If you haven't been watching
Dead Set, then watch Dead Set. Start from the beginning though, if that's possible. I am sure there must be some funky on line way to view it, but I am too old and womanly to know what it is. But it's proper, great, entertaining telly, with great acting (my old mucker, the actor Kevin Eldon was particularly good tonight) and a terrific script with funny lines, but better than that, it takes the subject seriously and contains real suspense and shock. I can't think of a recent British made drama that has been as effective and must-watch TV as this. I am actually quite disappointed that episodes 2 and 3 (and presumably 4 and 5) are only 30 minutes long. I want more of it. And I don't want to have to wait til tomorrow to see the next bit. TV is turning out so much rubbish and overhyped tosh that it is great to see that we can do it. Charlie Brooker is a kind of god. He even anticipated that this would be the week
where we started examining whether comedy was getting too cruel and unthinking.
And of course I have been following the Brand and Ross story with some interest. Partly because I am a comedian who can deal in shock and unpleasantness and within the bounds of our less well known and non BBC made podcast, can occasionally say some things that are a little bit off colour. I do think that they over-stepped a mark, getting over excited and showing off and saying some inappropriate things about people who didn't deserve it. To be honest though I don't think it's much worse than
what George Lamb did to Ray Davies and there seem to have been no repercussions for that one.
It's quite incredible that neither Ross or Brand thought they might have gone a bit too far - Collings and me have occasionally snipped out tiny bits of our podcast due to libel or things getting too giddy. A few weeks ago when we were reading out Gaunty's account of the loss of his virginity, we came up with a very funny "bit" based around some advice that his mother had given to him on her death bed (if you want to know what she said then you will, unfortunately have to read the book - but I'd do it in Smiths rather than buying it if I were you). It made us laugh and laugh, but for once (as it was one of the podcasts we did in hand for the following week) we had some time to consider it before we sent it off for "broadcast". I woke up the next morning feeling very uneasy that, however much Gaunty's views upest me and however ridiculous his own account of his life is, we were making fun, even tangentially about the death of his mother. I expressed my concerns to Collings, who unusually was in the same flat as me (it was Edinburgh time - no bumming involved), who thought I was being over sensitive. But then he thought about it and agreed it wasn't something we should put out into the ether. I think we made the right decision - even though I still think it is one of the funniest moments of the whole podcast (the stuff we left in was very funny too and made the point). Sometimes you forget that people in the papers are actually human beings. Sometimes you can lose sight of what is fair game. The death of someone's mum rarely is (and we were aware that Gaunty sometimes listens to the podcast, or at least has people who tell him what we say) and telling someone's totally blameless grandad that you've had sex with his also totally blameless granddaughter on a phone message, and on national radio is also crossing a line. It's not a question of freedom of speech as some people on Facebook seem to be suggesting. That's just inappropriate. They kind of knew it at the time, but riding on their childishness and sense of unassailable potency they carried on.
It's only funny in the sense that it shouldn't be being said and some people have commented that it may be similar to some remarks I may or may not have made about a certain family member of Mr A Collings. But it isn't quite. Because we all know that, unless some twat tells her about it (or some national newspaper decided to start a campaign to get us sacked - cheg on, Mail on Sunday, we're our own bosses), then the party that I am completely groundlessly insulting will never know about it. It's about me and Andrew and not about anyone else. And you all know that I don't mean what I am saying.
But Brand had had sex with this girl and then Ross told her grandad about it. Then kept going on about it, pretending to apologise, but just making it worse.
It was bad and stupid and wrong of them. But not so bad that it should be the most important story on the news and people should be losing their jobs - and if it is then please can we have Lamb sacked too?
It is bad enough that Ross and Brand should have had to apologise to Sachs and his granddaughter and if they were satisfied with the apology then we should have moved on. Unfortunately they both left it a bit late to apologise with appropriate contrition (not adding that it was still pretty funny as Brand initially did) and a campaign has built up that is not really about the incident, but about some people's feeling that these men are paid too much for what they do, which shouldn't really be relevant - they have either been impolite or they haven't. If that's the issue.
Resignation or sacking is much too extreme a consequence. Contrition has been shown, Sachs is happy, his granddaughter maybe not so. But Brand will bounce back and maybe Ross will consider how far he should be going with his various comments and have a bit more humility, which might be good for everyone. They are both decent enough men and they made a mistake and didn't realise as quickly as me and Andrew did with ours.
By the way I don't think it's relevant, as some people seem to, that the granddaughter is in a burlesque group called "Satanic Sluts" and so she might deserve to have her sexual history related to her grandfather. It wouldn't matter if she worked in a massage parlour or had slept with a million men (and she hasn't done those things)- she still has a right to privacy and to not have a sexual encounter bragged about on the radio (though again I can sympathise - there have been times in the heat of the moment on the podcast where I have nearly blurted out similarly pathetic revelations - though we would definitely have edited them out if I hadn't managed to do that internally - which surprisingly I am capable of).
She is clearly turning the situation to her own financial advantage now,
here's tomorrow's Sun front page and maybe that's fair enough. Maybe she deserves some revenge and some publicity - though for someone saying a day or so ago that she was concerned for her grandfather in the eye of this storm, then this doesn't seem to be calming matters down. Everyone else, Sachs particularly, has acted (in the end at least) with dignity. I don't particularly blame her for making the best of a bad situation that is not of her making, but it would have been cool for her to have exhibited the calmness and understanding of her grandfather. I like the fact that comedian Jim Jeffries has stood up for his ex-girlfriend, because it turns out in the end just to be a way of more subtly letting Andrew Sachs know that he has fucked his granddaughter. Perhaps everyone has. Perhaps it's good that Brand and Ross let Sachs know about this before it was too late.
That is a joke. Ironically I feel that that is acceptable, given what has happened subsequent to the original incident. Even though in a sense it's just as bad.
Anyway, just blathering on. Maybe the feeling is that comedy has got too nasty and arrogant and bitter. Maybe in some ways it has. It's a good thing to find that there are still boundaries, just as it is a good thing to sometimes still over step those boundaries. And trends might swing back to more gentle humour for a while, but then if things get too safe they will bounce back in this direction.
And in the world of stand up and podcasts, with no one to smack us down and stop us working, the naughtiness will continue.
Though I may resign anyway, just to keep things interesting.
