Monty Python would be ‘too Oxbridge’ for the BBC today
A YOUNG Monty Python would not get their big break on the BBC today because they are “six Oxbridge white blokes”, the corporation’s head of comedy has said.
Shane Allen said comedy on the BBC must demonstrate diversity, with audiences discovering “the stories that haven’t been told and the voices we haven’t yet heard”.
In decades past, Cambridge Footlights was the breeding ground for BBC talent, from members of Monty Python to The Goodies, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.
But times are changing, Allen said. He cited Famalam, a BBC Three sketch show with an all-black cast that fits the “comedy gang” template. “It’s 50 years since Python. If we’re going to assemble a team now it’s not going to be six Oxbridge white blokes, it’s going to be a diverse range of people who reflect the modern world and have got something to say that’s different and we haven’t seen before,” Allen explained.
Monty Python actually consisted of five “Oxbridge blokes” – Graham Chapman (Emmanuel College, Cambridge), John Cleese (Downing College, Cambridge), Eric Idle (Pembroke College, Cambridge), Terry Jones (St Edmund Hall, Oxford) and Michael Palin (Brasenose College, Oxford) – plus an American, Terry Gilliam.
Allen said his policy applies to sketch shows, but he is also looking for sitcoms that go beyond “the metropolitan, educated experience”, pointing to the success of This Country, the Bafta-winning show about working class cousins from the Cotswolds. “If a sitcom comes in about three guys who move to London in a flatshare, the jokes feel quite familiar and it feels like you’re not breaking any new ground or telling a new story. That’s not interesting,” he said.
However, he added: “I don’t think there’s a blanket, ‘Oh, we’ve got a class war,’ thing and, ‘We’re not having any more posh people on telly.’ It’s about how original is the voice you have, rather than what school you went to and all that stuff.”
While he is looking for new talent, Allen said the BBC has not turned its back on traditional shows, including Mrs Brown’s Boys and the revivals of Porridge and Still Open All Hours.
Mrs Brown’s Boys draws one of the BBC’S biggest audiences, and Allen is one of its biggest cheerleaders. He recently told Television magazine: “I’m a nerdy fan of comedy so this is the perfect job for me. The only downside is when you tell people what you do for a living, because comedy excites such strong passions. Every week, my mother-in-law has a conversation about Mrs Brown’s Boys and why it shouldn’t be on TV. And I threaten that I’ll put her in a home where she will have to watch it until she likes it.”
Allen was speaking at the launch of the BBC’S new comedy season, where he addressed the social media furore around Tracey Ullman’s sketch show when she satirised Jeremy Corbyn.
“It’s not just a BBC thing, but comedians are traditionally from a leftist point of view. I think it’s brilliant that you can have a thing attacking left, right and centre,” Allen said.
The season includes a programme marking the 60th birthday of Sir Lenny Henry. It will be filmed in front of a studio audience and he will look back at his career, beginning with his appearance on New Faces in 1975.