
There is a kind of
climate now that suddenly
you're not allowed to say that.

778
00:56:55,120 --> 00:57:01,320
And anybody who has ever been at
the cutting edge of comedy trying to
stop us all getting stultified

779
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:03,920
by doing the same joke that we have
been doing for 100 years, trying

780
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:08,280
to move it on a bit, is going to get
a good deal of opprobrium and anger

781
00:57:08,280 --> 00:57:10,520
and there is going to be this

782
00:57:10,520 --> 00:57:15,560
sort of cultural police come
along and say that is not funny.

783
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:17,080
Cheer up, John!

784
00:57:21,040 --> 00:57:27,400
Our modest history of Rude
Britannia suggests that we may
not have to be so pessimistic.

785
00:57:27,400 --> 00:57:32,120
There has always been a
war between Rude and Prude.

786
00:57:32,120 --> 00:57:35,640
The cartoonists of the 18th century
continually had the skill and wit

787
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:38,760
to take on their rich
and powerful foes.

788
00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:44,280
The music hall stars of the 19th
Century thrived on battles with the
moralists of Victorian Britain.

789
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:48,760
And modern rude has got up the
noses of just about everybody.

790
00:57:50,960 --> 00:57:54,200
So it is more likely that the
centuries-old battle between

791
00:57:54,200 --> 00:57:57,760
rude mischief makers and their
enemies will just never end.

792
00:57:59,560 --> 00:58:02,560
Perhaps it wouldn't be
much fun if it ever did.

793
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:06,360
# Reasons to be cheerful
One, two, three... #

794
00:58:29,160 --> 00:58:32,200
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

795
00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:35,240
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk