This mindless woke cliché is killing British comedy

Blackadder
Edmund is Baldrick’s clear social superior in Blackadder – yet no one accuses the show of ‘punching down’

In an article he’s written for the latest Radio Times, Jon Plowman – a former BBC executive and producer of the classic 1990s sitcom Absolutely Fabulous – denies that “political correctness is killing comedy”. Yet, as the politically correct so often do these days, he then adds: “Some things are never funny – like punching down. Comedy should always punch up.” In other words, he appears to be saying: comedy should only invite us to laugh at the privileged and powerful, never the weak and powerless.

It’s bad enough when some know-nothing, sanctimonious student parrots this mindless progressive cliché. But when a senior comedy figure seems to join in – especially one of Mr Plowman’s exceptional pedigree – it’s downright baffling. Because, if you spend even a moment thinking about it, it’s patently untrue.

The truth is that, contrary to the above piece of fashionable received wisdom, many of our greatest and most beloved comedies are full of “punching down”. To take one obvious example: Blackadder.

Just look at the relationship between its two leading characters. Edmund is Baldrick’s clear social superior. Baldrick, after all, is penniless, lower-class, and plainly has severe learning difficulties (see, for instance, the scene from Blackadder II in which he proves incapable of grasping that 2+2=4). Yet Edmund mocks him mercilessly for being stupid and poor. And how do viewers respond?

By laughing their heads off. This blatant “punching down” doesn’t upset them in the least. They love Edmund’s savage putdowns of his lowly, illiterate, impoverished dogsbody. Just as they love the “punching down” in Fawlty Towers (Basil’s bullying of his minion Manuel for being a stupid, useless foreigner). And Father Ted (which invited us to laugh at Dougal, whose learning difficulties are even more severe than Baldrick’s). And Harry Enfield & Chums (which invited us to laugh at Wayne and Waynetta Slob for being thick, fat, vulgar, workshy, council estate scroungers who give cigarettes to their newborn baby)…

All brilliantly funny shows. But all unmistakably “guilty” of “punching down”.

And then, of course, there’s Little Britain – which, as it happens, was executive-produced by none other than Jon Plowman himself. If the sketches about the risibly unconvincing trans woman Emily Howard (“I’m a lay-deeeee!”), Vicky Pollard (stereotype chav) and Lou and Andy (benefits cheat pretending to be disabled) aren’t clear cases of “punching down”, what are they? Yet, although we’re not supposed to admit it these days, millions of us found Little Britain hilarious. I know I did.

This supposed rule about never “punching down”, therefore, is pure drivel. But it isn’t merely inaccurate. Belief in it is actively damaging – because it appears to have made all too many people in the comedy industry (performers, scriptwriters, TV commissioners) think that the role of comedy is to promote equality, inclusivity and social justice. To help make the world a kinder, fairer, more righteous place.

But it isn’t. It’s simply to make people laugh. So, if you’re ever wondering why an awful lot of modern comedy seems so tame, tepid and suffocatingly right-on, it’s because the people behind it have forgotten what it’s for.