If anything Benny’s jokes were anti-men. It was the
blokes who walked into lamp-posts. The blokes were always
the losers. Especially if they were small and bald and slappable.
Women on Benny’s shows fared far better than say Carol
Cleveland on Monty Python who tended to be wheeled on in
stockings and suspenders as a fetching bit of eye-candy.
So why was Benny shunned while the Pythons are still revered?
Simple. It’s all about class. The Pythons, who I adored,
were from the right Oxbridge background. University boys.
Benny went to a bog standard secondary modern in Hampshire.
His bawdy down-to-earth humour was never likely to play
well with hectoring professor’s son Ben Elton.
Of course there was far more to Hill’s comedy than
mild seaside postcard smut (not that there’s anything
wrong with that). He was the first comedian of the television
age, and the first to use the medium as a target. A typical
Benny Hill show mixed parodies of TV hits with visual comedy,
clever mime work, comic songs and character comedy. Lisping
Fred Scuttle, Ernie the Milkman and Chow Mein the Chinaman
are remembered with affection to this day.
And OK it may be that he was past his prime. But Benny still
brought in millions of viewers. None of that seemed to matter,
though. Benny Hill was old school and so he had to go, because
one of the odd thing about po-faced eighties ‘alternative’
comics and their TV executive groupies is that they couldn’t
abide any alternative to their brand of PC student union
humour.
In 1989 the gutless trendies at ITV shamefully caved in
to Elton and other joyless prudes who you suspect had never
even watched the show to begin with. Benny Hill was summoned
to Thames TV and sacked in a humiliating ten minute meeting.
He had generated millions of pounds for the company and
yet they treated him like a cloakroom attendant who’d
been caught with his hand in someone’s jacket pocket.
The great man was devastated and there is little doubt that
Benny’s sacking hastened his death in 1991. Since
then, not one of the fashionable comedians who TV has invested
millions in have had a quarter of Hill's success, although
Little Britain, whose stars cite Benny and Dick Emery as
influences, has done best - and has run out of charm much
faster. If Elton thought Benny was anti-women, Lord knows
what he makes of the way elderly Dorises are portrayed by
David Walliams and Matt Lucas as puking, incontinent grotesques.
While Mitchell and Webb’s comedy sketches, that involve
punching and killing women, have been broadcast without
a voice raised in protest.
Through-out the Nineties, the dead-hand of Political Correctness,
coupled with the desire to be seen as hip and commissions
inspired by the phoney god of demographics, managed to drive
all the laughs out of prime time television.
Harry Hill’s inspired TV Burp is now the only comedy
show on ITV that transmits between 6pm and 9pm.
A whole generation of working class British comedians has
been denied access to the medium that would and should have
made them household names.
Ironically, Benny Hill’s show remains a ratings smash
wherever it is broadcast. It was number one on BBC America
in 2005, but so far the Beeb has shied away from repeating
the shows here. Apparently there is too much “stigma”
attached to his name. They seem to have forgotten that the
PC prudes had it in for the Carry On films in the '80s too
- for the same feeble-minded reasons (alleged "sexism").
The Carry Ons which were also once banned from our screens
and now rightfully cherished and shown on Channel 4 and
the BBC. Even Carry On Henry where Sid James as the monarch
does go looking for a wench to rape…Yet, bizarrely,
Benny Hill is still seen as beyond the pale.
Abroad, the prejudice doesn’t exist. Benny Hill enthusiasts
range from Barry Humphries to Tom Wolfe via Greta Garbo,
Clint Eastwood and Snoop Dog. Every big US act seems to
love our Benny. Even the Black-eyed Peas are fans.
At Christmas 2006, Objective Productions made a documentary
for C4 where they tested Benny's humour on a young British
audience. To nobody's surprise but theirs he went down a
treat.
* It is a national scandal that Hill's legacy is unrecognised
in his own country. Which is why I'm leading a campaign
for a statue to be raised to honour his memory. We have
the backing of the Heritage Foundation, Graeme Ibbeson,
who sculpted the excellent Eric Morecambe bronze at Morecambe)
has the design and a platoon of stars are ready to drum
up the cash. We even have various councils fighting for
the statue to be located in their town.
Stump up some of the cost, chaps, and he’s yours…..
Anyone donating £100 or more to the Benny Hill statue
will have their name permanently linked to Benny's splendid
erection. Please make cheques out to the Arts & Entertainment
Charitable Trust (registered charity 1031027) and post c/o
the Heritage Foundation, Green Acres, 3 Birchwood Chase,
Great Kingshill, Bucks HP15 6EH . Payments can be accepted
under Gift Aid. All Benny fans can now buy a handsome 11-inch
cold-cast bronze version. They cost £95 (plus £10
p&p) – and money from each sale goes towards the
statue's construction. Buy online at http://www.morecambe.co.uk/bennyhill.
IT’S been fun to watch the backlash against Ben Elton
gaining momentum on the stand-up scene. Mark Steel put him
in Room 101. Stewart Lee reckoned he is more despised than
Bin Laden who “at least lived his life according to
a consistent set of ethical principles.” Toby Young
put it best, saying Ben Elton “started out as an alternative
comedian railing against Thatcherism and now earns a fortune
writing librettos for truly awful West End musicals. His
name has become a by-word for shameless hackery. He’s
the biggest sell-out of his generation.”
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