Plenty of people have now had their say about the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand episode with Andrew Sachs on Radio 2
Yes, it seems filthy & in bad taste from what little I have heard. But one has to be a bit careful here – neither is unknown in BBC radio comedy. I remember the disbelief with which we greeted some of the jokes in Round the Horn when I was still a teenager. And Humphrey Lyttelton was loved for his Samantha jokes on Haven’t A Clue. Personally I felt that some of these went too far – towards sexism rather than just sex – but that’s the kind of objection that invites the putdown: hairy-legged feminist!
That seems to be part of the problem here – those that should have objected being afraid of being thought of as being too old fashioned or something
The thing which I need to have explained however, is what anyone could have thought was remotely funny about making unpleasantly explicit remarks to an elderly man about his granddaughter?
I can think of 3 possibilities:
They thought it was a modern take on the kind of tongue lashing which ‘Manuel’ used to get from John Cleese in Fawlty Towers
Somehow the grand daughter is part of ‘the joke’. Here is where I feel like the judge who asked Who are the Beatles? But if she is a celebrity herself then the idea of pairing up with Russell Brand may be funny to those in the know
It was somehow a put down of Brand himself – He’s having another of his fantasies – nobody fancies him!
The fourth, disturbing possibility is that it was just the attitude of the school bully throughout the ages– We was only having a laugh!
Suppose it was the other way about – I think Ross has a daughter,
