I don’t know Danny Cohen, the new Controller of BBC1, but I suspect that with his archetypal Oxbridge swagger, his highly-contrived casual BBC-Armani style and £250K daylight robbery taxpayer stipend, he’s going to become more than a regular here. He fits the Sissons mould to a beyond-parody T, and at the same time today confirms that he is on a Marxist mission to ram his cod working class values down our throats. Of course, some would say that this is only what the BBC has been doing for decades, though writers like the great Jimmy Perry (quoted in the Mail item), never claimed (to my knowledge) that they were trying to change the world, but merely to observe it in all its comic unpredictability.
God save us from BBC executives on a mission. The last one I recall was the chilling android himself, Blair acolyte and toady John Birt, who, you may recall, had an incomprehensible “Mission to Explain” that he enforced with vicious disregard for any normal values. That, in my book, is where the BBC rot really set in, though some would argue it was a lot earlier than that – including Anthony Jay (see his take on Cohen-style BBC values here), the writer of Yes, Minister, who, I suspect could tell Mr Cohen a thing or two about real comedy and what the BBC should actually be aiming to achieve. And ‘Allo ‘Allo writer Jeremy Lloyd delivers this sensible verdict here:
But you cannot write comedy through social engineering. Television is in enough trouble as it is without having to overcome prejudices about class.
Not another one of those that cannot make up his mind to shave or not.
His main claim to fame seems to be trash programmes like Skins and Snog, Marry, Avoid.
BBC – “how are the mighty fallen”.
Oddly I quite enjoyed ‘Skins’, but ‘Snog, Marry Avoid’ was utter tripe.
Just when you thought the BBC cannot be dumbed down any further……
that is great. the more obviously controlling and agenda driven they become the better. who is going to watch this sh*t? working classes or rather the non-working classes (who are the one with the time to watch all this drivel)
Here we have two creators of some past BBC-glories; Jeremy Lloyd and Anthony Jay who are dipping their toes in the water stirred up by Peter Sissons. Did Mr Sissons open up a can of worms?
It would be nice to think it was the start of something that would lead to action to put the BBC back in its place. But more BBC people, and more current ones, need to come out and speak up.
Demon, Jay was writing in 2008.
I missed that but it’s still the same point – we need someone more current to come out and admit the truth. If enough did so it might start bringing the whole pack of cards down.
The only funny thing I have seen [apart for the news ]on the BBC was ‘Mongrels’ I know not to everyones taste but it at least went for humour first not political digs at the government or social engineering though jokes ! mind the idea came from two guys working for I.T.V who poss got it of C4?
This working class humour stuff has been done in on the beeb Three pints which started well and was just flogged to death or the
The Royle Family which is now trapped in the Only fools era of Christmas specials.
I just want funny for me money but instead we will get more student based junk like ‘coming of age’ or ‘Him & Her’ and the rest will still be taken up by the BBC’s resident 6 approved comedians from Oxbridge and Mark Steel the token northerner !
Yes, BBC-NUJ-Labour has appointed another left elitist, Cohen,(‘rancher’) to control and guide the interests of ordinary people (‘the herd’).
See latter part of Glenn Beck, ‘Fox News’ video on ‘the ranchers and the herd’, from 28 mins in:
http://www.watchglennbeck.com/video/2011/january/glenn-beck-show-january-19-2011-the-ranchers-and-the-herd/
Why do these left wing camp twats all look the same, it’s like the Royal family.
Why do they all look the same? Because they are all the same, there must be some secret assembly line in China where they churn them out to order.
No imagination and not an original thought between them, all the individuality of a tesco value pot noodle.
‘..must be some secret assembly line in China where they churn them out to order. ‘
Market rate talents ‘R us?
A real steal at £Squllions, + perks and pension.
One looks forward to many a rib-tickling post on ‘The Editors’ from him, either ‘broadcast only’ or very soon closed for comments when it transpires his grasp of the pervading mood in audience land extends as far as the sycophancy floors of the collective described in Mr. Sisson piece.
I love the fact that the defenders of this new mandarin think the following is a smart thing to say:
‘One of his priorities is getting more programming that reflects the different social classes and what he describes as ‘blue collar’ comedies. In the past, programmes like Porridge, Birds Of A Feather and Bread were about real working families and the workings of their lives.
‘And series like Only Fools And Horses and Steptoe And Son were an affectionate portrayal of working-class life.
“Real workng families and the workings of their lives”. Is that the soundbite of a lazy intellect or what? And was Porridge really about the real lives of working class families? That’s kind of an insult to what the show was trying to do.
In any case, what these dopey Beeboids are saying from their ivory tower is that the real working lives of real working families involves most of them either being in prison or on the make. Awesome stereotypes there, BBC. But you know that’s what they really think.
Out of the other sides of their mouths, the Beeboids will be scolding anyone who speaks out against perpetuating the benefits culture lifestyle choice. There is NO connection there, damn you.
The intellectual failure of BBC management on display. The intellectual Left in Britain really needs to get a grip on this class war schizophrenia.
Which reminds me: does anyone else remember when the Royle Family came out how people at first complained that the show was making fun of real working class families, until Caroline Aherne said that this was really how people she knew in Manchester were?
Come to think of it, in the US, the really good shows about working class families never had all the men in prison, and the lifestyle of casual petty crime is definitely not tolerated. Some might suggest that this is because those shows are honest enough or something, but I would say it’s more because of a difference in values and vision.
Cohen is really saying “We “need more of those programmes portraying the working class as scallywags, loveable rogues, bless their cotton socks. Thank God we don’t actually have to mix with the working class”
John,
Can you imagine Beeboids “going down the pub ” and having a few pints, as Chardonnay is not available , with the “working classes” ?
Maybe the BBC could do a sitcom based around that idea. It would be funny listening to Beeboids trying to speak with “working class” accents. They would all end up sounding like Tony Blair.
I mean, what the hell would they find to talk about ?
Fantastic piece by Jeremy Lloyd. The BBC is simply imploding.
Yes, superb article by Jeremy Lloyd. And note that he actually had a real job in the real world before he became a comedy writer.
But, he says there is no such thing as “class” and is writing in the “Mail”, so that is him finished with the BBC.