Drop the Dead Donkey stage reunion is an utter joy

When I first saw that Drop the Dead Donkey was going to be produced as a stage production, I had serious doubts. How often do such revivals generate huge, nostalgic excitement, yet then disappoint?

But after heading to Brighton last Sunday for a much-needed break, Facebook algorithms decided to show me posts from the city’s Theatre Royal, revealing that the play was on tour there this week.

Enthusiasm took over and I booked for last night (Brighton might not be very far from London, but it’s light years away in terms of ticket prices, which also helped overcome any doubts about shelling out).

Decades on from the demise of GlobeLink News, most of the central figures from that TV newsroom are recruited by an anonymous source to start a GB News-like TV news channel, called Truth News, where facts will come second to what The Great Algorithm says will pull in the viewers – and the advertisers.

This is one reunion that is an absolute delight.

Much of that is down to Andy Hamilton and Guy Carver, the writers behind the original TV series between 1990 and 1998, who have written this stage version. The tone is absolutely spot on. It’s as though the dialogue – and the performances – have come from a sort of creative muscle memory. They’ve lost none of their satirical bite.

To add to the fun, Hamilton and Carver are continuing to change the script to add topical comments in order that the satire is fresh. This week, these included snipes at the scandal over F1 Red Bull boss Christian Horner, plus plenty of digs at Sunak, Trump and Putin. And yes, in a spirit of even-handedness, Starmer too.

Of course, a huge part of the fun here is seeing so many of the original cast back in their famous roles – and this time, live. Sadly, David Swift, who played grouchy co-news anchor Henry Davenport, and Haydn Gwynne, assistant editor Alex Pates for the first two TV seasons, are no longer with us – it’s lovely that they are remembered at the end.

But Robert Duncan as inept CEO Gus Hedges, Jeff Rawle as accident-prone, hypochondriac news editor George Dent, Ingrid Lacey as assistant editor (from season three) and lesbian Helen Cooper, Victoria Wicks as far-right, empty-headed, posh co-news anchor Sally Smedley, Stephen Tompkinson as unethical field reporter Damien Day, Neil Pearson as deputy sub-editor and general dogsbody Dave Charnley, and Susannah Doyle as vindictive and cynical personal assistant Joy Merryweather are all still very much with us.

They come on stage one by one, with the audience rapturously applauding each arrival. This gives the writers the opportunity to give us some backstory about what has happened to them all since GlobeLink’s collapse. These are hilarious.

For instance, George has done a series of jobs – all short-lived – such as working for Liz Truss during her (short-lived) premiership, while Sally hosted a TV show about revealing what your underwear was.

And Sally is still as gloriously, magnificently stupid as she ever was. There’s a moment during the first live broadcast from Truth News where she’s reading a cue about Chinese president Xi Jinping and says it as “President eleven…” before going on to fabulously and serially libel national treasure Sir David Attenborough.

In terms of national treasures, Trevor McDonald also features – but I’m saying no more.

Hamilton and Carver have done a wonderful job here. The gag count is probably highest in the first act, while in the second, the point about fake news, algorithms and deep fakes is hammered home. Just when it risks getting a bit po-faced, what follows is a very clever and very, very funny indeed. The satire is no less effective than it was all those years ago.

There’s great set design from Peter McKintosh and direction from Derek Bond. And big plaudits to Julia Hills and Kerena Jagpal as new characters Mairead, an award-winning investigative reporter, and Rita, an unpaid intern who is the station’s weather presenter. It must be tough coming into such a nostalgia situation but both are excellent.

The late OH and I loved the TV series. We both worked in newsrooms (print, not TV), but we certainly knew a George Dent.

It’s not the most youthful audience: the writers clearly knew this would be the case and acknowledge it delightfully when Gus is stressing the importance of getting young people to watch Truth News – and the cast respond by briefly breaking the fourth wall to look directly at the audience and raising a collective eyebrow.

An utter joy.

Production tour dates and more

Cult classic Phantom of the Paradise proves camp fun

Thanks to a birthday present from my niece, I’ve just seen Brian de Palma’s 1974 cult classic, Phantom of the Paradise, for the first time – and what a watch.

A rock musical comedy horror, it brings together reworkings of The Phantom of the Opera, Faust and The Picture of Dorian Gray, to tell the story of naïve songwriter Winslow Leach, who allows himself to be conned out of his magnum opus, a rock cantata of the Faust legend, by one of the henchmen of music producer Swan.

By the time he realises, it’s too late – and Swan unscrupulously has him beaten up, framed and jailed. But Leach escapes and heads toward the Paradise Club, which Swan is going to launch with a production of the cantata, to seek revenge – and rescue Phoenix, a talent singer that the producer is exploiting.

De Palma both wrote and directed it, and it goes at a frenetic pace for it’s 91 minutes. His send up of the music business was seen by many at the time as essentially pointless – remember what rock was like in the 1970s? – but the energy and the campness of the whole affair carry it through.

In terms of the campness, it’s interesting to note that it came out a year after The Rocky Horror Show premiered on stage in London, so arguably very much of a piece with that.

William Finlay does a fine job as the naïve songwriter/tortured phantom of the title, while Paul Williams makes a deeply disturbing Swan – looking rather like a short Brian Connolly from '70s glam rockers The Sweet.

He also wrote all the songs – his other musical credits include the score for Alan Parker’s 1976 film, Bugsy Malone).

Gerrit Graham makes a fine, campy turn as Beef, an over-the-top rock singer, while Jessica Harper, in her debut, as appropriately sweet and gutsy as Phoenix.

There’s a huge amount to take in visually. For instance, I loved that the stage set of the opening to Faust the musical, together with the costumes and makeup, recall Robert Weine’s German Expressionist masterpiece, Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, while there are scenes – more mocking of the 1970s music business – that are orgiastic in nature, as though like something out of Caligula’s court.

All in all, a most entertaining watch.

Break out the Bolly – Ab Fab's back

If the film version of Absolutely Fabulous isn’t the greatest comedy ever made, then at the end of a week in which the UK went completely bonkers, it was pretty much perfect Friday evening entertainment.

It’s extraordinary to remember that the TV show first saw the light of day in 1992, but it’s been with us, on and off, ever since.

Now, finally, it reaches the big screen.

Essentially 90 minutes of sketches, all written by Jennifer Saunders, we see Eddy (Saunders herself) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley) fleeing to the south of France after apparently killing supermodel Kate Moss.

This time, they have to rely on Saffy’s daughter, the street wise Lola (Indeyarna Donaldon-Holness), to help them work out how to escape, since the intervening years have not made the duo any more sensible.

It has some laugh-out-loud moments, but is mostly at the level of inspiring a wide grin while watching.

A few brief existential moments from Eddy are probably the weakest aspects of the film, which is also incredibly indulgent in terms of the guest stars and cameos.

But the script has plenty to enjoy, with plenty of jokes about modern life, from people who say ‘totes’ or ‘O.M.G.’ to the problems of social media and being ‘trollied’ to sex changes. And of course, the world of fashion is a gift to comedy.

Julia Sawalha is back as Saffy, along with June Whitfield as Mother.

It moves at a pace and ends with a nod to Hollywood’s greatest comedy, Some Like It Hot.

If the sum of the parts is not entirely fabulous, one of those parts most certainly is.

Lumley lights up the screen every time she appears: gurning and sneering her way through increasingly improbable situations, bolstered by Bolly, fangs, drugs and self-injected Botox.

Thank goodness the years have not taken a toll on Patsy – a new dose of her sheer awfulness is worth the admission alone.

Who do you think you're kidding, all you cynics?

It might be a matter of perception, but the new Dad’s Army film seems to be dividing viewers and reviewers along far deeper lines than most film releases.

For many of us over a certain age, Jimmy Perry and David Croft’s series was a highlight of the 1970s TV schedules and deservedly retains the status of national treasure.

Reruns have ensured that it has never dropped out of the public consciousness and continues to gain a new audience, and it has consistently been voted as one of the best examples of British TV and, specifically, sitcoms.

For me, there’s the added little point that my paternal grandfather was seriously myopic (thanks, Grandpop) and thus did his WWII service in the Cornish Home Guard. Decades later, he’d chuckle at the series and note that it was very true to life.

When the film was first announced, I suffered a fit of apoplexy. How could they? The original is sacrosanct and should not be tampered with.

Then I saw the casting. Goodness, the casting of this film is genius. And I started wanting it to be okay.

There were other worries, though. I originally heard that the script was to be written by those responsible for the St Trinian’s reboot, but it turned out to be by Hamish McColl, who previously penned 2014’s utterly delightful Paddington.

After seeing the trailers, I decided to make it another cinema visit and, by coincidence as much as anything, The Other Half and I saw it on the opening day, last week.

There will be no spoilers here, but suffice it to say that the film sags in the second half.

Parade time in Walmington-on-Sea (Bridlington)

However, the idea that it’s rubbish is difficult to grasp. The script is more than mere pastiche. There are innuendos and physical comedy, certainly – both of which existed in the original series and are staples of British comedy – but also layers of far subtler stuff.

It has the thread of class running through it, as did the original series – a subject that is every bit as relevant today.

The catchphrases are used with care. Charlie Mole’s score is clever, with all sorts of subtle references within it both to the original theme and assorted songs from WWII (and even, I thought, James Bond).

The cast is wonderful and don’t make the mistake of trying to impersonate the actors who made their characters famous. Particular mentions will go here to Toby Jones, who is wonderful as Mainwaring, Bill Nighy as Wilson and Michael ‘The Great’ Gambon as Godfrey.

It was also delightful to see the two remaining original cast members appear, including Frank Williams reprising his role as the vicar.

The women in the film are not, as one or two have alleged, shoehorned in in the interests of some sort of political correctness, but are worthy characters in their own right – and for goodness sake, it was hardly as if WWII excluded women.

In a role that could, given the original series, have been awkward, Felicity Montagu makes an admirable Mrs Mainwaring.

I had a worry, about half way through the film, that many of the core characters were making fools of themselves, and that what I couldn’t cope with was it being left in that way.

The denouement, though, is surprisingly tense and solves this question in fine fashion.

This is not, of course, the first Dad’s Army film, but 1971’s effort was not good, suffering from the inability to transfer a small-screen series to the big screen (and the same can be said of other British sit coms).

This is far better.

Mrs Mainwaring leads the women

Nor was I alone in my enjoyment: before the film started, The Other Half whispered that, at just gone 56, he didn’t expect to be one of the youngest members of any audience.

There was a ripple of applause during the film at one catchphrase and another at the end.

I shall assume that these were not, in some way, sarcastic.

Of course, it offers the chance to consider the issue of ‘ownage’ of characters and, indeed, dramatic works.

What this film of Dad’s Army illustrated for me was the quality of the original writing and creation of character. In recent years, I’ve been appalled on occasion when certain remakes have been announced.

But great stories and great characters can have a life of their own: would anyone suggest that there should never have been any film adaptations of Sherlock Holmes after, say, those with Basil Rathbone? Were that the case, we’d never have enjoyed Jeremy Brett. And if it had stopped there, we’d not have Benedict Cumberbatch.

What, in this case, does such a reboot give us?

Well, I think it’s a nice reminder of people who, however daft they could be in certain circumstances, they also did the right thing when the chips were down.

It’s a please, in such cynical times, to see something that is essentially uncynical.

I left the cinema with a broad smile on my face. And while it most certainly not the best film ever made, I cared about the characters once more and certainly wouldn’t object to watching it again. 

Why would you lie about what TV you watch?

Minions rock

For many people, Monday was the first back at work after Christmas – and therefore the first time to have those water cooler discussions about the festive TV.

To be honest, I’m not a big telly watcher. Only a couple of days ago, a story caught my eye, as a survey revealed that people lie about what television they watch.

In particular, it emerged, people have lied about watching Breaking Bad – presumably because they considered they had to claim to have watched it because it was so ‘in’.

Well, I didn’t watch it and am not going to pretend I did, any more than I have watched Game of Thrones or The Wire or assorted other series with equally glowing reputations.

I haven’t been addicted to any TV drama since The West Wing and, before that, Babylon 5.

Away from the dramatic, Masterchef: The Professionals has been the limit of any must-watch mentality.

Anthony Hopkins does Hitch

And while I can entirely understand people falling for a particular programme, I can neither understand telling porkies just to look as though you’ve seen one (and how would you be able to comment on it anyway?) nor the seasonal syndrome of whinging that there’s ‘nothing on’ over Christmas.

Given how many channels most people have these days, it’s difficult to believe that there’s nowt on that you’d watch at all, while it’s straightforwardly inaccurate to assert that there’s ‘nothing’ on.

I did actually slump in front of the goggle box over the holiday, usually while doing cuddle duty to a small black cat who curled up in my arms, snoozing away and occasionally dreaming – presumably of chasing butterflies.

And so here, for what it’s worth, are my highlights – with no efforts at coolness or trendiness whatsoever.

'What do you mean we have to do another convention?'

The first thing that I actually bothered to sit down and pay attention to was on a disc – the 2012 film Hitchcock, with Anthony Hopkins as the eponymous thriller director and Helen Mirren as his wife and longtime collaborator, Alma Reville.

Set against the background of the making of Psycho, Sacha Gervasi’s film explores the relationship between the two, the creative impulse, the impact on the psyche of working with particularly dark material, and the nature of voyeurism.

It’s intelligent, witty, bitchy and poignant: grown-up entertainment with a universally super cast. The leads are, of course, absolutely fabulous, but so too are Scarlett Johannsson as Janet Leigh, Jessica Biel as Vera Miles and Michael Wincott as Ed Gein in particular.

Wonderful stuff.

It was about as serious as my film viewing got. Galaxy Quest, the 1999 spoof of Star Trek and sci-fi fandom in general – and first seen by The Other Half and I in an Art Deco cinema in Amsterdam – is always a delight, with a great cast headed by Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman.

After that, it was a quick channel hop to 2010’s Despicable Me, which I had not seen before and, having ‘discovered’ the Minions, felt the need to view.

Joyous cast overload

While certainly not in the very top echelon of current animation, it was thoroughly enjoyable and happily avoided mawkishness, even though featuring three orphans. Oh, and the Minions are wonderful.

For really top-quality animation, there were screenings of Ratatouille (2007), which I love, and Up (2009) – both from Disney/Pixar.

When computer animation first appeared, I watched shorts and loved them, but did wonder whether the medium would detract from content in a more extended form. Both these films show that it hasn’t.

The film watching concluded with a chance to catch up with another 2012 effort: this time, Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut, Quartet.

Ready to save the world. Again

A comedy drama, based on Ronald Harwood’s play of the same name, it’s set in a retirement establishment for musicians, who mark Verdi’s birthday each year with a fundraising gala that helps keep their home going.

Retired opera singers Reg, Wilf and Cissy have worked together in the past, particularly on a noted recording of Verdi’s Rigoletto, which includes a famous quartet for soprano, mezzo, tenor and baritone.

And when Reg’s former wife, Jean – the fourth member of that quartet – turns up as a new resident, she unwillingly inspires an idea about how to boost the success of the gala.

It’s a thin plot, but does have underlying themes of age and ageing, which rarely get seen on the big screen these days. But it’s the cast that makes it such a joy.

It's a what I call a comedy

Maggie Smith, Tom Courtney, Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins make up the quartet of singers, and are joined by Michael Gambon, Sheridan Smith, Andrew Sachs, Trevor Peacock, Michael Byrne and David Ryall (who sadly died on Christmas Day).

An unmitigated delight.

Away from films, Christmas Day offered up a seasonal Doctor Who, complete with a Santa unlike any other – and I am enjoying Peter Capaldi’s characterisation – and the first half of a two-part final episode of Miranda, which appears to be the epitome of everything that is uncool if you care about these things.

It makes me laugh, so who cares? As may be clear, I don’t watch television just to feel ‘in’.

Miranda Richardson as the wonderfully dreadful Mapp

Oddly, my mother later declared that she and my father had watched the second half of this two-parter, having never watched any Miranda before – and then felt cheated when they didn’t ‘get it’.

Mind, she also sent my jaw into freefall at Christmas by asking if I watched Mrs Brown’s Boys, saying that, although it had “a lot of the ‘f’ word” in it, you “couldn’t help but laugh”.

Meanwhile, the film version of Victoria Wood’s That Day We Sang was a gentle delight, with Imelda Stanton and Michael Ball in fine fettle, while a repeat of the 2009 festive special, Victoria Wood’s Mid Life Christmas, with its vast guest cast, was appreciated a great deal more than at the time – not least as I caught the sense of the overarching theme that had eluded me originally.

And then there was Mapp and Lucia, the BBC’s three-night dive into EF Benson’s novels of upper-middle-class one-upmanship and snobbery in the 1920s and ’30s.

I remember the Channel 4 adaptation from the 1980s, with Prunella Scales, Geraldine McEwan and Nigel Hawthorne: indeed, I caught the first episode again recently, but it only served to remind me of why I hadn’t really got into it the first time around and why I’d never felt the desire to read the novels.

Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball do Fred & Ginger

This new adaptation by Steve Pemberton – who also played Georgie – made me want to do precisely that.

Starring Anna Chancellor as Lucia and Miranda Richardson as Mapp, with a wonderful supporting cast, it managed to be, all at once, subtle, sharp as a box of unused Sabatiers – and outrageously camp.

Richardson in particular was just magnificent – oh, to be able to gurn like that!

So even for a non TV addict like me, there was plenty to amuse. And given catch-up television, there’s plenty of chance to catch up with any of these if you missed them and feel vaguely inspired to do so now.

They will not, however, make you ‘TV cool’.

And even if none of this was particularly up your own street, just don’t claim that there was ‘nothing on’!

Naughty language and wicked laughs

Sheila Hancock, Lee Evans and Keeley Hawes

“It’s the language of Shakespeare, you cunt!” exclaims a character early in Clive Exton’s Barking in Essex, and it’s a line that could provides a nice little snapshot of what this comedy is like.

Penned in 2005, two years before the writer’s death, this coarse and enjoyable crime farce has only now received a premiere, at the Wyndham’s Theatre, London.

Exton’s writing career had produced a remarkable variety of work, including the screenplay for the dark crime drama 10 Rillington Place, with Richard Attenborough as real-life murderer John Christie, to co-writing big Arnie sword and sorcery romp Red Sonja, to all 23 episodes of the Jeeves & Wooster TV series that started Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, plus 20 episodes of the David Suchet Poirot.

None of which would quite prepare you for this.

In essence – and without revealing any spoilers – a criminal family from Essex is awaiting the release from prison of one of their number.

However, where he’ll be expecting to enjoy his multi-million pound share of the robbery that saw him incarcerated, his family is expecting trouble, since his mother and sister-in-law have already spent it.

And nobody imagines that he will react to such news in a way that doesn’t involve fatal violence.

Thus the scene is set for the farce that follows.

It’s a feather-light piece, but short and with some funny dialogue that, in the hands of a super cast, crackles.

Sheila Hancock as Ellie Packer, the matriarch of the family, is simply a joy to behold, apparently relishing both the chance to play such an utterly immoral character and deploy the colourful language that is not gratuitous, but a natural part of the rhythm of the piece.

This is, after all, a sort of Only Fools and Horses meets The Sopranos, but there is, at the theatre, a warning about the language.

Alongside Hancock is Lee Evans as Darnley Packer, her somewhat intellectually challenged son.

It’s a role that’s perfectly suited for such a physical comic as Evans, who can actually play straighter than required here (see the very charming 1995 film Funny Bones).

But here, Evans’s well-known comedy style is perfectly suited to the piece.

Karl Johnson as ageing hit man and family friend Rocco, and Keeley Hawes as Chrissie, the orange-tanned wife of Darnley, are also perfect in their roles.

Lightweight it might be, but it’s got some clever little plot twists that you won’t have guessed at, and the ending is smart.

The character observation is good and the language, even if offends some people, is realistic.

Director Harry Burton keeps it all going at a nice pace, and Simon Higlett’s set, particularly in the first half, is an absolute delight of tastelessness – the zebra-stripe curtains being a perfect example.

Not for those with tender ears, but a good fun evening otherwise.

And oh boy, I’d love to think I could be like Hancock if I reach 80.

Note: for those outside the UK, Barking is both a place in Essex, not far from London, and also a slang term for ‘mad’.

Misogyny isn't a laughing matter – but Miranda is

Miranda – getting in a pickle again.

It’s been observed more than once that the British love nothing better than to knock anyone who has become successful – and you could be forgiven for wondering if it's even more the case when women are concerned.

Andrew Billen in The Times (by subscription) rather started this particular outbreak by suggesting out that Miranda Hart is guilty, in her TV show, of misogyny.

Now let’s get this straight: this is Miranda Hart, female of the species. Apparently guilty of promoting a hatred of the same.

You’d expect the Murdoch-owned press to actually know what that meant, but it appears not.

Not, of course, that Billen is alone. When Lucy Mangan in the Guardian took the opportunity to rebut his silliness, dozens of online readers flung themselves at the opportunity to reveal their own intellectual credentials by pouring scorn on Hart and anyone who finds her work funny.

“Morons,” was how one person described the latter, with the obvious, unspoken point being: ‘Look at me – look how really hip and clever I am’.

Actually, you’re the one who’s a pompous little snob and, frankly, a bit of a wanker.

You don’t have to like Hart. You don’t have to find her funny. Nobody has to. But then again, that’s not really the point.

Comedy and humour – perhaps almost more than anything else in life – are utterly subjective. What tickles one person will leave another cold.

I remember seeing Victoria Wood live. By the end of the evening, I was in agony from laughing. Yet a woman just nearby hadn’t even managed to smile.

Hyacinth Bucket – you wouldn't want her as a neighbour.

Each to their own.

Quite clearly it’s idiocy to suggest that Hart’s work is misogynistic. On what grounds could that possibly be the case? Because the characters she creates are not all ‘perfect’?

I suspect that a lot of people like her show and her comedic style precisely because of its apparent lack of sophistication and, in the case of Hart herself, because she’s not a super model but yet seems entirely comfortable in her own skin.

And for goodness sake – she creates biscuit blizzards with biscuits and a hairdryer, and farts: a woman with flatulence! It's the unspoken; the stuff we're not supposed to do and certainly not supposed to confess to doing.  

Slapstick it may be, but slapstick is still comedy. Hey ho – it never harmed the likes of Buster Keaton or Laurel & Hardy.

Funnily enough, there was a programme on a few days ago about Stanley Baxter. Now, given that Baxter’s prime was in the 1970s on ITV, I saw none of it – my snobbish mother tried to protect us from anything on that commercial channel.

So almost all of the material on this documentary was new to me. And it barely raised a smirk. Part of that was because a lot of Baxter’s comedy was based on impersonation – he wasn’t bad at it – but that means it’s very time-sensitive.

I did know most of the people he was impersonating, but it felt dated and, while not unfunny, certainly didn’t make me laugh.

Patsy – Ab Fab and absolutely hideous.

I suspect that the same will be said of Rory Bremner in years to come – although personally, I think that Bremner is brilliant. But it’s exactly why Mike Yarwood has faded from view.

That doesn’t mean that Baxter was poor – or those who consider him brilliant are ‘morons’. Just that it didn't tickle my funny bone.

The thing with Hart, though, is that slapstick is a lot more durable – see the aforementioned Keaton, Laurel & Hardy et al.

But setting that aside, one wonders whether Billen thought that Absolutely Fabulous was misogynistic too. After all, the characters in that are far less likeable and sympathetic than those in Miranda.

Then again, some of the best comedy characters are the most dreadful ones – and there have been some fabulously dreadful female comic creations. Patsy in Ab Fab is one such creation.

Would Billen suggest that Roy Clarke was a misogynist for his creation of the utterly awful Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances? Would Patricia Routledge herself be guilty of misogyny for breathing life into Clarke’s words?

Nora Batty – scary, except to Compo.

Mind, Clarke might well be a serial offender: how many harridans did he create in Last of the Summer Wine? It certainly wasn’t limited to the iconic Nora Batty.

And exactly the same can be said of male characters too.

Anyone remember the Brittas Empire? And what about Victor Meldrew in One Foot in the Grave?

And as for suggestions the slapstick is infantile – well, see above; and did anyone bemoan Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses for the moment that he falls through the pub counter?

Of course not – it’s classic comedy. Comedy and slapstick are not synonyms, but they’re hardly alien either.

Personally, I can enjoy and appreciate Family Guy, South Park, The Thick of It – and Miranda. They’re not exclusive.

And even if I couldn’t, that doesn’t make it bad. That would merely be a reflection of a very subjective reaction. Neither a ‘wrong’ reaction nor a ‘right’ one, but a personal one.

I do wonder, though, how much of these sort of complaints are not only a result of pseudo-intellectual snobbery, but also of sexism.

More times than I can remember, I’ve seen posters online – invariably male – saying that they couldn’t think of a genuinely funny woman.

Really? I can think of several. Equally, there are others that I don’t personally find funny. And there are plenty of male comics I’ll laugh my socks off at, plus plenty more that leave me cold.

Why is this apparently so difficult?

My suspicion is that most people judge a lot of comedy on the basis of its relationship to their own lives. So for instance, if a female comic tells gags about periods, it may well fall flat for men in the audience. And the same goes the other way – knob jokes may simply bore women.

Maybe it's also a resistance to the idea of women behaving in a less than 'ladylike' manner. There are plenty of reports that female stand-ups get heckled more than men. Is this an outrage at women daring to forget their 'place'?

But it does seem odd that so many people seem apparently incapable of recognising any of this – particularly ones who think they're clever.

Heaven help us if we want to enforce some form of political correctness on comedy – that everything must be funny for everyone or that everything will have to be meet with the approval of some specially chosen arbiters of laughter.

Although you never know though; there could be a comedy in that …

St George's Day and Englishness: a few thoughts

In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s 23 April. Which means it’s Bill Shakespeare’s birthday – and St George’s Day too.

In the case of the latter, that means celebrations of some sort for the people of many countries, since he is the patron saint of more than one nation – and plenty of other things besides, including archers and sufferers of syphilis.

But national days have little to do with the historic reality behind the saint in question.

In this case, there seems to be some confusion as to where he even came from, although there is support for his having been a Roman soldier from Syria Palæstina.

The Catholic Encyclopedia is of the opinion that, while there seems to be no ground for doubting the historical existence of St George, that doesn’t mean that we should believe some of the more fanciful tales.

Which conclusion struck me as showing a certain lack of self awareness.

But the mythical nature of St George seems rather apt in many ways.

You could start with the very nature of nationalism: anyone who really thinks that the country they hail from is better than any other is daft – just as daft as anyone thinking the reverse.

My parents were very much in the camp of thinking that England was absolutely finer than absolutely anywhere else on planet Earth. ‘God is an Englishman’, they commented more than once – presumably, given their devoutly held religious beliefs, without entirely meaning it.

So convinced of this innate superiority are they that they have been rendered incapable of actually seeing the satire in things such as Flanders and Swann’s Song of Patriotic Prejudice – or even some of what WS Gilbert wrote – and treat such songs with utterly gleeful relish.

Which rather means that the joke is on them – even if they can’t understand this.

My mother used to comment loudly – and god, how embarrassing it would be – when people left the cinema before the national anthem was played. We obviously had to wait – and stand for it.

Yet in spite of growing up in such an atmosphere, I could never understand what it was I was actually supposed to feel.

I mean – why be ‘proud’ of where you’re from? Why would you take pride in something over which you have had not an iota of control or influence?

It’s as daft as being ashamed of where one comes from.

They really are the two sides of a single coin.

It took me years to work out what my own Englishness meant – and it has much in common with that Flanders and Swann or Gilbertian strand of disguised satire.

Like much English humour, they seemed to be either of the Establishment or at least rather tame, yet the reality was more complex.

They were observers, sitting slightly apart and recording the quirks of the English, often with a slightly surreal edge.

The same could be said of a vast number of talents, from Joyce Grenfell to Eddie Izzard and Alan Bennett to Victoria Wood.

Equally, I doubt my mother, for all her liking Shakespeare, is aware of many aspects of the Bard’s writing.

Take A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for instance. It’s long struck me as more than a tad amusing that it’s the first Shakespeare play that children are introduced to.

It’s about sex. An Elizabethan audience would have understood that Puck transforms Bottom into an ass because the ass has a whopping big penis. That’s what it is that attracts Titania when she sees him.

But there are plenty of other myths about England and Englishness.

The likes of John Betjeman and JRR Tolkien both helped popularise a particular mythology during the 20^th century.

For both of them, England was the countryside: not the dramatic, romantic scenery of the Lake District, for instance, but something far gentler: rolling downs and pretty woods.

You see this chocolate box idea in much of Betjeman’s poetry. And it’s no coincidence that Tolkien labeled the part of Middle Earth that was under threat and needed defending as The Shire.

There was no place for industry or the inner cities – and they both pretty much wrote them out of their visions of what constituted an ideal England.

You could also mention St Mary Meade, home of Miss Jane Marple. But since Agatha Christie’s sharp-minded old lady was always solving murders rather than sitting in the garden, drinking tea from a bone china cup and doing the Times crossword, it was hardly an idyll – however far geographically from the encroaching obscenity of modern, urban life.

On the other hand, Hercule Poirot most definitely disliked the countryside – although perhaps that’s because he was furrin?

It’s an England that did – or does – most certainly exist, and it has a powerful hold on the collective imagination of many; perhaps particularly those of ‘a certain age’ and a certain social background.

In a speech to the Conservative Group for Europe, on (note the date) 22 April 1993, the then Prime Minister John Major said: “Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and, as George Orwell said: ‘Old maids bicycling to holy communion through the morning mist’ and, if we get our way, Shakespeare will still be read even in school.”

It’s quite obvious that a lot of this is connected to class.

Grubby, grimy, dirty industry was what the hoi polloi in the cities and grim, industrial northern towns did.

The middle classes built “invincible” suburbia to live as far as possible from the inner city, if they couldn’t avoid working there.

Only very recently has this trend started changing: now, living in the city so trendy that the rising cost of even old council flats is driving out the people who once were the only residents.

There is a truth to the vision of Betjeman and Tolkien et al, and there is something quite intoxicating about the picture that Major conjured up.

But it is only one part of that truth; only one part of what constitutes England – and a smallish part at that.

When I travel to Bournemouth later this year for work, I’ll enjoy some of the sort of scenery that Betjeman eulogised. But my own Englishness also incorporates the landscapes of Lowry – and there, in a nutshell, may be the reason that he was so shamefully treated by the country’s art Establishment: he recorded a world that they didn’t want to see; that did not conform to ideas of what was ‘nice’ and acceptable: that could not be Art.

Betjeman was a snob. Oh, he’s an enjoyable snob to read – his use of rhyme and rhythm makes his work readily accessible – but there is poetry in the industrial and in the north too: witness the work of the sublime Alan Plater and, as mentioned earlier, Bennett.

And of course, that doesn't even touch on just what those grubby working types actually contributed to the country, which such snobs so conveniently forget.

But going back to English humour, perhaps at our best, there’s a determination to prick pomposity.

Think of Will Hay, playing a double agent and being allowed to make repeated v signs to a picture of Hitler in 1942’s The Goose Steps Out as he ‘educates’ would-be spies about English ways of showing respect.

But it's equally part of the greater picture that Hay's screen persona was that of a buffoon. He was hardly some heroic figure. And indeed, you see the same thing repeated in English culture, from George Formby to Norman Wisdom.

That example came to mind again last week, when English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson responded to a picture of the Taj Mahal on the Twitter homepage with the following: “welcome to twitter homepage has a picture of a mosque. what a joke #creepingsharia”.

Major wasn’t entirely wrong when he also said: “Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be ‘too clever by half’. The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters”.

But quite apart from pointing out that the Taj Mahal is not a mosque, the Twittersphere had enormous fun taking Robinson’s hashtag and sending it up mercilessly.

To give a flavour, tweets included: “My nan goes to Mecca bingo. Coincidence? #CreepingSharia” by Robbie Gibbo.

It was the perfect riposte. And it was deliciously English.

It is the same approach that produces Private Eye.

Although the downside of this is that, in general, we also notoriously distrust intellectualism. Public discourse suffers as a result – little wonder we therefore have political (and other) ‘elites’ and that we canonise the thick.

See Jade Goody – a troubled individual, exploited by the media and a voyeuristic public, who became a celebrity for her stupidity, before being vilified for the same thing and then hailed as a saint as she died in the public glare, desperate that the financial benefit that that would bring would benefit her children.

England at its best; England at its worst.

But you can’t have everything.

On a rather more down-to-earth level, I’m afraid today’s food hasn’t been particularly English – with The Other Half away, I’m on an Italian kick involving seafood and cheese and dishes he would not want to eat.

But it could hardly have been more English on Saturday evening – well, British – with English lamb chops, English asparagus and Jersey Royals from, err, Jersey.

However, that’s not to say there wasn’t a little something to do to mark today.

Just over a week ago, while wandering along Columbia Road, we were both handed what appeared to be a rather knobbly, red business card.

In fact, it turned out to be an invitation from the mayor of London to a St George’s Day festival this weekend just gone.

But the little cards themselves could be soaked overnight in water and then planted in soil, since they contained seeds for English wild flowers.

Which was an entirely nice idea – and I therefore saved them to soak and planted them late this afternoon.

And that’s exactly what I did.

Dressed in jogging pants, a football shirt and a tweed cap (made in the UK), with a mug of Earl Gray on the side, while another April shower pit-pattered down and, between the steady growl of the city’s traffic, bird song filled the air, I sowed a little bit of one England in a little corner of another England.