Tape 173: "You Couldn't Make That Nowadays"

Exercises In Nostalgia

You may have heard that Mitchell & Webb are back with a new sketch show. I’m quite excited about this - the original Mitchell & Webb series had some absolute classics, and the team involved in the new series includes legends Stevie Martin, Kiell Smith-Bynoe and Lara Ricote, so it’s nice to see a big-name commission also being used to give a platform to amazing newer talent. Some of the reactions I’ve seen across various media outlets seems to be grumbling along the lines of “Huh, not a very imaginative commission, why not give it to newer comedians?” but the truth is, TV comedy is in a really perilous state and is not a healthy industry right now and needs guaranteed hits in order to survive. Using big names like Mitchell & Webb to repopularise sketch as a genre and also raise up a new generation of sketch writers and performers is a really smart move.

This week, though, I’m thinking more about a conversation that the brilliant Christian Brighty had on the Today Programme last week off the back of this subject, where he and the host talked about what this means for the future of sketch comedy on TV. They had a really interesting discussion and then, towards the end, the host brought up the issue of offence in comedy. Before I go on, I must stress - I don’t know who the host is and haven’t bothered to research it because I have no personal issue with him whatsoever. It may well have been a question that he didn’t even feel that strongly about, and I’m thinking about it more in relation to a wider attitude that exists at the moment. But I do think that the way the question emerged says a lot about how people who aren’t directly in comedy themselves think about comedy.

The question, in a nutshell, was “If we start re-commissioning shows from 20 years ago, don’t we run into the risk of causing offence? Because a lot of shows from 20 years ago couldn’t be made now?”

At this point, let’s remind ourselves that some of the more popular sketches that emerged from That Mitchell & Webb Look included “Sir Digby Chicken Caesar,” in which Robert Webb played a shambolic detective who ran around singing his own theme tune, and “Numberwang,” in which Robert Webb played a gameshow host who kept saying “That’s Numberwang!” over and over again. I don’t think there is anything in Mitchell & Webb that would make someone wince and go “Ooh, how are we going to do that in 2025?” I don’t think that’s what was being suggested here. And indeed, when pressed to provide some clarification, the host said “Well you couldn’t make Little Britain today, could you?”

So here’s the thing - everybody who thinks it’s important that comedy is allowed to cause offence is OBSESSED with Little Britain. It’s the only example they can come up with. You hear it all the time. “Comedy is all about saying the unsayable, though,” they claim, hopping up and down on their haunches, spittle spraying from their mouths (again, I am not talking about the host of the Today Programme here, I have no idea what he does on his haunches, I am now having an imaginary argument with an imaginary person, which you might think is a waste of valuable mental energy, but is also kind of just what the internet is for at this point). “You couldn’t make Little Britain nowadays!,” these imaginary people froth. “Everyone’s too sensitive!”

So, because I keep hearing people say this and the Mitchell & Webb news seems to have reignited the argument, here is my four-point rebuttal to the stock-in-trade argument that “Comedy has become too sensitive because you couldn’t make Little Britain nowadays”:

1. Little Britain exists. There is therefore very little need - some might even say no need - to make it nowadays. If I marched into the BBC with a pitch under my arm for Little Britain, the commissioners would quite rightly say “Joz, this is a pitch for Little Britain. We already made Little Britain twenty years ago. Why do you want to make Little Britain so much?” I doubt I would then fly into a rage shouting “I knew it! I knew you couldn’t make Little Britain nowadays! I finally have proof of society’s insidious woke agenda ruining my fun!” I would just leave quietly, feeling embarrassed that I hadn’t bothered to come up with a new idea.

2. You could make Little Britain nowadays. Vast swathes of Little Britain could be made nowadays and nobody would bat an eyelid. People talk about it as though what it was doing was wrong, sick, perverted, disgusting, unthinkable. And yet they also talk about it as though it was the apotheosis of good old-fashioned, real comedy. As though it somehow occupies the same space in our cultural memory as both Dad’s Army and 2 Girls 1 Cup. But a lot of Little Britain just consisted of perfectly funny, well-written, well-performed sketches about silly things. The sketch where someone would ask David Walliams to do something on a computer, for instance, and he would type something into his computer, and then say “Computer says no.” You could make that nowadays. Maybe he would say “iPad says no,” but other than that it would be exactly the same. Or the one where David Walliams pretended to be Dennis Waterman and said “I could write the theme toon, sing the theme toon” in a high-pitched voice while sitting on a big chair. You could make that nowadays. People might wonder who Dennis Waterman is, but I remember thinking that at the time as well.

3. Obviously, there are significant elements of Little Britain that you wouldn’t make nowadays, because they are offensive. Some of them weren’t that noticeably offensive at the time but are more obviously offensive today as cultural attitudes have shifted. Others were clearly and manifestly offensive even at the time of broadcast, and Lucas and Walliams themselves have acknowledged this and apologised for them. You probably wouldn’t make those sketches today, but when people say “You couldn’t make Little Britain nowadays” with an air of regret and disappointment, it makes me wonder - which bits are you talking about? Do you mean the bits where they blacked up, or the bits where they did impressions of disabled people, or the bits where they dressed up as naked overweight women where the joke was that they were hideous and grotesque? Is that what you miss? If so, why? What’s actually going on in your head when you say “You couldn’t make Little Britain nowadays?”

4. Social attitudes shape how comedy works, and they shape what comedy is. I think Dan Antopolski wrote a great piece on this years ago which I now can’t find anywhere (apologies if I’m even misremembering or misattributing this idea - if anyone can remember what I’m talking about and has the link to the article please do send it to me so I can update this next week!). The gist of it was that the purpose of a joke is to create a moment of surprise. The collective social and cultural expectations of an audience are part of the context available to you as a comedian in terms of what you can use to create that surprise. So, as cultural attitudes shift, joke-telling has to shift too. Something that would have punctured the expectations of an audience and made them laugh 20 years ago might just look obtuse, naive or thick when the set of expectations around it is different. So the onus is on us as comedians and joke-writers to pay attention to what happens around us socially and to evolve our own thinking about how you can surprise an audience and subvert their expectations, engaging with the ever-shifting tides of what their expectations and assumptions actually are. Does this mean you can never write a joke that deals with shocking or controversial subject matter in 2025? No. It means that joke can’t function in exactly the same way it would have 20 years ago, and we have to work harder to figure out how to tell it. When I hear comedians complain about how you “can’t joke about things any more” I just take that as an admission that they don’t want to do the work to figure out how to be funny in a different social context from the one they remember. When I hear audiences complain about it, my feelings are more complicated - audiences don’t have the same in-built technical understanding of how joke-telling works, so what they’re really saying isn’t to do with comedy at all. What they miss is the social context that once permitted those jokes. My answer is, fundamentally - it is not anyone’s job as a comedian to resolve your unprocessed nostalgia for a time when things were different. I also find the modern world horrifying, and scary, and depressing, and am achingly nostalgic for the comparative simplicity of my past. I just choose to be nostalgic for, say, Lego Bionicle toys and Fighting Fantasy choose-your-own-adventure books rather than the fact that it used to be easier to say horrible shit and get a laugh for it.

Miss these guys so much.

Finally, I think it’s significant that Little Britain is more or less the only show people mention when they go down the “Comedy’s so tame and sensitive these days” line of thinking. They talk about the wider subject as though every brilliant show from the early 00s couldn’t possibly exist in today’s social context, but if you ask them for specific examples, Little Britain is the only one they mention, because it’s the only one that routinely did tip over into actively offensive stuff. The truth is, pretty much all of those brilliant shows are still funny today and could still be made today, even the ones that make you feel like they’ll have aged badly when you think about them. Miranda and I rewatched The Office recently and were curious as to whether its attitudes would just be unwatchable today, and were surprised by how bang-on its targets are - a lot of offensive things are said in The Office, but the show is never in any doubt whatsoever that what it’s making fun of is bigotry, pettiness, small-mindedness and stupidity. We are pretty much never encouraged to actually laugh at something cruel in the way we sometimes are in Little Britain. So, to conclude, here is my complete rundown of the major comedy shows of the 00s, and my thoughts on whether you could make them nowadays:

1. The Inbetweeners - You could make this nowadays.

2. The IT Crowd - You could make this nowadays, but you probably wouldn’t make the episode where Douglas beats up a trans woman. I don’t think anyone would mind you not making that episode.

3. The Office - You could make this nowadays.

4. Peep Show - You could make this nowadays.

5. Black Books - You could make this nowadays.

6. Gavin & Stacey - You could make this nowadays, and they just did and millions of people watched it.

7. Outnumbered - You could make this nowadays, and they just did and millions of people watched it.

8. I’m Alan Partridge - You could make this nowadays and, while the title and format have changed, they basically still are.

9. Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps - You could make this nowadays.

10. Extras - You could make this nowadays.

11. Derek - You couldn’t make this nowadays, but you also couldn’t really make it at the time.

12. The League Of Gentlemen - You could make this nowadays. Papa Lazarou’s design might be different (oh no, they’re ruining my childhood!)

13. The Mighty Boosh - You could make this nowadays. The Spirit of Jazz’s design would might be different (oh no, my childhood!)

14. Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace - You could make this nowadays.

15. Nighty Night - This show had a lot of horrible stuff in it, but you could absolutely make it nowadays because, once again, its targets are very clear. The only thing the show actually really judges is its horrible main character.

Conclusion - all the stuff people think couldn’t be made nowadays could be made, because it was actually rarely hateful. Even when it was about awful people doing terrible things (Peep Show), the thing it targeted was awful people doing terrible things. So when people say “You couldn’t make X nowadays,” what it sounds to me like they’re really saying is “I wish it was easier to say hateful stuff, or to be cruel.” I’m sure that’s not what they mean, though. It couldn’t be, right?

A Cool New Thing In Comedy - There’s an entire weekend of amazing shows from Weirdos & Friends at Leicester Comedy Festival this weekend. I’m on the Sunday eve, but you can see and book for all the amazing shows here!

What’s Made Me Laugh The Most - Started watching The Apprentice again for the first time in years, and they really do manage to find the most baffling idiots in the country. Absolutely howled at their attempts to design an AI popstar and record a hit song last week. I keep singing “All day I dream success, look at me in this dress” to myself while completing household chores.

Book Of The Week - I’ve finally finished Neil Young’s Waging Heavy Peace, which was a rambling, bizarre and very sweet masterpiece. I learned so much about him, and also in some ways nothing at all.

Album Of The Week - Staircase Infinities by Porcupine Tree, an EP of tracks that didn’t make it onto their breakthrough album Up The Downstair. I love Porcupine Tree, to the extent that I have now decided to listen to all their EPs of unreleased material. This is great. The last track is just a 10-minute guitar solo that gets faster and faster. Sold.

Film Of The Week - Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy. Was not expecting this to be as sad and profound as it is. Went in expecting Bridget to fall in some mud or something, but instead she talks to all her old friends about how much they’ve endured together and coming to terms with what they’ve all lost. Devastating.

That’s all for this week! As ever, let me know what you thought, and if you enjoy the newsletter enough to send it to a friend or encourage others to subscribe, I’d really appreciate it! Take care of yourselves until next time,

Joz xx

PS If you value the Therapy Tapes and enjoy what they do, and want to support my work and enable me to keep writing and creating, you can make a one-off donation to my Ko-Fi account, and it’s very gratefully appreciated.

PPS Miranda and I played crazy golf for Valentine’s Day and I thought I’d take some cool promo shots while we were there. Don’t know how my left foot got as far round as it did: