Little and nasty with it

Barbara Ellen says what I have often thought:-

It appears that Little Britain creators, David Walliams and Matt Lucas, are ending their partnership. Permanently, temporarily – who knows or cares? If this is the end of an era, good riddance.

...[T]hey lunged . . . frantically for the lowest common denominator and refused to let go. Perhaps this gives context to the endless spew of chav jokes, mental illness jokes and fat jokes, with Lucas, by far the more talented of the duo, clinging to "fat is funny" as if the only thing he had going for him was his high BMI.

Elsewhere, there was the gormless teen mum Vicky Pollard; that creepy care-in-the-community skit, with Andy Pipkin, the guy in the wheelchair. And then there were dragged-up "women" so hideous they made Hinge and Bracket resemble glamour models. The relative charm of Daffyd, "the only gay in the village", just wasn't enough to save what was one of the most sneering, cold-hearted, nasty little shows ever seen on British TV.

Rewarding middle-class, educated, comedy workaholics for lampooning people without any of their advantages, struggling on the margins of society – was this where we'd come to, a boorish festival of exploitation and contempt?

Walliams once gave an interview saying something to the effect of how he found "inspiration" just looking around ordinary streets and seeing funny little people leading their funny little lives. Hmm. One wonders why he didn't just look around the private members' clubs he frequented, where there were plenty of "funny little people"– specifically, vile media prats. Why didn't Walliams write "comedy gold" about this, an elitist sphere he knew about, rather than a world of pain he didn't?

I watched Little Britain a few times with horrified amazement, wondering who could possibly find this funny?  In a stinking ooze of gross witless pieces about adult males being breast fed and malevolent cripples the clean dry patch was the Only Gay in the Village.   I wonder if there was any self-awareness in it - "we are the only cutting edge, transgressive, dark side comedians in the country" who try to outrage a jaded, indifferent audience. 

Comments

[Hugh]

Little Britian had a fair smattering of racism too. I won't miss it or watch reruns.

I wonder what the new champion of the working class, Owen Jones author of Chavs:The Demonization of the Working Class says on the subject? His book got a pasting in the current Private Eye as ill educated clap trap btw.