Andrew Neil: It’s official: I have resigned as Chairman and Lead Presenter of GB News.
Exciting times. Free of this epitome of conformist deadwood at the top, could the channel now become the boisterous, freewheeling space for provincial populism that we have thus far lacked?
Does anyone remember Charlie Drake? He was the Michael McIntyre of the 1950s and early sixties. Without the wokeness of course. So he could have been the worst of all - had he known about it.
His son regularly posts on twitter and engages with people who are fans of vintage TV. Same with Chris Beeneys son and Sam Kydds son (who was also a good actor)
Eric Sykes, Norman Wisdom
Thanks Malcolm, I will have to keep an eye out for them.
You will need a pick and shovel. I liked Norman Wisdom when I was a young boy , fond memories of my mother taking me to see his films as she was a fan.
I loved Norman Wisdom and his films
Loved "The Early Bird" where he was working as a milkman
Is there anything more pointless than people debating whether something is funny or not? Humour is so subjective – if you find something funny, great, if you don't, fine. That's it really.
Actually, it is quite revealing of the person. Humour is subjective but a person who finds slapstick clowning funny, or fart jokes, is interestingly different to a person who likes early Woody Allen. That might sounds like snobbery, but it is also true
I'd say the public here are more likely to be into slapstick clowning than early Woody Allen. Hence Brexit. And of course "Boris".
Boris can be genuinely funny, tho. He has an actual comic gift: with real comic timing
He knows exactly how and when to pause, and then deliver the line. Even if it is not particularly witty, he does it in a way which makes you smile
Of course people that hate him won't ever smile, but that's just political loathing, and not a judgement of his humour. He is funny - in a way that appeals to many, highbrow and lowbrow. It's a significant reason he is where he is
He does have a comic gift, I find him funny at times, but it's all rather mundane and it drips with condescension and entitlement. I'd worry about anybody who regularly creases up at his output. I'd assess such a person to be a complete wanker.
It isn't a particularly sophisticated comic gift.
Crashing through a polystyrene wall of bricks in a JCB might float some boats. At infant school age my youngest son found Dick and Dom shouting "bogies" at the top of their voices was hilarious. That is the sophistication level of Johnson's comedy.
It really isn't. Humour is about the confounding of expectations. If the way you confound expectations also confounds expectations, you're onto a winner. This is a rare insight into Boris's humour: https://reaction.life/jeremy-vine-my-boris-story/
If you instinctively loathe him, you're going to struggle to find him funny. But I don't.
David Nobbs' character Henry Pratt mused thus on the most successful comedians: it's those who present a false picture of themselves, but one which is close enough to be believable. This Boris does. Though how he does it so constantly, I don't know.
Doesn't mean to say I want him as Prime Minister, though he's firmly on the long, long list of people who would have made a far better prime minister than Jeremy Corbyn.
You are probably right in your implication about Johnson sceptics having no sense of humour.
I see the Vine story as typical of Johnson's laziness.
I find the HIGNFY performance cringe inducing.
As to your David Nobbs narrative that "those who present a false picture of themselves, but one which is close enough to be believable" doesn't sum up Johnson at all for me, unless you mean the Boris character he has created is some bizarre caricature of himself. To me, for comic effect Johnson has plagiarised Benny Hill's Fred Scuttle character, even down to the stupid salute. It is not original, and Hill was of a different era, and as far as I am concerned Hill was not even that funny in his heyday, so why would Johnson bother? Quoting Kipling in Malaysia was not funny it was crass ignorance. Neither was his letter boxes and crash helmets satire, it was xenophobic dog whistling.
Comedic genius ( which is an eye of the beholder thing) is not what I require of a Prime Minister. At least Mrs May and Mr Cameron displayed an appropriate decorum and respect for the office.
Does anyone remember Charlie Drake? He was the Michael McIntyre of the 1950s and early sixties. Without the wokeness of course. So he could have been the worst of all - had he known about it.
His son regularly posts on twitter and engages with people who are fans of vintage TV. Same with Chris Beeneys son and Sam Kydds son (who was also a good actor)
Eric Sykes, Norman Wisdom
Thanks Malcolm, I will have to keep an eye out for them.
You will need a pick and shovel. I liked Norman Wisdom when I was a young boy , fond memories of my mother taking me to see his films as she was a fan.
I loved Norman Wisdom and his films
Loved "The Early Bird" where he was working as a milkman
Norman Wisdom funny? Are you SeanT' 's Albanian cabbie?
Comments
I am only able to run every second day really, for fear of muscle strain. Feel free to pm me.
I see the Vine story as typical of Johnson's laziness.
I find the HIGNFY performance cringe inducing.
As to your David Nobbs narrative that "those who present a false picture of themselves, but one which is close enough to be believable" doesn't sum up Johnson at all for me, unless you mean the Boris character he has created is some bizarre caricature of himself. To me, for comic effect Johnson has plagiarised Benny Hill's Fred Scuttle character, even down to the stupid salute. It is not original, and Hill was of a different era, and as far as I am concerned Hill was not even that funny in his heyday, so why would Johnson bother? Quoting Kipling in Malaysia was not funny it was crass ignorance. Neither was his letter boxes and crash helmets satire, it was xenophobic dog whistling.
Comedic genius ( which is an eye of the beholder thing) is not what I require of a Prime Minister. At least Mrs May and Mr Cameron displayed an appropriate decorum and respect for the office.