Dame & blast
June fails to see funny side of ‘filthy’ TV comedies
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DAME June Whitfield has blasted “filthy” TV comedy and moaned that she needs subtitles on some BBC dramas because of the mumbling dialogue.
The 92-year-old actress, who starred in sitcom Terry and June and Absolutely Fabulous, said she was sick of smutty humour.
And the TV veteran said she was not losing her hearing, but struggled with the sound quality on shows. She said: “It’s absolutely dreadful. “I often put subtitles on. Definitely with Happy Valley.
“Sarah Lancashire is such a good actress but I could not hear a word
Toff lands at Heathrow. Left, with Iain and Jamie she was saying half the time. It isn’t that we’re all going deaf. It is something to do with the transmission of the sound.”
She had been told by a sound engineer that the problem, which annoyed so many viewers it was even debated in the House of Lords, was due to poor equipment.
She said: “I think it probably comes down to money.”
Dame June called for a return of “witty” comedies such as Only Fools and Horses, rather than smutty humour. At the Television and Radio Industry Club’s Christmas lunch in the Grosvenor House Hotel, London, she said: “Not everybody wants to be overexcited or have sex thrown at them the whole time, or blood and thunder. They’re more interested in a story. “When they repeat Fools and Horses and those sort of things, it gets a lot of viewers. They love that.
“I’d like to see more comedy as it used to be. Witty comedy, not filthy comedy. Some shows are too rude. I don’t watch them.”