Not the Nine O'Clock News

Shane Allen, Controller of Comedy Commissioning at the BBC says Monty Python has had its day. Well, yes, it was 50 years ago, so... Naturally, as is only right when you denigrate, however slightly, a national treasure, the knives were out and Mr Allen – who sounds suspiciously like a white male, although (phew) he’s Irish, at least – was variously lampooned across media platforms as a humourless politically correct drone but I’m here to defend him. He’s only doing his job; and on £208 k p.a. what a job.

What he wants is material which is original and fresh. You know, like Mrs Brown’s Boys and Citizen Khan; stuff that could not possibly have been influenced by what came before and bears no resemblance to the stereotypical output of the 1970s. But don’t worry, I have it on good authority that Monty Python is never far from his thoughts. I have been fortunate enough to acquire a transcript of a recent commissioning meeting:

FX: KNOCK KNOCK

SHANE: Come in.

WRITER: Hello, is this the commissioning meeting?

SHANE: I just told you.

WRITER: No you didn’t

SHANE Oh, yes I did.

WRITER: No you didn’t.

SHANE: Did

WRITER: Didn’t

SHANE: Excuse me, is this a five minute argument or...

WRITER: I’ll come in again.

CARDINAL RICHLIEU ENTERS.

SHANE: Stop this. This is just silly

VOICE OFF: Mrs Niggerbaiter’s just exploded

SECOND VOICE OFF: She’s a staunch.

THIRD VOICE OFF: I don’t like darkies

FX: KNOCK KNOCK

WRITER: Can we start again?

SHANE: You’re not going to complain about a parrot, are you?

WRITER: No, I have an idea for an all-new comedy show

SHANE: It doesn’t involve unarmed combat against soft fruit, does it?

WRITER: No.

SHANE: No carnivorous rabbits?

WRITER: No

SHANE: You’re not going to parody the son of god?

WRITER: Wouldn’t dream of it; too dangerous these days

SHANE: No Knights who say Ni?

WRITER: No. See, you’ve got Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell sharing a flat in Venezuela...

Wanks as high as any in Wome...

SHANE: I never really wanted this job.... I wanted to be... I wanted to be... a lumberjack!

STIRRING MUSIC. CURTAINS OPEN TO REVEAL MOUNTIE CHOIR.

THE END... 

... OR IS IT?

Python for Dummies

Monty Python, for all that much of its content looks dated now, had an unerring knack of subverting reality and brought incisive intellect and a little madness to issues both contemporary and timeless. Once seen, who could forget the Piranha brothers and Dinsdale’s prickly nemesis, Spiny Norman, a caricature of the Cray’s ‘Craysy’ world? “...and then he loses his temper and nails my head to the floor... Well he had to, didn't he? I mean, be fair, there was nothing else he could do. I had transgressed the unwritten law.”

Take a reality, turn it upside down and make it funny. In this classic about-face a feted northern poet resident in London is exasperated at his soft son, who has run away up north to be, of all things, a miner. (Watch it, it’s very funny.) ‘Ampstead wasn’t good enough for you was it? You ‘ad to go poncing off to Barnsley.” shouts the father. His son replies “One day you’ll realise there’s more to life than culture. There’s dirt and smoke and good honest sweat!”

I thought of this when I read a ridiculous polemic in the Guardian yesterday, by Paul Mason, blaming Thatcher for the current parlous state of white, working class boys. I mean, Thatcher? I know it’s the Guardian and all that but if three decades, including thirteen years of Labour government, isn’t enough to address the problem, then what’s the point of even trying?  And as somebody on Twitter posted “The left complaining about cultural vandalism is a wee bit rich.”

Because it’s always somebody else’s fault, isn’t it? Prior to the left’s imaginary prickly nemesis, ‘Fatcha!’ [exclamation mark required for correct spelling] it was the multi-layered class system. Before that it was rich noblemen versus the peasants. If anything the Thatcher era heralded a breaking down of the class structure which many on the right bemoan for allowing oiks into positions once held by scions of notable families. But the social mobility engendered by the grammar schools and aspiration sank to new lows under Blair as English kids were written off in the name of diversity. (Or are we calling it vibrancy now? It changes so often it’s hard to keep track.)

Monty Python once portrayed the Silly Olympics, with such events as the 3000m steeplechase for people who think they’re chickens, the marathon for the incontinent and in the pool, the 200m freestyle for non-swimmers. No doubt this entire sketch would be unbroadcastable today, the sound of offence-takers drowning out the guilty giggles of an audience spoon-fed political correctness.

Vote Gumby!

But what people like Paul Mason fail to recognise is that it is up to you, not the state, to sort out your life. If his father could be self-educated under the old class system, via the public libraries and meeting with like-minded souls, think how much greater the possibilities for education the internet brings today. One of the Python events was the ‘fifteen hundred metres for the deaf’, the punchline being that they don’t hear the starting gun. It sounds like those who complain about their start in life are maybe cocking a deaf ‘un. You have to laugh, don’t you?