AS A gammon, I can’t be seen laughing at right-on lefties. Instead I enjoy dolly birds with big knockers and Indian men with bad English. Stuff that’s naturally funny.
So I was exultant when The Benny Hill Show came back, as two fingers to the woke brigade, and trumpeted about it online. I was really looking forward to it until I watched it.
I tuned in last night, after finding the bastard miles down past BBC ALBA, and settled in with a pot of tea for a non-politically correct festival of hilarity. Only to find that it was a load of old shit.
The stuff I dimly remembered from four decades ago was there – scantily clad lovelies, speeded-up film. But I’d forgotten those sketches where they chase Benny around a park or a hospital go on for bloody months when you’re not five years old.
I also felt uncomfortable at how weirdly sexually dysfunctional Benny’s character was, hinting at early psychological trauma. Even the famous Yakety Sax gave me a migraine.
Well they weren’t all gold, I told myself, buttering a crumpet. The good stuff must be later on. But it was all bollocks. Benny doing dismally unfunny songs. Benny getting everything wrong at a health farm, looking dangerously unfit.
I’d assumed that pissing off liberals was automatically great comedy, but no. And now I’ve insisted friends come over for a Benny Hill marathon. I might slip earbuds in and listen to an audiobook.
This is just like when I went on about how great and not sexist the Two Ronnies were and got bought that box-set. Fifty quid it cost and I’ve still got 71 hours of shit wordplay to get through.
