ITV Christmas FAIL: Minchin's Jesus song axed from Ross show

22 Dec 11 | Uncategorized

Comedians are used to being censored. Sometimes, that’s fair enough. On Monday, I watched Stephen Fry explain to an audience at a new Radio 4 panel show that his mother used to describe muttonchops (the large facial hair, rather than the unlikely foodstuff) as “bugger’s grips”. As he was saying it, he admitted that he was simply telling the live audience for their amusement and his – he knew there was no way that Radio 4 would be able to broadcast a phrase like that at 11.30am, when the programme will go out.

Most comedians I know are stoic in the face of this kind of “appropriate-ness” censorship – we’re happy enough to write and perform jokes that are relatively risqué for one audience, and relatively bland for another. Radio 4 isn’t without humour on this issue, either: they did after all once broadcast Fry’s peerless definition of the word “countryside” (the act of killing Piers Morgan, according to Fry: a joke of truly beautiful construction) in I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, which goes out at 6.30pm.

But if there’s one thing that gets all broadcasters edgy, it is the mention of god or gods in jokes. So I suppose it should come as no surprise to find that Tim Minchin has found himself on the receiving end of this brand of religious or quasi-religious censorship. On the Jonathan Ross Show for ITV this week, he sang a sweet, funny song about how Jesus did magic tricks like Derren Brown and was a thoughtful Jew like Woody Allen.

It’s not his best song, by his own admission. But you would strain to find it offensive, I think, unless you have that disposition anyway (in which case, watching Jonathan Ross seems calculated to give you early heart failure). Comic book nerds might be traumatised by his suggestion that “With great power comes great responsibility” is a phrase belonging to Superman, rather than Spiderman. But, in my experience, even a vexed comic book nerd does not write in to ITV and complain about that kind of thing.

Minchin’s song was recorded, included in the recorded programme, and then removed from it later, before broadcast, apparently at the behest of Peter Fincham, controller of ITV. Minchin attributes this to fear of “ranty, shit-stirring right-wing press”, and I suspect he’s right. Yet Fincham must have known what kind of performer Tim Minchin is: he surely watches television occasionally. So why hire him at all, or let others hire him, if you are then going to wig out when he does exactly what you would expect him to do: write a funny song from a rationalist perspective?

The song is, at the time of writing, on Minchin’s blog, along with Ross’ awkward intro and outro, which seem to me to make it perfectly clear that he also expects complaints by the bucketload and is dissociating himself from the potential shit-storm. Once bitten by a wild-haired imaginative comedian, twice shy, I suppose. So do go and have a look and see if you think the delicate watchers of Ross’s talk-show would have been provoked to swoon.

And if you like the song, perhaps you might write or call in to ITV to explain that you’re offended every time they pull this kind of material from shows (on the rare occasions we find out about it). If offence must be taken so seriously, then perhaps we need to start being offended too, at least for the purposes of complaining. Tell them you object to being treated like a child and to having pre-emptive steps taken on your behalf to ensure you aren’t shocked or upset. At the moment, there are no consequences for this sort of creative cowardice. There are only consequences for taking the risk and broadcasting.

People of religious faith can cope with mild teasing, just like anyone else: they aren’t some exotic, frail species, and some of them even like jokes. ITV should remember – as all broadcasters might – that offending a small number of people, who are bafflingly watching a show where their offence is almost guaranteed by at least some of its content, is a small price to pay for entertaining the majority with thoughtful, clever, musical, non-bullying humour.

Natalie Haynes is a writer and comedian.

Wossy's warning

08 Jan 10 | Uncategorized

Jonathan Ross’s departure from the BBC has led to a spate of speculation about his motives. Ross himself has been fairly quiet on the matter, though the prolific tweeter did thank his fans on the social network site, saying “Thanks for all the kind words about my decision. I feel sad that i can’t keep making the shows so many of you love!”

Ross also issued a statement saying his decision to leave the BBC was “not financially motivated”.

You’d imagine that would be sufficient, but the need to fill pages with a story on one of Britain’s best-known celebrities — coupled with the recent obsession with BBC salaries — has led newspapers to unfounded speculation about Ross wanting more money, or a meeting in which he was given a “derisory offer” by the corporation.

Such has been the extent of this whispering that Ross, through his solicitors Schillings, has been forced to issue a reminder to media that suggestions that Ross’s motivation was financial would not only be in breach of Section 1 of the PCC Code of Conduct as to accuracy, but that in fact they are untrue and grossly defamatory of the popular presenter, who insists he had never even entered negotiation on a contract with the BBC, much less been given a derisory offer.

Moyles and homophobia – 2

27 Mar 09 | Uncategorized

BBC Radio 1 controller Andy Parfitt has ‘warned’ breakfast DJ Chris Moyles about ‘homophobia’ and ‘bullying’ on his breakfast show.

The BBC reports Parfitt as saying ‘I made it absolutely perfectly clear to him and everyone at Radio 1 that we don’t condone bullying or homophobia or anything else like that.

‘As long as people work within the rules, then their future’s secure.’

The second part is actually the more interesting. Moyles, like Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross before him, and Kenny Everett before them, is employed exactly because of who he is and what he says. By definition, Moyles is supposed to be at very least sailing close to the wind.

Similarly, John Gaunt was employed because he’s the type of person that would call someone a ‘health Nazi’. Yet his employers at LBC Talksport feigned shock when he did just that, and sacked him.

The problem (for bosses) with ‘edgy’ is that there always has to be a risk of going too far. If one robs Moyles, or Ross, of the ‘what will he say next’ frisson, nothing is left. When Parfitt suggests that everyone works within the rules, he is making obselete the very reason for employing Moyles in the first place.