Own the rights?
Firstly, let me set out my stall. I'm not a fan of modern comedy. I like the Goodies, Monty Python, the Two Ronnies, Dave Allen, that kind of thing. Comedy that's not afraid to make you think as well as make you laugh. Comedy that's clearly the work of people who know - or in the case of Ronnie Barker, Dave Allen and Graham Chapman, knew - exactly what they were doing. Comedy that didn't pander and treated you with respect. This kind of comedy, brilliant as it is, just doesn't cut the mustard any more. There are a number of reasons for this, but it seems obvious that the commissioning editors for television comedy think the British public are, to a man, juvenile idiots who'll collapse into hysterics at the sight of a funny costume, the sound of a bellowed profanity and the irony-free revival of a rancid stereotype.And this is where Al Murray's Multiple Personality Disorder comes in.It's not offensive enough that the show is simply bad - badly written, indifferently performed, cheap-looking and unremarkable in every regard save for its total lack of ambition and staggering contempt for its audience. What truly rankles is the fact that it's all been done a million times before, by superior performers, decades ago. A gay Nazi? Hysterical. But only if you're too young or ignorant to have seen Terence Bayler as the Pink Panzer, a camp-as-Christmas, pink-uniformed SS member who delivered a limp Hitler salute and gasped "seig heil" in an episode of Eric Idle's Rutland Weekend Television. And there's another difference - Bayler's appearance as "the naughty Nazi" was a throwaway gag, over in seconds. In Murray's show, the concept of a homosexual Nazi is deemed hilarious enough to turn up in every show. Idle knew it wasn't the strongest of ideas, just good enough for a well-played one-off joke. Quality control like that doesn't exist any more, it would seem. Then there's the oh-so-knowing routine about a straight man who pretends to be gay just so attractive women, in love with the idea of a gay best friend, will talk to him. A neat idea, but Murray's writers arrogantly assume we're all too thick to understand that simple concept and hammer the point home by showing us endless cutaways of the character's loutish, beer-swilling, aggressively macho (therefore resolutely non-gay, do you see?) friends. Then we get a ranting vicar who chastises a couple for naming their son Clooney Prince - didn't it strike these geniuses that having the gentlest of all possible swipes at celebrity culture on a channel responsible for Celebrity Dancing On Ice, Celebrity Love Island and I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here not only slightly undermines the point, but makes them look like hypocritical tossers into the bargain? Probably not. They doubtless assume we're just too stupid to notice. Cue another steamrollered, heavily-signposted gag. Yawn.There are so many faults with this series that criticism is rendered almost ineffectual. It's like kicking a deaf and blind puppy. I've seen Murray being interviewed out of character, and he took pride in refusing to be lumped in with all the other 'edgy' performers - so what's he doing in a shock-for-shock's-sake box-ticking exercise in censor-baiting twaddle like this? It's common knowledge that mediocre is the new brilliant and passable is the new must-see, but when cretinous, malevolent rubbish like this is passed off as comedy, even in non-peak viewing hours, you have to wonder just who's minding the stall.
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