Chortle editor Steve Bennett on why Mrs Brown's Boys is like Stewart Lee's new project

Let’s hear it for Mrs Brown’s Boys. Hip, hip...

Oh. No one with me?

That’s not entirely surprising. It’s the sort of show proper comedy fans - Chortle readers – despise for being old-fashioned, obvious and uncreative.

I’m in that camp. I’m utterly bemused by its success. When I saw it live, 3,000 people seemed to laugh uproariously at lines that were just conversation, not even jokes. Now more than 7million watch it on telly... and not just as visual chewing gum, they absolutely love it. This dated sitcom has audience appreciation figures in the stratosphere.

Yet I’m glad it’s on precisely because it’s as widely hated as it is loved. My hope, possibly misguided, is that TV executives take from this phenomenon is not that people want more broad, dated comedy (though that’s inevitably what will happen) – but that it’s OK to commission shows that lots of people hate. Just as long as lots of people really love it, too.

It’s their job to get the most eyeballs pointing at their employer’s output, of course, and traditionally the way to do this is to try not to alienate too many people. Aim for the broad middle that millions of people won’t mind, rather than trying anything that might cause some people to reach for the remote.

That can be seen in the big stand-up shows like Live At The Apollo and Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow. These shiny-floor shows have done wonders in giving lie to the perviously accepted wisdom that stand-up doesn’t work on TV. Makers Open Mike have shown that, with good shooting and editing, it can.

Such shows, McIntyre’s especially, have also given some great comedians the break they deserve to allow them to tour under their own name. The unstoppable panel shows help that, too.

Their one drawback is that they are relatively conservative in the acts they showcase, which tend to be of the affable people ‘noticing stuff’ variety. It’s even hack of me to notice that fact. They have the occasional comic to break this mould (Steve Hughes, Andrew Lawrence...) but it’s the exception rather than the rule.

It might be my rose-tinted prism of nostalgia, but it wasn’t always like this. My first introduction to the fact there was this thing called a ‘comedy circuit’ came – like so many of my generation - through Channel 4’s Saturday Live (later renamed Friday Night Live because... well, you can work it out).

That offered an eclectic range of performers, across sketch, character and stand-up, which, combined with the live broadcast, made it unpredictable and exciting. Fromthe energy of Lee Evans to the weirdness of Emo Philips, the anarchy of Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson to the deadpan of Michael Redmond. Lenny Henry could appear next to Fry & Laurie. Peter Cook, Frankie Howerd and Spike Milligan participated along with young upstarts such as French & Saunders, Paul Merton and host Ben Elton.

It was a mixed bag, and I can’t believe everyone enjoyed every act, but it opened up a world of possibilities that enthused impressionable young minds. It certainly worked for me.

To see how things have changed, tonight at 10.30pm, the slot Friday Night Live occupied, Channel 4 will be showing Paddy McGuinness laughing at bad TV clips.

Yet there is some hope on the horizon, thanks to The Alternative Comedy Experience, the Comedy Central show curated by Stewart Lee which starts next week. It’s almost certainly too much to expect this show, airing at 11pm on a Tuesday night on a channel not everyone can get, will change the face of TV comedy – but it’s a step in the right direction.

It should be to the Roadshow what Later With Jools Holland is to X Factor. That show reminds viewers there’s a much broader, deeper range of entertainment around than you’re usually served up.

Although most of the performers Lee chose will already be familiar to Chortle readers and Edinburgh-goers (we’ve an episode guide here) the ethos is that the net is being cast wider to introuducw distinctive and quirky performers who would probably never make the other shows.

Plenty of these have potential to become viewers’ new favourite comedians, and deservedly so. But there are – as in the days of Saturday Live – comedians on the bills that do nothing for me; and probably for others, too.

It’s that acceptance that some things might be hated that links the Experience – however unlikely – to Mrs Brown’s Boys... and what should, eventually, prove good for comedy if executives hold their nerve.

Yet the risk might not be as much as it seems. My parents go to one stand-up show a year – the preview show for Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival – yet tend to like the same performers as hardcore comedy fans. The favourite of my mum, 71 today (happy birthday, mum, by the way) was The Greatest Show On Legs – the naked balloon dance made famous by Malcolm Hardee, which culminated in Bob Slayer running naked through the auditorium.

But despite entertaining suburban septuagenarians, it’s not an act that’s likely to feature on the shiny-floor comedy shows for fear of being too risky or alternative. Why should that be?

Really, Channel 4 should have made something like the Alternative Comedy Experience to tap into the fertile live comedy scene, instead of offering the Paddy McGuinness/Rude Tube double bill. Maybe as they enter a new era of comedy commissioning, they will. I hope they’re watching on Tuesday night. As I hope you will, too.

Published: 1 Feb 2013