One of the lamentable side effects of the ultra-progressive wave that swept the western world in the mid-2010s was that it caused so many people to have a humour bypass. Quite literally, as Alan Partridge used to say. This wouldn’t matter so much in the ordinary scheme of things, but this failure occurred in the one place where it ought to have been of primary importance: the television comedy industry.
It’s not just the uniformity and relentlessness of this progressive politicking on television comedy that rankles. It’s the associated lack of actual laughter
Ever since those who produce TV comedy shows decided it was not only their remit to make an audience laugh, but to also lecture them, the levels of humour have inevitably declined in tandem. Mock the Week was axed from the BBC in 2022, mainly because of its unrelenting and tedious obsession with Brexit. Have I Got News For You is in the eyes of many an irritating shadow of itself, while the BBC’s flagship platform for the era of large-venue comedy, Live at the Apollo, became unwatchable – and unwatched.
It was no surprise, therefore, to hear yesterday that this programme, first aired in 2004 and initially hosted by Jack Dee, had also been cancelled. ‘Unfortunately,’ as a BBC statement explained, ‘we have to make some really tough choices in light of our funding challenges, and these savings have been identified from the Entertainment genre.’
