On New Year's Eve, my wife and I took five grandchildren to the pantomime. It has become an annual ritual, and we take great pleasure from watching the reactions of the younger children to the old familiar pantomime jokes. Some of these, of course, are aimed at the adults in the audience, and this year's were politically quite sophisticated. The pantomime this season is Dick Whittington — on his way to becoming Lord Mayor of London — and we enjoyed the comparison between marauding rats, which his cat had to deal with, and bankers.
Very English
In pantomime the comedy aimed at the main audience — the children — is both simple and traditional, and very English.
As I got myself into the right mindset for it, however, I began to reflect on how much comedy in general has changed in my lifetime.
In the 1930s and 1940s, when television was almost non-existent, it waspossible for comedians to travel the country, playing to different audiences, using the same material. It often depended on creating characters, which became the “trademark” of the performer. Frequently, also, the style of performance became a trademark. This was true of Stanley Holloway who had a long stage and screen career, but was also noted for comic monologues. They were delivered in a reassuring voice, but were often quite macabre. A good example is the story of Albert and the Lion — Mr. and Mr.s Ramsbottom taking their son Albert on an outing to Blackpool and visiting a zoo where a lion eats Albert. Father — Pa — “who had seen the occurrence — And didn't know what to do next — said ‘ Mother! Yon lions 'et Albert'. And Mother said ‘Well, I am vexed!'” They sue the zoo, but the magistrate finds that no one was to blame and expresses the hope that the Ramsbottoms will have further sons. “At that Mother got proper blazing. ‘And thank you, sir, kindly,' said she. ‘What waste all our lives raising children? To feed ruddy lions? Not me!'”
Radio changed the means of delivering comedy, and the war had a big effect on its content. It became a vehicle for building morale. One of the famous wartime series, “ITMA” (It's That Man Again), for instance, had a whole collection of characters whose catch phrases became famous. (Example: Mrs. Mopp, the charwoman, with the catch phrase “Can I do you now, Sir?”)
In the 1960s, double entendre became more sophisticated, and more risqué, notably with a popular radio show “Round the Horne”, starring Kenneth Horne, a comedian who was also a businessman, and whose posh accent enabled him to get away with wonderfully outrageous jokes.
Getting satirical
That era marked the beginning of a far more satirical approach to comedy. Television was universal and society was becoming far less deferential. Independent Television, for example, in the 1980s and 1990s had a popular, highly controversial, puppet show, “Spitting Image”, which lampooned well known public figures, including Margaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister, and Ronald Reagan, then US President, and the British Royal family. Move forward to the present day, and satire has become the norm. Television's “Have I got News for you?” and its radio equivalent, the “News Quiz” succeed because they are up to the minute in their subject matter, and have a no-holds-barred approach to the politicians in the news. The same is true of another radio programme, the “Now Show”, which turns the critical attention of a team of very funny comedians on the week's political events.
There is still a market for more gentle humour. For example, “Dad's Army”, a situation comedy series about a wartime Home Guard unit in a fictional seaside town was not actually made and shown until long after the war. (It was broadcast for nine years from 1968.) From time to time it is still repeated, and has a good following.
However, more satire, greater sophistication, instant access to large television audiences, these factors have inevitably changed the face of comedy. One could not imagine a present-day Stanley Holloway being able to build his fame on humorous monologues. Apart from anything else, today's comedians are much more likely to offer “edgy” humour, using obscenities that would not only have shocked but would have been unacceptable half a century ago. I certainly have some negative feelings about the way things have developed — but on balance my vote is for a society which is not only less deferential but also less prudish than in the past.
Bill Kirkman is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, UK. Email him at: bill.kirkman@gmail.com
