Let’s all try to decide just what’s funny

THE debate about humour is clearly in the news not just regarding the Will Smith incident but also Jimmy Carr’s recent comment on the traveller community. Many modern comedians say that no subject should be off-limits, but in their own way as with all of us, hypocrisy is easily found.

Billy Connolly, probably the godfather of the modern comedian, rose to success because he was an exploiter of the foibles in us all. A brilliant observer of life and apart from swearing which offended certain members of the community, a rightly much-loved entertainer.

It was Connolly himself who noticed that as he progressed others followed, not necessarily with the same attitude to people, one of general love and affection, that he portrayed. It resulted in a more scathing approach by what I would say were lesser mortals, but it affected Connolly’s act. It was at this point he made a telling remark: “Soon the only person you’ll be able to make jokes about is the heterosexual male.”

However, there are now a band of comedians whose comments can on occasions be regarded more as bile than observational humour. While they are careful not to offend their lucrative base, they are happy to attack sometimes accepted values of, for example, a suburban lifestyle. The level of hypocrisy can be observed in these types of comedians, by the fact that they can be seen patting each other’s backs on endless so-called quiz shows increasing the coffers of their very own suburban and very establishment lifestyles.

One must not forget, however, our own levels of hypocrisy. I, like everyone else, have my comedy heroes: Stewart Lee, Greg Davies, Lee Evans, Alan Carr, Rhod Gilbert, Joe Lycett and even Ricky Gervais, though I did not like the character David Brent as I felt he was a sad character that we were meant to laugh at, not with. To me, these comedians are in the vein of Connolly, clever observers of life and have that necessary quality of self-deprecation, but they may very well offend people who exist on a different plane than me. My villains are subjective also.

While in certain aspects of life I could easily be described as “woke” I baulk at the ridiculous nature of some of the expectations from some people of what we should all accept as the only acceptable behaviour, and it is often these matters that some comedians in my opinion hypocritically shy away from or attack those with strongly held, for example, religious views. I found it reprehensible, for example, when a religious couple running a bakery were taken to court by a gay couple who could easily have found an alternative supplier, and I am not a religious person.

Comedy is a great leveller and a great release, and long may the likes of Connolly thrive, but we live in an aggressive age that does not need additional polarisations. We all need to understand that we cannot escape hypocrisy in anything we do, as it defines our values as much as our good traits. I don’t suggest that we need a clout round the head when we forget, but like these comedians they as much as the rest of us know which side their bread is buttered. Glyn Scott

Barry