Ken rants against modern comedy

Ken Dodd has launched an astonishing attack on modern comedy, claiming no one should use the Royal Family, Christianity or bad language in jokes.

In his outbursts, littered with sexist language, the 77-year-old comic reserved most of his scorn on Channel 4, becoming physically agitated at how terrible he considered it.

And he suggested Billy Connolly would have been a better comic had he not sworn on stage, adding that he should never have performed the possibly sacrilegious Crucifixion routine which first propelled him to fame.

His rantings came, almost out of the blue, at a discussion on taste in comedy called Time To Laugh at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The comments seemed left some members of the audience gobsmacked, and wrongfooted his fellow panellists, which included Armando Iannucci and stand-up Mark Watson.

He started by tutting, almost despairingly: ‘People who tell deliberately life-denigrating jokes… no, no’ before warming to his themes.

‘It’s not right that people should poke fun at the Christian religion,’ he said. ‘It’s served us well for hundreds, thousands of years. I don’t approve of people making jokes about any religion.’

‘I have a friend who’s a Roman Catholic and he keeps coming to me with the latest jokes about the Pope or nuns, and I tell him I don’t want to hear them. My God has been very good to me,’ adding, bizarrely: ‘I came into this world alone and I’ll leave it alone.’

However, he seemed to contradict himself when he spoke of the rich tradition of Jews cracking Jewish jokes.  Yet to that, he added: ‘There aren’t any Arab jokes. It says something about the people.’

On Connolly, Dodd said: ‘He’s a multimillionaire yet every few seconds he had to go f…’ (Although Dodd could only bring himself to vaguely mouth the rude words off microphone)

‘What is he trying to prove? Is he trying to show he’s bigger and better than everyone else?’

When it was suggested that Connolly’s raw language was part his appeal, Dodd countered: ‘When people quote bits of his show, it’s not the bits with bad language. It’s bits with the jungle animals in’

He seemed astonished that ‘some people actually enjoy swearing’ and that ‘some comedians are famous for their bad language’.

Even though Dodd, who is well-read on the subject of comedy, comes from the tradition of the Monarch-mocking court jester, he said the Royal Family should be a no-go area for comedians.

‘Why are they always having a go at the Royal Family,’ he complained angrily. ‘God almighty! Why don’t they let them alone to be a proper family.’

However, there are topics he believes comedy should cover, cracking an old Irish joke, then complaining that it wasn’t permissible to tell gags like that any more.

He concluded that ‘political correctness us just a load of busybodies who would be better off going home and cooking their husbands’ tea’.

Earlier, he had complained about feminists, bemoaning the fact ‘that there’s a new kind of movement among women that they’re not prepared to be the second sex any more’.

Channel 4 invoked much of Dodd’s most heartfelt ire. Although he refused to be drawn on which programmes he had in mind, Dodd railed: ‘Channel 4 goes too far. It’s not properly administered.’

When Iannucci suggested Dodd should simply watch something else if Channel 4’s programming wasn’t to his taste, Dodd snapped: ‘That’s what the smart alecs always say.

‘I wouldn’t watch Channel 4 if you paid me. Channel 4 is rubbish. It’s Tom and Jerry made real, and when they try to be intellectual it’s A-levels meets Monty Python.’

This was Dodd’s second appearance at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s short season of events about humour, which continues over the next two days.

Earlier in a gag-riddled solo ‘lecture’, A Fellow Of Infinite Jest, Dodd said that ‘there’s more to comedy than bodily functions, bottoms and breaking wind – although some peole think that’s all it is.

‘Comedy is about brining you up, not dragging you down,’

Published: 21 Sep 2005