Comedians ‘on the edge’.

[Colin C No.3]

Following on from my post on ‘Viking Chat’ regarding Mental Health & the ‘benefit’ of attending live football, River Don highlighted how many comedians we’re on that ‘spectrum of depression’, for want (by me) of a better phrase.

One of the comedians he mentioned was Spike Milligan. A ‘manic man’ & comedian if ever there was.

In fact I rarely found his tv humour ‘funny’ & wasn’t a fan of The Goons. But I did enjoy his books, ‘My part in Hitlers Downfall’, ‘Puckoon’ & I particularly enjoyed his poetry.

One in particular I’d like to share in case you haven’t come across it, called ‘A Very Nice Day’.

‘Help, help’ said the man who was drowning,
‘Hang on’ said a man from the shore,
‘Help, help’ said the man, ‘I’m not clowning’,
‘I know, I heard you before. Be patient dear man who is drowning,
You see I’ve got a disease.
I’m waiting for a Dr J Browning, so do be patient please’.
‘How long’ said the man who was drowning,
‘Will it take for the doc to arrive?’
‘Not long’ said the man with the terrible disease,
‘Til then try staying alive’.
‘Very well’ said the man who was drowning.
‘I’ll try & stay afloat, by reciting the poems of Browning & other things he wrote’.
‘Help, help’ said the man with the disease,
‘I suddenly feel quite I’ll’,
‘Keep calm’ said the man who was drowning,
‘Breathe deeply & lie quite still’,
‘Oh dear’ said the man with the terrible disease,
‘I think I’m going to die’,
‘Farewell’ said the man who was drowning,
‘Goodbye’ said the man on the shore.
So the man who was drowning, drowned,
And the man with the disease past away.
But apart from that,
And a fire in my flat,
It’s been a very nice day.

A daft genius.

[River Don]

For those who don't already know, Milligans headstone reads:

I told you I was ill!

[Glyn_Wigley]

I've read his agent's memoirs of him, and when the illness hit him he was very much not a nice person to be around. At least he recognised when it hit him and hid himself away until it was over.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Milligan was a genius when he hit his straps. A hell of a lot of dross surrounding his high points, but it was worth it for the high points.

He was a product of a much less results-obsessed world. No way on God's earth would the Q series be commissioned today.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Some of his writing when he was ill is harrowing.

There was a short story or possibly poem of his which I can't remember exactly but went something like.

As a young boy I stared at a straight road that went ahead to the horizon.
I asked a wise old man why it got narrower until the two sides met in the distance.
He laughed and said the road stayed the same width and it was just perspective.

So I set off along the road.
And it got narrower.
And eventually the two sides met and I could go no further.

So I went back to ask the wise old man what I should do.
But he had died.



So much pain in such a short, almost childlike story.

[BVB]

For those who don't already know, Milligans headstone reads:

I told you I was ill!

Pedantically RD it isn’t, as the actual statement on the headstone is in Irish:
“Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite”.

But yes it does translate as the same thing.
Cheers
BVB

[River Don]

There can't be too many more influential people in British comedy.
Ken Dodd perfected stand up, Billy Connelly reinvented it.

The Goon show and Q set the stage for Python and then everything dabbling in the surreal and silly since.

[belton rover]

Some of his writing when he was ill is harrowing.

There was a short story or possibly poem of his which I can't remember exactly but went something like.

As a young boy I stared at a straight road that went ahead to the horizon.
I asked a wise old man why it got narrower until the two sides met in the distance.
He laughed and said the road stayed the same width and it was just perspective.

So I set off along the road.
And it got narrower.
And eventually the two sides met and I could go no further.

So I went back to ask the wise old man what I should do.
But he had died.



So much pain in such a short, almost childlike story.

You ‘remembered’ that, despite not knowing if it was a poem or a story?
Amazing.
You should become an author.

[turnbull for england]

Saw him live at Hull city hall not long before he died , he was fragile but sharp and something  im really glad to have experienced

[Glyn_Wigley]

Some of his writing when he was ill is harrowing.

There was a short story or possibly poem of his which I can't remember exactly but went something like.

As a young boy I stared at a straight road that went ahead to the horizon.
I asked a wise old man why it got narrower until the two sides met in the distance.
He laughed and said the road stayed the same width and it was just perspective.

So I set off along the road.
And it got narrower.
And eventually the two sides met and I could go no further.

So I went back to ask the wise old man what I should do.
But he had died.



So much pain in such a short, almost childlike story.

You ‘remembered’ that, despite not knowing if it was a poem or a story?
Amazing.
You should become an author.

For someone who whinges about BST being obsessed, you're ain't half obsessed with BST.

[Bentley Bullet]

For someone who whinges about racist comedians, I'm surprised Spike Milligan has been given time of day by the likes of BST.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Another obsessive pops their head over the parapet.

[BillyStubbsTears]

For someone who whinges about racist comedians, I'm surprised Spike Milligan has been given time of day by the likes of BST.

As in everything, although you seemed very Old Testmanent on morality being straight black and white (sic) there are shades of grey. Milligan's "racism" consisted of the surreal vision of him shading his face and mimicking accents. To the best of my (possibly limited) recollection, he didn't engage in the Bernard Manning type "So this Paki went to draw his dole" behavioural slander "comedy".

Would it be acceptable now? Of course not. Does it mean he was never a comedy genius? Of course not.

Wagner was a proto-fascist. Does that mean that Tristan und Isolde was shite? Absolutely not.

Isaac Newton was a sociopath intent on destroying the reputation of any competitor who crossed him. Does that mean his Theory of Gravity was shit?

[tyke1962]

This judgement of yesterday's culture including comedians with today's glasses on is at best flawed .

In fact it's pretty abhorrent .

[BillyStubbsTears]

It's a spectrum Tyke.

There are certain national or sociogical stereotypes in any given age that are suitable for comedy at the time, that don't seem funny, or seem offensive today. Equally, in all times there is "comedy" that is just nasty, vindictive and unpleasant at the time.

Making jokes about German's attitudes to Jews was perfectly reasonable in the 1950s, even necessary. Doing the same today is stupid and bone idle.

Similarly Alf Garnett talking about "coons" and "darkies" was genius humour in the 1960s, precisely because he was mocking the racist attitudes of people who couldn't cope with the world changing around them, not the immigrants themselves. But it wouldn't work today because society has moved on.

Charlie Williams is a classic example. There are people today who consider him to have been an Uncle Tom type because he played on his blackness for the humour of whites. But that was necessary at the time to reach across the racial barriers at a time when black people were still seen as The Other in Britain. Today it would be awful for a black comedian to do the same act because society moves on.

There's a massive gulf between those sorts and the genuinely, nasty, belittling racism of other comedians of previous times. I once, for my son's, saw Bernard Manning live in Blackpool. His act was actually quite sophisticated and cleverly constructed at the start but raised few laughs. Then he launched into a sketch about ethnic minority TV programmes, where he mumbled unintelligibly in a take off of an Urdu accent, dropping in the clear English words "social security" and "housing benefit" at regular intervals. That brought the house down. Because it played to an audience convinced that immigrants were foreign scroungers. That's an entirely different animal. Vicious, nasty, encouraging enmity. And obviously so even at the time.

[Bentley Bullet]

For someone who whinges about racist comedians, I'm surprised Spike Milligan has been given time of day by the likes of BST.

As in everything, although you seemed very Old Testmanent on morality being straight black and white (sic) there are shades of grey. Milligan's "racism" consisted of the surreal vision of him shading his face and mimicking accents. To the best of my (possibly limited) recollection, he didn't engage in the Bernard Manning type "So this Paki went to draw his dole" behavioural slander "comedy".

Would it be acceptable now? Of course not. Does it mean he was never a comedy genius? Of course not.

Wagner was a proto-fascist. Does that mean that Tristan und Isolde was shite? Absolutely not.

Isaac Newton was a sociopath intent on destroying the reputation of any competitor who crossed him. Does that mean his Theory of Gravity was shit?

I was thinking more of the comparison of Milligan to Jim Davidson, the latter of whom you detest for mimicking his black mate's accent while drawing the line at blacking up his face.

[phil old leake]

BST are your views on comedy across the whole spectrum of comedy

Are you saying that Benny Hill was acceptable in his time and that although he fights for his belief now that minority groups are under represented and down cries racism L Henry partly making his name using ethnic humour is acceptable

Are you also saying that if Alf Garnett was comic genius then Love Thy Neighbour was also genius because it raised the same issues

[drfchound]

This judgement of yesterday's culture including comedians with today's glasses on is at best flawed .

In fact it's pretty abhorrent .

As with many things tyke ……. Hindsight.

[ColinDouglasHandshake]

Jimmy Carr. Bit of a prick isn't he?

Not a funny prick either.

Looks like Slappy out of Goosebumps.

[belton rover]

I can actually picture Jimmy Carr changing the name at the beginning of your post, Colin, and using it in his routine.

[ColinDouglasHandshake]

Carr has been making jokes about rape, but when serving police offers share whats app messages about rape then that is deemed unacceptable. Both are IMO.

Opposing fans make sick songs and gestures about the Munich Air Disaster or people dying at Hillsborough. So does this mean that because they are having a laugh about it then it's ok?

What about those pair of Rovers morons who were mimicking an autistic person in the away end at the New York earlier this season? They were only making a joke about an autistic person so this is ok apparently according to those who think Jimmy Carr was ok to say what he did.

If i make a youtube vid and call it 'sick, dark stuff' and then proceed to make jokes about racism, sexism, sexual assault, murder, people dying in natural disasters etc then presumably this is ok because it's comedy?

All a bit muddied.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Some of his jokes are not jokes I would make particularly about the Holocaust, that's a step too far imo although some would say dark comedy is just that and doesn't do much harm.

He has a partial point that what he does is not a surprise, well advertised and he does give numerous warnings in the show about it.

But, why has it took 6 weeks to become an issue? The thing was released in December when I watched it.  It is another example of people needing something to be outraged about when they can just simply not watch it.