Category Archives: graham norton

BBC comedy these days is a rare beast insofar as the humour is frequently heavily laced with political overtones and these are only ever in one direction – LEFT. I caught a few moments of the Graham Norton show on BBC2 last night to hear UK impressionist Jon Culshaw describe President Bush as “even more chimp like” to guffaws of laughter all round. Wonder would the intrepid Culshaw care to describe Obama as a chimp as well? I enjoy good impressions but to describe someone as “a chimp”? Susan Sarandon – that doyen of the political left in the US – was on the show expressing her devotion for Obama. Now I know that shows like this are all about light (very light) entertainment and that Norton specialises in camp vulgarity but there is a political vein that runs through even these programmes and it is conforms to that expressed in more mainstream political programmes. The beat is always left, though the BBC denies it.