Panel Beaters

So the BBC is determinedly flying the flag for women’s rights. It is going to outlaw all-male comedy panel shows.

Instead of a boorish line-up of testosterone heavy, self-opinionated satirists we’re going to have some women thrown into the mix. Proper women. Not Lilly Savage or Dame Edna. But real bona fide women. Comediennes.

I’m sure this new stance has nothing at all to do with the recent slash and burn effect of Operation Yewtree on the BBC’s standing as a noble bastion for equality and fairness. This is something that has bugged the BBC for a long time; it’s something they have always wanted to address and by golly they are finally going to do it.

Move over David Mitchell and Dara O’Briain – here come the girls.

And I think this is fine. This is a good move.

Except a few writers / journalists / commentators have asked the question: are women going to be asked to appear on these shows because they are funny or because they are women? If it’s the latter then is gender equality really being served?

But, the thing is, how does one judge “funniness”? How is it determined and measured? Because, to be honest, a lot of the male contestants on these unspecified panel shows don’t strike me as being particularly funny at all. Ross Noble, Johnny Vegas, et al leave me cold. So were they invited to be contestants because they were funny or just because they were men and “big TV names”?

Because aren’t there possibly more male big TV names than female big TV names in the first place simply because showbusiness, like every other industry, is traditionally weighted in favour of unthinkingly promoting male talent over female talent every chance it gets?

My point is, if nobody is asking “are they funny” of the male contestants before inviting them onto a panel show then should it be seen as a deal breaker for a comedienne? Why is the question even being asked? If they are professional comediennes, making money and a career out of performing their own comedy routines, surely that is the only prerequisite answered?

Humour is subjective. There is no way to benchmark it. At the end of the day these shows are simply star vehicles; there are a means of exposure for up-and-coming and established artists. And if women are being under-represented then that is wrong and it needs addressing.

Are they funny?

We viewers at home should have the right and the opportunity to judge for ourselves. All-male panel shows deny everybody that opportunity.

Case rests.

Stamp

Previous readers (and I am grateful that I can still use the plural) of this blog will know that I suffer a negative knee-jerk reaction when confronted televisually by comedian Ross Noble.

With the help of karmic breathing exercises, Valium and copious amount of chloroform I am now finally able to resist the traditional overpowering urge to launch my foot into the TV screen whenever Ross Noble appears and follow through with an uppercut of Street Fighter proportions. 

Because it isn’t him, it’s me. I am the problem.

I totally get and accept that.

He’s a nice bloke. He’s an ordinary bloke made good and it’s great that he’s made a name for himself. And everyone says what a nice chap he is. And a lot of people find him funny and warm and just nicely hilarious and off-the-wall without being offensive.

But his style of delivery winds me up something chronic and after just 30 seconds of one of his crazy Geordie monologues I have bitten my own teeth down to the gums and am chewing on my own tongue in frustration that I cannot do violence unto the true object of my wrath.

As I said, it’s not Ross’s fault. It’s nothing he’s done. It’s a genetico-biologico-social thing to do with me. He just doesn’t tick any of my comedy boxes whilst ticking all of my irritability boxes.

He makes me go grrrr!

There, I’ve said it.

Sorry Ross, I don’t find you funny. I’m sure you couldn’t give a hoot ‘cos lots of other people plainly do.

But your DVD did make me laugh out loud the other day...

...though not for any reason you can take credit for.

I’m assuming that the mystery shop assistant who applied the price tag and I are of a like mind.

5 Celebs I'd Like To Smack In The Mouth

This is the meme blogging was invented for. This is the meme that needs no invitation to participate. Since my first encounter with this meme on Friday over at Very Bored In Catalunya, I have since seen it spread like virtual smallpox through the blogging community. I knew it would only be a matter of time before I'd get infected and would need to scratch myself free of it online.

I was tempted to tone down the sentiments of the title. 5 Celebrities I'd Like To Punch / Hit / Twat sounded... well. A bit too violent. A bit too close to the tick boxes on the Government's anti terrorism laws. But 5 Celebrities I Don't Like Very Much sounded a bit weak. A bit wishy-washy. And at the end of the day a downright lie. 'Cos the celebrities I've named below do actually make me want to hit them. Repeatedly. And with an assortment of tools ranging from a tee iron to a Moulinex hand blender.

Sadly, coming to this party late some of the best celebs have already been named. So if you're wondering why Ricky Gervais isn't on my list it's because he's doing the rounds elsewhere. But just for the record: yes The Office was genius. So was Extras. But Ricky, your ego has bloated to the point where you are now just a cheap 'n' nasty, ungrateful, puerile little starfucker. You're an embarrassment.

Right. On with my official top 5 celebrities that make me gnash my teeth into rock salt.

Number 1) Eamonn Holmes.

I have been known to turn the telly off / over or just walk out of the room when this man appears on it. Eamonn is such a big cock that if someone one day was to bump him off the police would refer to it as spermicide. He oils himself over every show that he presents like a BP slick. His well of sparmy, self righteous, opinionated outpourings is totally uncappable. What annoys me most is the careful way he modulates his brogue so that he always appears right-on and "aren't you with me, boys and girls at home?" even when he is mouthing the most trite, absurd, chauvenist claptrap ever to infect UK daytime telly. How his wife doesn't stove his Frankenstein head in with a boom mic is beyond me. That woman needs a medal. Or a gun. Or a padded cell. Possibly all three.

Number 2) Glllian McKeith.

I have always maintained that this woman is a nasty piece of work. Recently she made a complete fool out of herself by appearing on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here and screaming at absolutely everything. Comedy central. But she then appeared on daytime TV to try and defend her appalling performance. I have phobias, she wailed, phobias about insects, dirty water, mud, fish, oxygen, plimsoles, Australian accents, clean hair, body fat and I just didn't know anything at all about the show before I agreed to go on it because I live in an ivory tower made out of pure Actimel, please pity me, for I was brave... Bollocks. This woman has humiliated countless men and women on her so-called "health shows" before Channel 4 pulled the plug on them (round about the same time it was revealed that her so-called medical qualifications had been printed in the Church of Elvis Presley in Las Vegas). She forced morbidly obese people to stand in baths full of lard, forced them to confront a week's worth of food all in one go just to shame them into adopting her celery and nettle smoothies. These poor people who genuinely needed counselling before Gillian got her skeletal hands on them were reduced to sobbing wrecks. Sorry Gillian, but when encouraging people to adopt a healthier lifestyle I fail to see how destroying their self esteem can be of any benefit. And here is the argument to end all arguments. Gillian McKeith and Nigella Lawson are of a similar age. Who looks the healthiest to you? Enough said.

Number 3) Richard Madeley.

The Tim Nice But Dim of daytime telly. Though I suspect the Nice part is possibly not true. Richard is that creature commonly known as the "embarrassing dad". He tries to maintain his cool. He tries to maintain his street cred. He never acts his age. And like Eamonn above he always presents his verbal hiccups as being the height of reasonability, innit, and totally metrosexual new man-ish and I is in touch with me feminine side, innit, cos Judy won't let me anywhere near hers now the HRT is beginning to fail. Judy annoys me too but less so; precisely because she has a cross to bear in the shape of Richard. I have seen her cast plainly murderous glances his way on live telly. Looks that say, "for God's sake Richard, stop being a complete and utter dick and just shut the eff up before I knife you in the gizzard with a whale bone from my corset." But she never does. She holds back. And thus we all suffer. All of us. And that is damned annoying.

Number 4) Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

A man whom the devil surely created out of an old welly, a smidgen of old bathroom tile grout and the face of a monkfish. Hugh extols the virtues of the 'back to nature' lifestyle. The good life. Grow your own. The fact that Hugh has undoubtedly grown his own and is now looking for people to insert them into is something that gives me nightmares. Farmers and smallholders should be grubby. I know this. But the grubbiness that Hugh exudes is unhealthy. There is something deeply unsavoury about this man. His piggy little eyes blaze with a furious belief in his own superiority. I don't buy all that "I'm chummy with the locals" on his damned River Cottage shows. I bet he tries to Lord it over all of them with his smarmy city ways and his rare breed sheep. My only hope is that the locals are building a big Wicker Man in which Hugh and his sheep can be ritually sacrificed purely for my televisual entertainment. That is a show I'd gladly watch.

Number 5) Ross Noble.

Yeah. A bit left field this one. Normally I'm OK with comedians. Even if I don't find them particularly funny they don't tend to annoy me to the point of explosive hemorrhoids. But Ross does. Because he won't shut up. I've seen him on TV countless times - Jonathan Ross, QI, Have I Got News For You - and he does the same thing every time. I'll jus kip talkin' like til I come oot with summat funny and that meks yus all laff even if that means I kip talkin' absoloot bollux fer aboot half a frigging hour. On and on and on. I mean Johnny Vegas is bad enough but Ross Noble can run a marathon of mediocrity with his tongue just to reach a lame, exhausted punchline at the finish point. That isn't humour. That isn't wit. Wit is to the point and sharp. A quick jab to the ribs and out again. Not month after month of beating someone with a tripe casserole until they fake their laughter just to get you to shut up and go away. Ross, you'd be funny if it wasn't for your personality and the way you tell your jokes. The only cure is to let someone else do it for you. Honest.

OK guys, now it's over to you. I won't name names to pass this meme onto. Merely feel free to help yourselves and have a ball.

I know I have.