As the dust settles after Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand's big mistake, what are the repercussions for comedy in general

Published on Thursday 5 February 2009 19:41

Three months on from Sachsgate, it seems apparent that Jonathan Ross's career has weathered the scandal, give or take a forthcoming £4.5 million pay cut.

And far from being neutered, Russell Brand is still defiantly performing off the leash. The consistent tabloid fixture has always skilfully dissected his own press, with an ego-driven personality that, he admits, "doesn't work without fame". Unveiling his new live show in Glasgow next weekend, Brand will unashamedly make the incident – in which he and Ross left an ill-fated message on actor Andrew Sachs's answerphone – its centrepiece, prancing and singing "I am the news, I am the news!" to ITV's

News At Ten theme.

Largely because of his actions, though, TV and radio comedy is now facing increased editorial and press scrutiny, with the BBC, overwhelmingly the biggest producer of comedy in the UK, perceived as an increasingly unattractive place for talent to thrive.

"The butterfly effect that seems to be happening across the media in Britain over this incident is unbelievable," Ed Byrne said on Radio 5 last week.

"I'm surprised at the effect it has had, it's utterly ludicrous." Referring to a Radio 4 show he appeared on recently, the Irishman explained: "Just in the briefing beforehand, 'You can't say this, you can't say that, you can't say the other.' All because one overpaid man and one oversexed man say one thing that somebody let out on air. The ripple effect of it I'm stunned by, I have to say."

This is corroborated by other comedy writers I've spoken to. One with a string of television and radio credits, who wishes to remain anonymous, told me that "talking to other writers and producers since Sachsgate, there is a definite heightened awareness of going 'too far', especially in projects within the BBC. I was working on a TV sketch show and the creator told me that plans to make it a bit edgier might now be scrapped because of current public sensitivity."

A second, working on a satirical comedy made by BBC Scotland, describes how "a lot of gags written by myself and other writers, after the Russell Brand thing, it's almost like everything is being doubly scrutinised by the BBC. Any gag that might be slightly offensive is axed. It came across as, 'Look, this is what you can actually write about,' which left us with the grand sum total of sod all. It really affected the quality of the show because we couldn't slag anyone off."

He refers to the issuing of a periodic "banned list" of subjects by the BBC. The corporation denies that such a list exists, save for guidelines regarding highly restricted material concerned with matters of state security and what one BBC employee I spoke to intriguingly referred to as "the Royal Vault", alongside material restricted because of complaints. Producers at the independent production companies Angst and Hat Trick, creators of satirical BBC panel shows Mock the Week and Have I Got News For You respectively, maintain they are unaware of such a list and have never been subject to it.

Nevertheless, the following example predating Sachsgate reveals how the BBC will inhibit comedy for less noble reasons than protecting a 79-year-old actor's privacy. "In 2002, on a radio show I write for, people were writing a lot of gags about River City," explains the Scottish writer. "The BBC issued a directive saying don't do jokes about River City for the next few weeks because it's failing in the ratings and we don't want to put the boot into our own show. Every so often they'll issue a list of things they want you to steer clear of. Some weeks they'll say, don't do jokes about the Labour Party, the Lib Dems or the SNP for reasons of political bias. Sometimes it's adhered to, other times there's a kind of two-fingered salute and the gags go in anyway."

This would be amusing, were it not so completely dispiriting to see a national broadcaster, concerned about retaining its licence fee, beating itself up in endless self-recrimination. The unintended comedy highlight of last year came on Newsnight, during the sustained media witch-hunt for further "offensive" programming. Presenter Emily Maitlis channelled Frankie Boyle on Mock the Week as she repeated a joke of his about the Queen, asking the BBC's director-general Mark Thompson "'I am now so old my pussy is haunted.' Is that editorially tasteful?"

Last week, Frank Skinner presented a Panorama investigation into television standards that disappointingly simplified the issue of offence by predominantly focusing upon swearing, effectively setting out to appease yet instead inviting accusations of "dumbing down". As the comic Sean Lock lamented on a radio discussion of the programme, Skinner – who has experimented with removing some swearwords from his stand-up set – appeared to be endorsing comedy by focus group. Lock argued he would never reduce his expletive count on account of audience demand, only when he himself deemed it funnier.

Rather better was Sue Perkins's Huw Weldon Lecture, Wit's End: British Comedy at the Crossroads, broadcast a fortnight ago on BBC2. She argued that British comedy is at a crossroads. But then historically it has always been. To be ground-breakingly funny you often risk provoking offence and "if you tell comedy where to go, it won't be funny anymore".

Perkins voiced her concern about "retrospective outrage" of "comedy starting to accept and enshrine the idea that a viewer can complain about a programme they're not familiar with". And like Skinner, she wondered if there couldn't be some system of counter-complaint, whereby the mildly chuckling majority can register approval of a programme to Ofcom too. Or if the perennially affronted can't be familiarised with their television's off switch.

Regardless, the BBC is promising a tougher review of editorial guidelines this spring. Prior to Sachsgate, Jana Bennett, the BBC's Vision Director, announced that there would be less swearing on its output in 2009.

In the short term, broadcast comedy is undoubtedly still reeling from the furore and there is a grain of truth in Joan Rivers's assertion to Skinner that television will always just be a "distillation" of live comedy. Watch Frankie Boyle or even a less savage comic like Jason Manford live, and they will gleefully inform you how that particular joke failed to survive the edit on Mock the Week or 8 Out of 10 Cats.

Yet comedy is all about surprise and invention, and I hope the most accomplished writers and performers will be forever finding ways to circumvent and subvert notions of taste and the status quo, while perhaps managing to entertain greater numbers of viewers and listeners without compromising their talent. In America last week, The Late Show With David Letterman finally broadcast a Bill Hicks routine – a mere 15 years after the comedian's death – about abortion and religion that was controversially cut in 1993.

And give a little credit to Jo Brand. A recent appearance on Live At The Apollo, performing a gag about the BNP's membership list leaking onto the internet, provoked outrage from the far-right party who claim it amounted to incitement to racial harassment.

And Russell Brand? Can you truly hate a scarcely repentant rascal who thanks his audience for "coming to see me in a medium where I still flourish"? "He's a twat," my anonymous Scottish comedy scribe rebuts.

&#149 Russell Brand plays the SECC, Glasgow, 14 and 15 February, and the Playhouse, Edinburgh, 22 February.