Wednesday, 3 January 2018

The BBC’s comedy crisis is now more than just a sick joke. (Feb. 1, 2015)

1 February 2015 at 10:23 am
“Shoot him in the back of the head.”
The BBC’s comedy crisis is now more than just a sick joke.
Since it was effectively spavined following its brief deviation into the reporting of facts that exposed government crimes in 2003 [1], the BBC has turned into nothing much more than the propaganda arm of the British government. In the rare event that a dissident, no matter how brilliant and respected, appears on a show like HARDtalk, he or she is almost inevitably hectored and ceaselessly interrupted, [2] in stark contrast to the virtually open forum accorded the continual stream of paid government, corporate and military spokespeople who appear.
The BBC has moved to censor, curb and/or ban its own “unacceptable” and critical voices too: clever and thoughtful talents like Frankie Boyle are systematically excluded from its increasingly anodyne comedy panel shows. Even the hilarious—and nonpolitical—Jack Dee was recently in danger of being censored by the mediocracy in charge of the modern BBC, [3]while crude, racist, unfunny but government-friendly louts like Jeremy Clarkson are indulged repeatedly. [4]
And now the BBC, which has given the world such immortal comedy-writing teams as Galton and Simpson, Croft and Perry, Esmonde and Larbey, Jay and Lynn, Clement and La Frenais, Curtis and Atkinson—to name only a few at random from a stratosphere of brilliance—has commissioned a team of “comedy” writers to make light of the British government’s persecution of the dissident journalist Julian Assange. I say “make light of” advisedly, because in case anyone harboured any lingering hope that the BBC might extend even a hint of fair treatment to Cabinet Enemy No. 1, consider this grim fact: the writer of this new “comedy” once called for the police to publicly shoot the Wikileaks founder in the head.
The Corporation’s comedy crisis, which was already painfully obvious, is now an unmitigated embarrassment. We are now accepting from the BBC the kind of anti-dissident ridicule that spewed out of Moscow in the 1930s and ’40s, and out of Peking in the 1960s and 70s. I would not be surprised at all to see some vicious moron like A.A. Gill appear on a special broadcast some time soon and start ranting from his prepared script: “It is our aim to expose and criticize the ways in which the political swindler Julian Assange made use of reactionary trends and reactionary schools of thought to attack the proletariat, so that we can fight more effectively against such swindlers.”
And they say the AMERICANS have no sense of irony…
Fury over BBC writer’s ‘kill Assange’ tweetChortle, 30 January 2015The writer of the BBC’s new comedy inspired by Julian Assange once called for the police to publicly shoot the Wikileaks founder in the head.Supporters of Assange say tweets Thom Phipps posted about him were ‘shocking’ and ‘dangerous’ – and make him unfit to write about the issue. BBC Four’s new three-part sitcomAsylum is inspired by the controversial figure’s enforced stay in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He took refuge there in June 2012 to escape extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges, which he fears will pave the way for him to be sent to the US to face an espionage trial.Two months after Assange was given political asylum, Phipps posted: ‘If the met [police] want to regain my trust they should drag Assange out the embassy + shoot him in the back of th head in the middle of traf square.’ Phipps now says: ‘It was something I tweeted over two years ago and it was clearly a joke.’However, backers of Assange took the issue more seriously, and have complained to the BBC over its ‘shameful’ decision to employ Phipps. One of them, Emmy Butlin, said Phipps ‘advocated for the public extrajudicial assassination’ of the Wikileaks founder and queried why the corporation would ’employ someone with extreme views’ to write the comedy.She is also angry that the show is to air as part of the BBC’s Taking Liberties season to mark the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, saying: ‘Mr Phipps has called for Mr Assange’s assassination, going against the most fundamental principals.’On her blog she also highlighted another tweet Phipps made in 2012, saying: ‘its cool to imagine assange as a spartacus figure cuz that means he’s going to be forcibly nailed to a piece of wood at one point.’Another blog, Domestic Empire, complained that the ‘writer chosen to write Assange-inspired comedy advocates murder over democratic free speech’.Butlin complained to the Corporation saying: ‘I find it offensive that Mr Phipps who has publicly incited violence and propagated the murder of Mr Assange, has been employed by the BBC’ and calling for action…..
Read more….
  • weka11.1
    1 February 2015 at 10:31 am
    Morrisey, I can’t tell if those are your words or someone elses. Didn’t we have this conversation?
    • Morrissey11.1.1
      1 February 2015 at 10:35 am
      Sorry, weka. My words are the first four paragraphs, and then I cite the article fromChortle. Maybe I should just give the link in future after my preamble.
      • weka11.1.1.1
        1 February 2015 at 10:37 am
        You obviously know how to use html tags. Is there some reason you won’t use blockquotes? Or italics?
        • Morrissey11.1.1.1.1
          1 February 2015 at 10:47 am
          Actually, I don’t know how to do the blockquotes technique. I don’t use italics except for emphasis and titles.
          What do you have to mark up to get blockquotes?
          • weka11.1.1.1.1.1
            1 February 2015 at 11:00 am
            Instead of bold /bold write blockquote /blockquote
            Most people on ts are using either blockquote or italics to quote, or if it’s very short, “double quotes”. It’s a kind of informal house style. Not saying you have to use these, you may find another way, but it’s that same thing of making comments accessible and respecting the readers enough to make it clear what you are saying, and what is something else’s words (that’s respect for the other writers too).
  • swordfish11.2
    1 February 2015 at 11:13 am
    Interesting to see the way Frankie Boyle’s been given the cold shoulder over the last couple of years.
    • Morrissey11.2.1
      1 February 2015 at 11:18 am
      He is especially impressive and thoughtful in the following interview, in spite of the irritating interviewer….

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