Monday, September 28, 2020

Harry and Paul's Panel Show


This is very funny and makes an important point about the uselessness of a common style of comedy.

As Jonathan Coe once wrote:

When Humphrey Carpenter interviewed the leading lights of the 1960s satire boom for his book That Was Satire, That Was in the late 1990s, he found that what was once youthful enthusiasm had by now curdled into disillusionment. 

One by one, they expressed dismay at the culture of facetious cynicism their work had spawned, their complaints coalescing into a dismal litany of regret. 

John Bird: "Everything is a branch of comedy now. Everybody is a comedian. Everything is subversive. And I find that very tiresome."

Barry Humphries: "Everyone is being satirical, everything is a send-up. There’s an infuriating frivolity, cynicism and finally a vacuousness."

Christopher Booker: "Peter Cook once said, back in the 1960s, “Britain is in danger of sinking giggling into the sea,” and I think we really are doing that now."

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