The question for me is not the language but how it is used. Lee Evans could get away without it so it jars. Frankie Boyle it's integral if you like him. In phoenix nights Mr Kay does swear more than we think.
Frankie Boyle is the finest comedian working in Britain today.
I hope this is an LX1-type wind up. If you like ‘jokes’ about disabled children, Downs Syndrome, crude comments about the Queen, racist remarks about Israel, sexism, ageism and a whole list of remarks that even the BBC has found unacceptable, he’s hilarious. Personally, I think he’s reprehensible.
@ValleyWanderer said:
Sorry if this has been covered earlier (too many pages to look through) but any ideas on how as a ST holder, I buy a £5 guest ticket?
I’ve seen very little of Frankie Boyle - perhaps an appearance on Have I Got News - so can’t really offer a considered opinion but on the strength of the examples of offensive material listed by @glasshalffull I don’t think he’s for me.
One comedian whose material is offensive mainly to the kind of people I like to see offended (and therefore enjoy seeing) is Sacha Baron Cohen, especially as the people he offends are often bigoted American red necks who tend to be too thick to realise he’s taking the mickey.
On the zany front mrs micra and I have been enjoying Vic and Bob’s Big Night Out (a good update on Morecambe and Wise in many respects) and in the recent past the brilliant League of Gentlemen.
Going back further I agree with @eric_plant about Spike Milligan, John Cleese (but only in Fawlty Towers really), Kenny Everett and John Sessions.
Currently, Dead Ringers is better than ever as is the antidote to quiz programmes chaired by Jack Dee mentioned in my earlier post.
Apologies to @ValleyWanderer and anyone else looking for ticketing information. If no-one else has already mentioned it I think it’s just a question of ringing the ticket office (01494 441118) to order (by card) guest tickets.
@glasshalffull said:
I’m with you Micra on modern ‘comedians’ who think the only way to get laughs is by using crude language or insulting people. Frankie Boyle is one of the worst examples. If preferring the humour of Tommy Cooper, Morecambe and Wise etc means I’m a dinosaur, I’m happy to go on living in Jurassic Park.
Frankie Boyle is the finest comedian working in Britain today.
He's an individual who tries to act like his material is some incredible satire and pastiche on society's foibles.
Rather than just mocking those least able to defend themselves, and shock jock sweary tactics.
It's all subjective innit? Mrs W loves Adam sandler and citizen Khan which i hate and she cannot stand stewart lee or the office/extras. My parents used to sit stoney faced watching fawlty towers and Monty python. In his day max Miller like billy connolly was considered beyond the pale by some. Comedy either amuses you or it doesn't but if it doesn't it doesn't mean it's not worthy. Although there's lots of pictures of them laughing I understand Adam El Abd is not that funny but he is committed and expects everyone to at least chuckle or else.
Frankie Boyle can be - and often is - very, very funny, but you do have to appreciate what the purpose of it is, which is often to shock us into rethinking our comfortable perceptions and complacency. There is a proud artistic tradition of this throughout the 20th Century (Dada, theatre of the Absurd, etc).
It is designed to challenge you and make you think. Feel free to turn your backs and not engage with what he or she is attempting to do and I appreciate for many people it is too uncomfortable to find it funny.
I do agree with the comment about the likes of Lee Evans, who think that swearing a lot is funny but completely miss the point.
You don’t have to like the Frankie Boyle type of humour but I think the world is a better place for it and I find it infinitely better than the casual racism, stereotyping and misogyny of some of the earlier names mentioned.
If you want to test how you instinctively respond to this type of challenge/humour I recommend watching a recent episode of Killing Eve (probably the last but 2 of the recent series). The bit where Villanelle pushes the woman in front of the truck is either the funniest thing on TV this year (clue - it is) or so shocking you are offended by her actions. (If you didn’t watch Killing Eve you have no right to be contributing to a discussion about comedy!)
@bookertease said:
Frankie Boyle can be - and often is - very, very funny, but you do have to appreciate what the purpose of it is, which is often to shock us into rethinking our comfortable perceptions and complacency. There is a proud artistic tradition of this throughout the 20th Century (Dada, theatre of the Absurd, etc).
It is designed to challenge you and make you think. Feel free to turn your backs and not engage with what he or she is attempting to do and I appreciate for many people it is too uncomfortable to find it funny.
I do agree with the comment about the likes of Lee Evans, who think that swearing a lot is funny but completely miss the point.
You don’t have to like the Frankie Boyle type of humour but I think the world is a better place for it and I find it infinitely better than the casual racism, stereotyping and misogyny of some of the earlier names mentioned.
If you want to test how you instinctively respond to this type of challenge/humour I recommend watching a recent episode of Killing Eve (probably the last but 2 of the recent series). The bit where Villanelle pushes the woman in front of the truck is either the funniest thing on TV this year (clue - it is) or so shocking you are offended by her actions. (If you didn’t watch Killing Eve you have no right to be contributing to a discussion about comedy!)
Completely agree with this.
Ricky Gervais did a podcast with Sam Harris recently where they discussed offensive humour and they deconstruct this quite eloquently. The actual butt of the joke is usually not the defenceless person.
@ValleyWanderer said:
Sorry if this has been covered earlier (too many pages to look through) but any ideas on how as a ST holder, I buy a £5 guest ticket?
Well that’s put us all in our place @bookertease! A bit too intellectual for my simple mind and I’m not convinced that the world is a better place for Frankie Boyle’s style of humour if I’ve understood the nature of it correctly. But then I’ve not watched more than a few minutes of Killing Eve so I apparently have no right to discuss comedy in any case. As @Wendoverman rightly says, it’s all subjective and I would add very much a generational thing.
The last sentence of @OxfordBlue’s post says it all really. Perhaps if I actually watched Frankie Boyle I would see his intention in that light. Till Death Us Do Part about which I’ve recently heard people saying “they would never get away with that nowadays” had similar intent (or am I being unduly charitable?) but few had the insight of the Oxford Blues or Bookerteases of this world to see it that way.
@ValleyWanderer said:
Sorry if this has been covered earlier (too many pages to look through) but any ideas on how as a ST holder, I buy a £5 guest ticket?
But as I haven't yet received my season ticket yet, so don't have an eight-digit customer number, how is it possible to book the guest tickets?
I called the ticket office and they gave me my ST number over the phone which I could then use online.
Annoyingly they can't sell tickets over the phone any more but online you can't move your season ticket to a different seat. So if you are bringing friends then you have to
(1) buy tickets online which look like they have space next to them
(2) quickly call the ticket office to have your season ticket moved into the (hopefully still) vacant seats next to the ones you've just purchased online
I know it is pretty unlikely that those seat will have been sold between buying online and calling to move the ST seats but a bit of a faff having to do it in two transactions. The nice chap on the phone did say he'd pass on my feedback so hopefully this'll be changed so it can all be done online
Sorry @micra I do have an unhealthy tendency to pontificate.
Remember that Dada was partly a response to the serious people of the world inflicting the horrors of The Great War on us. In a world of Trump, Johnson, Putin et al, I am more than grateful we have ‘reprehensible’ people like Boyle to upset the status quo.
@bookertease I couldn’t believe she’s actually a scouser. All her accents sound convincing, except her own... I think it’s the ‘Fleabag’ influence that gives KE that ‘comedy edge’.
I used to love ricky gervais but find him a bit one note out to offend because he can and he's too rich to care now. that after life programme and Derek.were mawkish rubbish. He needed a collaborator to rein him in and he would have made a right mess of our ticketing system in my opinion whereas Boyle would have had a better stab at it.
@Wendoverman said:
I used to love ricky gervais but find him a bit one note out to offend because he can and he's too rich to care now. that after life programme and Derek.were mawkish rubbish. He needed a collaborator to rein him in and he would have made a right mess of our ticketing system in my opinion whereas Boyle would have had a better stab at it.
I'd recommend listening to the podcast, he comes across very down to earth and sincere.
Like popular music after 40 we need to wind our necks in as nothing cutting edge is aimed at us. Music is all bang bang bang and comedy is brainless filth. And you hear your old man shouting from his chair but it's You!!
Back to the thread topic for a moment and having now read and followed the simple instructions, I've very easily purchased a £5 guest ticket in a vacant seat next to mine. I also succumbed to a discounted Home shirt! Thanks for the advice.
@Wendoverman said:
Like popular music after 40 we need to wind our necks in as nothing cutting edge is aimed at us. Music is all bang bang bang and comedy is brainless filth. And you hear your old man shouting from his chair but it's You!!
Music was much better in.... "add dates of whatever years i was between 11 and 21"
@Wendoverman said:
Like popular music after 40 we need to wind our necks in as nothing cutting edge is aimed at us...
To hear some great cutting edge music that is not aimed at any particular age group, so as much aimed at us over 40's as anyone else, listen to the latest album by the unparalleled The Comet Is Coming - Trust in the Life Force of the Deep Mystery. The tracks Blood Of The Past, which features Kate Tempest delivering a poem over the band's music, and the single Summon The Fire are particular favourites for me, but the whole album is great. They are even better live.
@Wendoverman said:
Like popular music after 40 we need to wind our necks in as nothing cutting edge is aimed at us. Music is all bang bang bang and comedy is brainless filth. And you hear your old man shouting from his chair but it's You!!
Jimmy Carr was brilliant when he first came to prominence but he too descended into filth, albeit generally far from brainless.
For swift (but often rehearsed) original wit Paul Merson is without equal.
Frankie Boyle tends to get more bad comments from people who read what he has said rather than heard what he had said. I've see two or three of his shows and enjoyed the majority of the material in each one.
Comedy has many layers and many different comedians doing different things with it. All I'd say is see the whole show if any section you hear about offends. Heard the act say the words rather than an offended talking head. Make your own mind up from the source
Sounds like good advice @Right_in_the_Middle but, for me, he’d have to appear locally and I doubt whether that’s going to happen. Might have a listen on line though.
You would never call Milligan and Python sexist or racist...but some of the blacking up and bikini clad ladies included might raise a few eyebrows now!
@Wendoverman said:
You would never call Milligan and Python sexist or racist...but some of the blacking up and bikini clad ladies included might raise a few eyebrows now!
@Wendoverman said:
Like popular music after 40 we need to wind our necks in as nothing cutting edge is aimed at us. Music is all bang bang bang and comedy is brainless filth. And you hear your old man shouting from his chair but it's You!!
Jimmy Carr was brilliant when he first came to prominence but he too descended into filth, albeit generally far from brainless.
For swift (but often rehearsed) original wit Paul Merson is without equal.
Please tell me you meant Paul Merton, rather than booze mashed clown Merson? Although a lot of his comments and predictions are quite funny!
@micra it’s true that Frankie Boyle does some stuff that I think is beneath him but my word, there’s some scabrous gold to be found in his work. Try one of his New World Order episodes on BBC iPlayer - better targets discussed and taken down on that show.
His writing’s very good too.
Ultimately, comedy is completely subjective. We can all point to things we find utterly witless that others love. That’s the beauty of it.
@arnos_grove said: @micra it’s true that Frankie Boyle does some stuff that I think is beneath him but my word, there’s some scabrous gold to be found in his work. Try one of his New World Order episodes on BBC iPlayer - better targets discussed and taken down on that show.
His writing’s very good too.
Ultimately, comedy is completely subjective. We can all point to things we find utterly witless that others love. That’s the beauty of it.
A couple of misfires that outraged the constantly morally outraged do not a whole career or a whole act make or he would not have one.
Comments
The question for me is not the language but how it is used. Lee Evans could get away without it so it jars. Frankie Boyle it's integral if you like him. In phoenix nights Mr Kay does swear more than we think.
I hope this is an LX1-type wind up. If you like ‘jokes’ about disabled children, Downs Syndrome, crude comments about the Queen, racist remarks about Israel, sexism, ageism and a whole list of remarks that even the BBC has found unacceptable, he’s hilarious. Personally, I think he’s reprehensible.
It's in here https://www.wycombewanderers.co.uk/news/2019/july/bolton-tickets-now-on-sale/
I’ve seen very little of Frankie Boyle - perhaps an appearance on Have I Got News - so can’t really offer a considered opinion but on the strength of the examples of offensive material listed by @glasshalffull I don’t think he’s for me.
One comedian whose material is offensive mainly to the kind of people I like to see offended (and therefore enjoy seeing) is Sacha Baron Cohen, especially as the people he offends are often bigoted American red necks who tend to be too thick to realise he’s taking the mickey.
On the zany front mrs micra and I have been enjoying Vic and Bob’s Big Night Out (a good update on Morecambe and Wise in many respects) and in the recent past the brilliant League of Gentlemen.
Going back further I agree with @eric_plant about Spike Milligan, John Cleese (but only in Fawlty Towers really), Kenny Everett and John Sessions.
Currently, Dead Ringers is better than ever as is the antidote to quiz programmes chaired by Jack Dee mentioned in my earlier post.
Apologies to @ValleyWanderer and anyone else looking for ticketing information. If no-one else has already mentioned it I think it’s just a question of ringing the ticket office (01494 441118) to order (by card) guest tickets.
A long overdue early night now.
He's an individual who tries to act like his material is some incredible satire and pastiche on society's foibles.
Rather than just mocking those least able to defend themselves, and shock jock sweary tactics.
It's all subjective innit? Mrs W loves Adam sandler and citizen Khan which i hate and she cannot stand stewart lee or the office/extras. My parents used to sit stoney faced watching fawlty towers and Monty python. In his day max Miller like billy connolly was considered beyond the pale by some. Comedy either amuses you or it doesn't but if it doesn't it doesn't mean it's not worthy. Although there's lots of pictures of them laughing I understand Adam El Abd is not that funny but he is committed and expects everyone to at least chuckle or else.
Frankie Boyle can be - and often is - very, very funny, but you do have to appreciate what the purpose of it is, which is often to shock us into rethinking our comfortable perceptions and complacency. There is a proud artistic tradition of this throughout the 20th Century (Dada, theatre of the Absurd, etc).
It is designed to challenge you and make you think. Feel free to turn your backs and not engage with what he or she is attempting to do and I appreciate for many people it is too uncomfortable to find it funny.
I do agree with the comment about the likes of Lee Evans, who think that swearing a lot is funny but completely miss the point.
You don’t have to like the Frankie Boyle type of humour but I think the world is a better place for it and I find it infinitely better than the casual racism, stereotyping and misogyny of some of the earlier names mentioned.
If you want to test how you instinctively respond to this type of challenge/humour I recommend watching a recent episode of Killing Eve (probably the last but 2 of the recent series). The bit where Villanelle pushes the woman in front of the truck is either the funniest thing on TV this year (clue - it is) or so shocking you are offended by her actions. (If you didn’t watch Killing Eve you have no right to be contributing to a discussion about comedy!)
Completely agree with this.
Ricky Gervais did a podcast with Sam Harris recently where they discussed offensive humour and they deconstruct this quite eloquently. The actual butt of the joke is usually not the defenceless person.
But as I haven't yet received my season ticket yet, so don't have an eight-digit customer number, how is it possible to book the guest tickets?
Well that’s put us all in our place @bookertease! A bit too intellectual for my simple mind and I’m not convinced that the world is a better place for Frankie Boyle’s style of humour if I’ve understood the nature of it correctly. But then I’ve not watched more than a few minutes of Killing Eve so I apparently have no right to discuss comedy in any case. As @Wendoverman rightly says, it’s all subjective and I would add very much a generational thing.
The last sentence of @OxfordBlue’s post says it all really. Perhaps if I actually watched Frankie Boyle I would see his intention in that light. Till Death Us Do Part about which I’ve recently heard people saying “they would never get away with that nowadays” had similar intent (or am I being unduly charitable?) but few had the insight of the Oxford Blues or Bookerteases of this world to see it that way.
I called the ticket office and they gave me my ST number over the phone which I could then use online.
Annoyingly they can't sell tickets over the phone any more but online you can't move your season ticket to a different seat. So if you are bringing friends then you have to
(1) buy tickets online which look like they have space next to them
(2) quickly call the ticket office to have your season ticket moved into the (hopefully still) vacant seats next to the ones you've just purchased online
I know it is pretty unlikely that those seat will have been sold between buying online and calling to move the ST seats but a bit of a faff having to do it in two transactions. The nice chap on the phone did say he'd pass on my feedback so hopefully this'll be changed so it can all be done online
Sorry @micra I do have an unhealthy tendency to pontificate.
Remember that Dada was partly a response to the serious people of the world inflicting the horrors of The Great War on us. In a world of Trump, Johnson, Putin et al, I am more than grateful we have ‘reprehensible’ people like Boyle to upset the status quo.
God I’m a pompous twat at 0900* in the morning
*ok - I know
@bookertease I couldn’t believe she’s actually a scouser. All her accents sound convincing, except her own... I think it’s the ‘Fleabag’ influence that gives KE that ‘comedy edge’.
@Wendoverman spot on re parents and Python.
I used to love ricky gervais but find him a bit one note out to offend because he can and he's too rich to care now. that after life programme and Derek.were mawkish rubbish. He needed a collaborator to rein him in and he would have made a right mess of our ticketing system in my opinion whereas Boyle would have had a better stab at it.
I'd recommend listening to the podcast, he comes across very down to earth and sincere.
https://samharris.org/podcasts/163-ricky-gervais/
Like popular music after 40 we need to wind our necks in as nothing cutting edge is aimed at us. Music is all bang bang bang and comedy is brainless filth. And you hear your old man shouting from his chair but it's You!!
Back to the thread topic for a moment and having now read and followed the simple instructions, I've very easily purchased a £5 guest ticket in a vacant seat next to mine. I also succumbed to a discounted Home shirt! Thanks for the advice.
Music was much better in.... "add dates of whatever years i was between 11 and 21"
To hear some great cutting edge music that is not aimed at any particular age group, so as much aimed at us over 40's as anyone else, listen to the latest album by the unparalleled The Comet Is Coming - Trust in the Life Force of the Deep Mystery. The tracks Blood Of The Past, which features Kate Tempest delivering a poem over the band's music, and the single Summon The Fire are particular favourites for me, but the whole album is great. They are even better live.
Jimmy Carr was brilliant when he first came to prominence but he too descended into filth, albeit generally far from brainless.
For swift (but often rehearsed) original wit Paul Merson is without equal.
Frankie Boyle tends to get more bad comments from people who read what he has said rather than heard what he had said. I've see two or three of his shows and enjoyed the majority of the material in each one.
Comedy has many layers and many different comedians doing different things with it. All I'd say is see the whole show if any section you hear about offends. Heard the act say the words rather than an offended talking head. Make your own mind up from the source
Sounds like good advice @Right_in_the_Middle but, for me, he’d have to appear locally and I doubt whether that’s going to happen. Might have a listen on line though.
You would never call Milligan and Python sexist or racist...but some of the blacking up and bikini clad ladies included might raise a few eyebrows now!
Derek is the worst thing that has ever been on television.
I remain convinced that Gervais made it as a joke to prove that he could do anything and people would watch it
Times change, and usually for the better.
Please tell me you meant Paul Merton, rather than booze mashed clown Merson? Although a lot of his comments and predictions are quite funny!
@micra it’s true that Frankie Boyle does some stuff that I think is beneath him but my word, there’s some scabrous gold to be found in his work. Try one of his New World Order episodes on BBC iPlayer - better targets discussed and taken down on that show.
His writing’s very good too.
Ultimately, comedy is completely subjective. We can all point to things we find utterly witless that others love. That’s the beauty of it.
A couple of misfires that outraged the constantly morally outraged do not a whole career or a whole act make or he would not have one.
https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2010/dec/19/frankie-boyle-funny-offensive-debate
2 sides of the argument