According to the UK comedy website Chortle, Stephen Merchant has
accused Simon Cowell of killing Britain’s cultural heritage. Speaking after funding cuts were announced at North London venue ArtsDepot, where he often previews his stand-up, Merchant said: ‘If we continue to let places like the ArtsDepot disappear, we’re going to wake up one day and find our greatest artistic achievement is a dancing dog on Britain’s Got Talent. And Simon Cowell will be nailing the coffin closed on our cultural heritage.’
Read more: http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2010/12/31/12477/touching_moments…#ixzz1A08u9wbg
To say that he’s “accused Simon Cowell of killing Britain’s cultural heritage” seems to be stretching the actual quote somewhat, but his point that there appears to be a war on culture and the arts in the UK, with its insipid, empty-headed cousin of mass market ’light entertainment’ threatening to piss all over its remains, seems to have to some validity to it.
The resurgence of mass-market light entertainment on British TV in recent years has been quite interesting. In 2010, British Saturday night television was much like it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Where once you had Opportunity Knocks, you now have Britain’s Got Talent and the X-Factor. Where once you had Buhhlind Date with Cilla Black, you now have Vernon Kay’s Take Me Out. Little and Large, Jimmy Cricket, Cannon and Ball - Saturday tea-time comedy from my 80s childhood. Now we have Harry Hill. And where once you had Saturday Night at the London Palladium (or was it Sunday night?), you now have Live at the Apollo or Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow. Come Dancing returned as Strictly Come Dancing. And as of New Year’s Day, the Paul Daniels Magic Show has been effectively revived as Lenny Henry’s The Magicians.
To be fair, a lot of these shows can be quite enjoyable, and some of them are even quite good (like Harry Hill, who somehow makes even tired old bollocks like You’ve Been Framed seem almost tolerable, in spite of the tedium of the endless footage of people falling arse over tit). But there’s something about this kind of light entertainment that makes me cringe and/or want to go on a rampage. Maybe it’s because I’m a 90’s kid really - the decade where all those 80s shows got killed off in favour of… Actually, why did they get killed off? And what were they replaced with?? It obviously wasn’t that interesting. Maybe more people just started going out on Saturday nights? The economic boom and all that. But now we’re all penniless and housebound again, the bread and circuses are back with force to distract us, as we get robbed to pay the debts of those that robbed us.
This kind of light entertainment is harmless in small doses, but the problem with it is that it tends to be quite shallow and conservative and ‘safe’. Banal. In terms of comedy, many of the great stand-ups of the 20th century were those - like George Carlin and Richard Pryor - who ditched the dinner jackets and embraced the artistic subcultures of their times. They were more than comedians, weren’t they? Cultual critics; prophets of sorts. Truth tellers. And no truly great original music ever came from a stooge of a TV talent show.
In Britain, at least, I feel there is a decline in opportunities for unusual and interesting cultural experiences (in both art and education) which open up new ways of seeing the world, and inspire people to create something unique and interesting and perhaps even beautiful without the motivation of just wanting to become a celebrity.
Amirite?
