Killing comedy

"Forest has just been mentioned on The Now Show," said my wife, who was listening to Radio 4.

"And not in a good way," she added.

The long-running BBC programme, broadcast on Friday evenings and repeated on Saturdays, has become a by-word for unfunny, woke 'comedy'.

Nevertheless, I was flattered that Forest had been mentioned so I clicked on iPlayer to listen to it myself.

Introduced by Hugh Dennis, the item begins at 18:00 (episode 5, series 63) and features a monologue by guest Jessica Fostekew about the generational smoking ban.

Sounding more like a genuine BBC newsreader, Fostekew said:

"New Zealand's new government has shocked the world this week by repealing Jacinda Ardern's epic new smoking ban, despite the fact that smoking kills more people than anything else in New Zealand ...

"The new law would have come into force next year and would have banned the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2008. And they've unbanned it! How rock 'n' roll is that ...?"

"I'm particularly stunned by this repeal, of course I am," added this self-confessed "smug ex-smoker" before launching into a mercifully short but still unfunny anecdote about her toddler son and his wish for her to give up her "adult blowing".

Returning to what felt more like propaganda than comedy, she declared: "The smoking ban we've had in the UK since 2007 has worked.

"Since then it's been illegal to smoke in enclosed spaces, or workplaces. Studies have shown that following these original bans hospital admissions for directly smoking-related diseases reduced, including marked reductions in premature births, and childhood asthma, and over £800m every single year of savings for the NHS.

"For the love of facts," she shouted, "surely that's a good thing?"

"Jacinda's mighty ban," she insisted, "had been internationally applauded. Other countries, including the UK, had said they liked its prospects so much they were going to be following suit. It was set to be New Zealand's new, most famous, export ...

"Making smoking easier again does feel like a bizarrely regressive thing to do. All out bans can be impractical and in some cases tough to enforce. I don't fancy being the police officer whose job it would be to arrest illegal smokers in the act, but at least they'd be quite easy to beat in a chase.

"There were some logistical worries over the ban because it would stop anyone born after 2008 from buying cigarettes and it meant there would come a time when a 40-year-old might have to ask a 41-year-old to buy their fags for them.

"It sounds strange but, let me tell you, I would love that. As someone who has very recently turned 40, the sheer human thrill I just get at once more being ID'd.

"It begs the question, who could possibly have been against this ban? We spoke to Forest, the UK's smokers' rights group, largely funded by the tobacco industry. And their spokesperson said, "We think ... [noise of persistent coughing] ... we think smoking is delicious."

"In actuality," she added, “the only group who had been vocally against the ban had been owners of coroner shops and newsagents who, I should add, were going to be given subsidies ...

"But to end on a positive note, Sunak has said he does still intend to bring the extended ban here in the UK, with the very noble aim of putting an end to smoking forever. Unfortunately, he said he will have to make up the tobacco tax financial shortfall by instead taxing vapes.

"Whaaaat? That's just jumping out of the frying pan and into the watermelon plume. Rishi, ideally we'd like the government not to be financially reliant on tax income from any kind of adult blowing.”

Needless to say, much of this was accompanied by raucous audience laughter, but I've been in those audiences and I can tell you ... you're conditioned to laugh, if only out of politeness.

But my more serious point is this.

While the depiction of a fictional Forest spokesman was amusing (I did smile), it was also completely predictable.

Equally predictable was a comedian on The Now Show aligning herself with our anti-smoking Establishment that includes both the BBC and all mainstream political parties, not to mention our 'Conservative' government.

Mainstream comedians were once mocked for being conservative (or even Conservative). Then came left wing 'alternative' comedians led by Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle who were seemingly anti-Establishment.

Many of today's 'progressive' comedians like to think they follow in the footsteps of those 'alternative' comedians, but there's nothing radical about them at all.

As far as smoking is concerned, someone like Jessica Fostekew not only supports and parrots the Establishment line, she appears happy to foster and promote anti-smoking propaganda, not even for laughs but as genuine 'information'.

As for "Jacinda's mighty ban", how rock 'n' roll is that?

The point is, Fostekew is clearly not alone. I don't doubt for one second that her view – even allowing for the fact that this was a 'comedy' sketch – is also held by most of those working for The Now Show, and of course the wider BBC.

It isn't an accident that she was given a platform to promote "Jacinda's mighty ban" and mock opponents of a generational ban.

However, any comedy programme with an ounce of self-respect would surely want to put the boot into the prohibitionists and overweening regulators, or the middle-class do-gooders who can't wait to dictate how others live their lives.

But no. The Now Show and their guests are the Establishment, and completely predictable. How (un)funny is that?

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

Jessica who...? Never heard of her. She must be another one of those smug unfunny middle class snobs looking down on people who are not like her.

Bullying of smokers is not funny. Only the brainless think prohibition or criminalising future adult consumers will work, be fair, or save one single life.

How sad that the ability to think critically, question, scrutinise and analyse, rather than embrace state fed propaganda, is so unfashionable these days. But then thinking for one's self is clearly too much like hard work for those riding gravy trains.