Funny Business
Wednesday 16 January, BBC2, 9pm
Comedians are not on your side. Thatâs the subtext of the first episode of Funny Business, a three-part look at the industry of making people laugh. Jimmy Carrâs recent tax scandal doubtless shocked many simply because of how much he was earning. Current mainstream comedy owes much to the alternative tradition, but when Michael McIntyre, John Bishop and Peter Kay can make the staggering amounts discussed here, itâs hard to believe they know much about the queue at Costa anymore.
The pretence of common interest is the reason we begrudge comedians their corporate gigs in a way we donât authors, television presenters or other notables. Yet our attitude to comedians is self-defeating; our desire to hear the funniest people deliver the funniest lines about our day-to-day lives drives them away from that very subject. As Ricky Gervais said: âI canât go out and talk about how difficult it is to drink champagne on a private helicopter.â?
Putting the talking headsâ asking prices below their names in the captions is a neat move â the programmeâs not pretending its guests are any different from those theyâre critiquing â but itâs all got a âreal lives of the starsâ? feel about it. The comedians express their disdain for corporate gigs as a necessary evil, but thereâs no John Humphrys character turning it around and saying, âWell why do it then?â?
If youâre at the lower end of the scale and have a young family to feed, then fair enough. Iâm not going to begrudge a man a meal. Or a Ford Mondeo. But the nature of the exercise means those at the top end â the ones you most want to put the questions to â are absent. Yes, the programmeâs got John Cleese, but heâs not been âcutting edgeâ since 1972 â
though the shot of his home in Monte Carlo that follows his closing lament, âEverywhere I look, moneyâs spoilt itâ? has an acid wit.
The section on comedy adverts â focusing on the creative âgolden ageâ of the late 1980s and early 1990s â is the most enjoyable because itâs the most honest. Fair play to Jo Brand for turning the advertising money down, but I donât have to reconsider my attitude towards Rowan Atkinson, Jonathan Ross or Stephen Fry because Iâve watched them take the cheque three times during each rerun of Lewis. And so has everyone else.
Funny Business offers a fascinating glimpse at the steel cables that bind the commercial and the comedic â and the archive footage is top notch â but youâll quickly remember why you normally like to keep considerations of capitalism well away from your favourite comedians.
