Cancel culture? Jimmy Carr does it simply with a cold, hard scowl

Richard Bacon told us at the beginning of Cancelled (c4), his probe into online culture wars, that his pronouns are ‘he’ and ‘him’. i suspect, really, they are ‘moi, moi, moi’.

he treated the hour as if it was his audition to be the next Question Time presenter, zipping round the country by train to interview People With opinions — then signed off with a booming: ‘Good night!’

But his interviewees were never the ones at the centre of the debate. richard cited the case of harry Potter author J.K. rowling, who has been bombarded with hate mail for her contributions to the gender debate and even excluded from a 20th anniversary celebration of the films based on her own books.

Ms rowling didn’t comment, of course. neither did her publishers, the filmmakers or any of the actors. The closest richard got was a professor at the open University, Jo Phoenix, who has also been subjected to the fury of the mob for her own ‘gender critical’ beliefs.

The abuse she faced was certainly horrific. Phone footage, shot outside one of her lectures, captured a trans rights activist bellowing ‘die! die! die!’ through a megaphone at a stoic female security guard. We didn’t meet the security guard, or the demented protester.

other footage showed art historian andrew Graham-dixon quoting from adolf hitler’s Mein Kampf, in a ridiculous German accent that was more Goon Show than reichstag, at a cambridge Union debate. The coiffed and dashing aG-d apparently wasn’t available for comment either.

richard met the student society president instead, who was threatened on social media with violence for allowing the debate, then howled down when he had the temerity to apologise.

We didn’t find out whether the unlucky fellow’s university career was adversely affected, or if his ‘cancellation’ was mere empty intimidation, because richard hopped back on a train and went to Stroud in Gloucestershire, to see a historic clock with a supposedly racist figurine that strikes a bell.

at the core of the programme, a serious point was buried in waffle. ‘cancel culture is a supercharged political correctness,’ richard said, ‘and that means there is a pressure to self-censor.’

comedian Jimmy carr put it most pithily: ‘it’s the new book burning.’ Then he turned and headed on stage for a gig. ‘don’t get cancelled!’ called richard cheerily. Jimmy turned and gave him a basilisk scowl that could turn a sunbeam to stone.

now that’s how a pro cancels people he dislikes.

Back in the real world, cameras followed two life-saving operations of a complexity that defied belief, in Surgeons: At The Edge Of Life (BBc2). in one, two specialists at addenbrooke’s hospital in cambridge removed most of the bowels of a middleaged father with cancer, in a procedure so extensive it was spread across two days.

after 14 hours, the patient’s stomach — held open with a plastic ring the size of a bicycle tyre — was packed with sterilised tissue and covered over, so the surgeons could get some rest before continuing.

The bladder, prostate and other giblets were placed on an aluminium tray, where they looked disconcertingly like a skinned rabbit in a butcher’s shop.

in another op, a young patient with a terminal brain tumour was given a beaker of liquid called 5-aLa. it made his cancer glow fluorescent pink under ultra-violet light, so that it could be found and removed.

how much time this buys the patient, no one could predict. ‘You can call it uncertainty,’ the surgeon said, ‘but on the positive side you could call it hope.’