In all the current celebrations of the BBC's centenary – all those brilliant dramas, wildlife documentaries and great sporting moments – let’s not downplay the role of making us laugh 🟠 GerardVGilbert
In all the current celebrations of the corporation’s centenary – all those brilliant dramas, wildlife documentaries and great sporting moments – let’s not downplay the role of making us laugh.
The BBC’s founding father, John Reith, famously stated in 1922 that the corporation’s mission was to “inform, educate, entertain”. That order of priorities may have reflected Reith’s Scottish Presbyterian background, but listeners and viewers would almost certainly give precedence to entertainment. And above all, comedy.
That is why I balked at one element of the BBCs coverage of the late Queen’s death. As a television writer scrabbling to keep up with all the programme changes, I was struck by what I considered a false move by the corporation – eradicating comedy from the schedules. Of course, people cleave to their national broadcaster during times of great upheaval, and the BBC caters for pomp and circumstance like no other. But just when the nation could have done with some levity, it was deemed unseemly.
When British television really got going in the 50s and 60s, the BBC had a huge advantage in this field over its upstart commercial rival ITV. It had a wealth of talent nurtured on BBC radio – the likes of Tony Hancock, Hattie Jacques and the Goons. And under that great modernising director-general, Hugh Carleton Greene, and his open-minded head of programming David Attenborough, BBC comedy was able to embrace social realism and experimentalism (
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