At the end of a long and tiring day I found myself on stage at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, headlining a gig in front of a capacity audience of almost 1000 people. It almost felt like I was a success. Though I think it might have been host
Frank Skinner who had drawn in the crowds.
I was wearing a suit because it seemed rude not to dress up for such an occasion, but this led to some unexpected early laughs. I had my apple in my pocket for my potato/potarto routine. When I am in a tiny club, wearing jeans, this fact usually goes unnoticed, mainly because I am more often than not on the same level as the crowd and they can't see my legs. But here I was on a big stage and the thin material of my suit trousers clinging to the apple, accentuating its shape in my pocket. Perhaps a little bit aware of the problem I was making a half hearted attempt to hide the bump with my hand, but this just drew attention to it. Even a year ago I might have struggled to cope with this unexpected chortling so soon into such a big gig, but I merely explained what had happened and then got on with it. The gig went pretty well, though I did note that in places I appeared to be too racy for Skinner's audience, which is some kind of an achievement. The more childish and rude material did seem more pathetic when I was in such a big theatre and wearing a suit. But in a sense that made it funnier.
My nephew had come along to watch. Last time he'd seen me he probably thought I was on my uppers as
I was performing to 10 people in a pub in Hammersmith. Now here I was headlining a West End theatre. He must have thought I'd had a pretty amazing couple of months hurtling from the bottom to the top. But this is just my strange life. This kind of gig is the exception rather than the norm, but then again, coincidentally I will be
on the West End Stage for the next two weeks. Not to so many people (unless I sell so many tickets that everyone in the 400 seats of the Leicester Square Theatre has someone sitting on their knees).
I self-consciously introduced my nephew to Skinner afterwards - "This is my nephew," I said, aware that this is the line that some middle aged men might use to shelter themselves from the embarrassment of having a companion who is half their age. Skinner picked up on this, but my nephew was delighted about being joked about, even if the implication was that he was some fat old man's bit of fluff.
The start of the day felt like a distant dream by this stage. I had been up at 7am to head over to Queensway to appear on "The Wright Stuff". The other guests were my old friend Steve Furst (from the Orange adverts - I love oranges) and the creature from Thatch's Snatch, Carol Thatcher. We were going to be talking about whether people were too sensitive to offensiveness in the last section. I wasn't sure that I was going to be too polite to Thatch Jr after her recent comparisons between a black French tennis player and a golliwog. I was also worried that I might end up being too polite to her. I wanted to let her know how I felt about the unacceptable nature of her comments (which might have been "He looks like a golliwog" or "Look, a golliwog frog" depending on which sources you believe). I was also aware that as it's my job to be offensive that I didn't want to end up looking like the pot calling the kettle a golliwog.
Thatcher, perhaps unsurprisingly given the events of the last couple of weeks, was not too chatty in the green room before (her racist comments were in such a venue after a recording of the One Show) and I wasn't sure she even realised I was also on the show. She didn't acknowledge me, but then I didn't acknowledge her either. She was bedecked in heavy metal jewelry which made her look a bit like a Borg. Though her bracelet and rings looked like they could do some serious damage if she thumped me. There was every chance she was going to feel like doing so.
When we got to the studio she was sitting next to me. She now briefly chatted and was a pleasant enough woman, though very posh and clearly slightly out of touch and clueless. I had met many such privileged toffs in my time at Oxford, their confidence barely masking the vacuum inside their heads. She's not a nasty person, just a bit thick and living in a world detached from day to day reality.
So all the early part of the show went along without being too controversial. Thatcher trumped me in the conversation about living with a dad as your headmaster, as her mum had been Secretary of State for Education and been the Milk Snatcher, which given my earlier joke conjures up rather unpleasant images of how she got the bottles out of the hands of the infants.
When it came to the portion of the show about offensiveness Wright asked Thatcher to describe what had happened and she said she wasn't going to go over it all again, seeming to think that the fact that no one complained at the time was the main issue (though other sources claim there were complaints), and that she was the victim of all this and had been bullied and snitched on.
There was no sense of contrition and apology and she looked rather aghast when I told her that her comments were unacceptable.
But because it was such a bit sprawling subject it was very hard to make the points I wanted to in the time available to me.
By the end it looked like Thatcher was going to be let off the hook - saying there were more important things to worry about and that we were in danger of emulating the days of East Germany. Her feeling was that she'd said stuff in private and that it was wrong that it got reported and got her sacked.
I managed to get a final word in and say that although there is free speech there are still things that should be unacceptable to say, and that those racist comments should be included in that. But time's clock was pressing against us and although I had at least made a stand it ended with me feeling that I hadn't quite made my points as succinctly as I'd wished. After all although we should have free speech that works both ways, so if you say something that is offensive then other people have the right to say what they think about that. So although I say offensive things in my comedy, if the audience think I have gone too far they will let me know. Free speech doesn't give you the right to say whatever you want, wherever you want and not have to deal with the repercussions. After all if in the Green Room after the show I had told Thatcher that I thought it was a good idea to murder children and I was thinking of going to kill some right now, then should she complain about me, or respect my right to say any old shit that I want.
Of course also the green room at a TV studio is still a public place. Thatcher seemed more annoyed that she'd hadn't said the stuff on TV, so why should she be sacked (I don't think she should have been incidentally - as I said on the show, better to have her do a report on the subject and try to learn why she had been a dick)? But she still said this stuff in public and so that doesn't mean anyone who heard it has to respect her right to be racist and leave it at that.
I was glad I hadn't just sat back and let her defend herself unchallenged, but wished I had said a bit more. It is her total lack of contrition that gets to me. I don't think she has ever apologised for what she said, just tried to pass the buck to the people who reported her. And she was never going to listen to me. She's not an evil person, just a bit dim or sure of herself or from a background where this stuff can be said without anyone raising objections. But thirty years ago you would have heard such comments pretty much everywhere you go.
This political correctness stick is brought up on these occasions to ridicule a world where you can't say certain things any more. But this stuff isn't about this invented construct of PCness - does anyone claim to be politically correct? It's just a pejorative term invented by people who want to still be racist and old-fashioned. It's about respecting people whatever their background and not making sweeping and offensive statements about them based on the colour of their skin or where they come from or their disability, sexuality or gender.
You can disagree with someone and still respect them - I don't think I was disrespectful to Thatcher. Sometimes with a political or religious viewpoint it is impossible not to cause some offence if you feel strongly the opposite of someone else.
But to call any black person a golliwog is disrespectful, ignorant and also entirely pointless. It's not political correctness to hope we can stop such a thing happening any more, just as it was not political correctness to stop burning "witches" or Catholics.
I know I say offensive things quie regularly - hopefully most people get that it is a joke, sometimes I don't get it right and it's not funny. But it's the intention behind a joke that is the important thing, who is the victim and what point is being made.
If Thatcher just apologised for having made a crap and possibly crapulous comment and we all debated it to work out if and why she was wrong to do so, then that would be the end of it as far as I am concerned. None of us have everything right, none of us have nothing left to learn.
But I left the studio feeling slightly cross and unsettled and it was her dim lack of contrition that was discombobulating me.
From comments I have had from others it seemed that I did enough to at least give some balance to the argument. I wish I'd had the time and wit to do a bit more, but it was an interesting discussion and I actually feel slightly privileged that my stupid job occasionally allows me access to the heart of a story like this and to have my say on it.
If anyone gets round to putting the exchange up on youtube or anywhere they do let me know and I will flag it up.
My erstwhile double act partner, has written and said more erudite things than I have on this subject. Check him out on
wikiquote and also
this article in which he proves there is at least one person happy to refer to themselves as Politically Correct, but yeah, "institutionalised politeness" is a pretty good alternative.
Here's the first bit of the Wright Stuff programme
Here's the teacher bit
And the bit about offence is up too now
This is part one and
there's part 2.
