Autobiographical. Almost certainly. Let's face it, if Gervais had been a mere onlooker he would have contributed some heckling and sneering at the stand-up's plight himself.

	ARMSTONG Even in the stand-up world at the moment, personal tragedy is very much part of the agenda. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Arthur Askey had both his legs amputated but he didn't make a song and dance about it.

	ARMSTRONG I mean, in this year's Perrier Award winners, you had Daniel Kitson, who was the winner, who talked about his own personal pain - he was born with a stutter, he has unappealing looks and he talks about how people mistake him for a paedophile and abuse him on public transport - a very very painful show! Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Don't agree with this. Michael Palin was born with a stutter, Bernard Manning has unappealing looks, but neither played to it in their comedy. If people harass Kitson for looking like a paedophile then that's unfortunate, but he turned this abuse into a Perrier-winning stand-up routine so he can't really complain. He could always try combing his hair in a different way. Or wearing less conspicuous glasses. Or having a shave. Or cashing in on 'paedo-chic'. Michael Palin played a man with a stutter in 'A Fish Called Wanda' but that was John Cleese' fault.

	ARMSTRONG Adam Hills, a comic who was born without one leg, and his whole show is about living... as a one-legged man, and he brings on, at the end, his false feet. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

It's all a matter of interpretation. A lot of people simply enjoy Adam Hills because they think his comedy is quite positive. Ditto Daniel Kitson. Comics are traditionally supposed to have 'suffered' or be ugly or something. John Cleese was a lonely, only child who had to tell jokes or he'd be bullied in the schoolyard. Marty Feldman was a very odd-looking man. Does this make them 'dark' or 'innovative'? No. And it doesn't necessarily make them funny or tragic either. It's interesting to note that Adam Hills spent at least three years doing breakfast radio on SA-FM (the Adelaide equivilant of Capital FM). Taking their filthy-lowest-common-denominator-music-loving lucre is probably far more tragic than not having a second leg to stand on. Mind you, at no point did he ever cash in on his disability during this period and this is the sort of thing that the SA-FM PR department would have loved. Different story these days...

	ARMSTRONG So this is... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Stephen Armstrong has only been a comedy critic since 2002. Before this, he was doing something else at Time Out that wasn't funny.

	LAWSON And... and indeed cancer-sufferers with stand-up this year... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

So much more of an 'innovation' than Bill Hicks in 1994.

	ARMSTRONG Yeah, I mean, not a Perrier nomination, but Andre Vincent did a show about his cancer and about recovering from it and so, it's all across the board. There seems to be this cultural need for some sort of sense of tragedy with our laughs. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Or an outbreak of self-pity and self-indulgence in its practitioners. More the need for a gimmick I daresay. I don't see too much difference in intent between, say, Francesca Martinez' palsy and Richard Herring's cocks. A "cultural need for tragedy with our laughs"? Not quite. Maybe, in the world of shouty media Loaded-spewing twats, there's a psychological need to look down upon and laugh at 'tragic figures' to make people feel better about themselves - best seen in the proliferation of 'Weakest Link'-style gameshows and the way 'past their prime' 70s/80s stars who need the money get invited onto panel games just to get the piss ripped out of them by sneering hosts. It's certainly the result of a cultural change of morals, but hardly what Armstrong is suggesting above. Doesn't sound nearly as good as an observation though, does it: 'People can be, and generally are, cunts.' Ten years ago there was this trend in Australian stand-up comedy to do one-person shows for festivals about personal tragedies. Greg Fleet talked about his heroin addiction. Judith Lucy talked about how she found out she was adopted. Really funny shows. And the most twatty thing anyone ever said about them in the media was that cliché about 'dealing with pain through comedy'. A cliché, but essentially true. After a while the comedians started making jokes about how they'd all been doing these self-indulgent shows for a few years and then started doing other stuff instead. So nothing new at all - comedy and tragedy have sat beside each other since human beings first started to perform. Greg Fleet's biggest personal tragedy was appearing on 'Time Gentlemen Please'. Ba-boom, tish...

	LAWSON It's true that in the past British sit-coms contained occasional elements of 'Sit-Trag'. John Cleese's 'Fawlty Towers' in the 1970s explored the comedy of embarrassment. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

No it didn't - it was about a funny hotel.

	LAWSON In the 1980s 'Blackadder Goes Forth' ended with all the characters going to be slaughtered in the First World War. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

I know it's irrelevant to talk about grammar and syntax, but... I mean, Jesus. Go on Mark - read out that letter from Ben Elton's uncle about how he changed his mind about it once he knew the end would be really humourless. LAWSON: In the 90s, Only Fools And Horses held up a mirror and explored the deep personal pain and social exclusion one feels while falling through a bar... (Well, come on - we've been away a year. We can pull the odd 'Lazarou', can't we?)

	LAWSON But these were small smears of blackness on a brightly-coloured canvas. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

And that's what made them work.

	LAWSON We never feared that Basil Fawlty was heading for the job centre or the mental ward. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

I think we did. By the sixth episode, a doctor arrived with a big syringe anyway.

	LAWSON He was always back in control of the hotel by next week. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Until the end of episode twelve when even me, aged nine, could see the implication that the hotel was being closed down. Note though that Lawson manages to directly contradict Stephen Armstrong's comments earlier in the show. Nice that something was put in to emphasise that Armstrong was talking complete and utter twaddle about Basil Fawlty, but more attention could have been drawn to the fact.

	LAWSON The first sit-com character who seemed genuinely on the edge of destruction was... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Martin in Ever Decreasing Circles?

	LAWSON ...Victor Meldrew, played by Richard Wilson, in 'One Foot In The Grave'... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Oh.

	LAWSON ...which ran throughout the 1990s. Having been made redundant, Victor suffered sinister or surreal ambushes each week in David Renwick's scripts. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Not really much 'reality' in his mishaps, though. Victor Meldrew was never "on the edge of destruction". He was just unlucky and got annoyed a lot. He was a character who enjoyed conflict and complaining about things. It kept him occupied. For me, One Foot In The Grave stands or falls on the strength of Renwick's set pieces - some pretty funny, others not so good. But at least it was the COMEDY that took centre stage; the 'dark' aspects to Meldrew always seemed detachable, rather than a binding agent. Mark Lawson was too busy writing amusing observations about William Waldegrave for The Independent during the late 80s to be watching anything as plebby as sitcoms.

	CLIP OF 'ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE'. MELDREW RANTING RENWICK My definition is 'the soddishness of circumstance', and it's more far-reaching than just being about a particular social or political climate really - I think it just bound up with appraisal of all... all life as fairly hostile. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Which runs through all his work, from fifteen years before he created Meldrew. Whoops Apocalypse, Alexei Sayle, Hot Metal - oh, those aren't available for £12.99 from the BBC shop, are they? Never mind, Radio 4's audience doesn't understand comedy anyway. Why do you think they cheer anyone on Dead Ringers? Good old David Renwick - cutting straight through the cultural bullshitting. Just the one clip here of course. Presumably the rest of the interview didn't fit into Lawson's arguments.

	ARMSTRONG David Renwick has talked about how he was inspired by Samuel Beckett and he was a sort of a Beckett-style drama. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Is anyone else wondering whether Armstrong was not just a talking head in this programme, but a secondary linkman?

	ARMSTRONG And, in many ways, if you look at Alan Bennett's 'A Woman Of No Importance' and so forth, you... you can see that those... perhaps are almost the progeny of this... this kind of comedy because... it's 'surreal', it's 'dark', it's 'painful', but it... but it all sort of points to someone falling apart! Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Never with glee on it's face, or tears of laughter streaming through the clenched palms of the fictitious RT letter writer. I appreciate that he's talking a little more generally, but to single out what was effectively the Talking Heads precursor (1982), misconstrue theatrics for surrealism not to mention Bennett's extraordinary ability to succeed with lengthy TV monologues and make you love a character as much as he does, and then glibly apply that to sitcoms is rather narrow minded. Why is there an assumption that people can't deal with the concept of theatre doing a lot more experimentation with drama than TV has ever done? Why is no one acknowledging that the bandwagon Lawson is jumping on is full of writers who may know what passion is but are utterly incapable of expressing it? Satellite TV's 'Time Gentlemen Please' had to finish its first series with a dimly-lit bar and solitary anguished Pub Landlord just so that all those meaningless catchphrases could be clumsily capped with an "aaaah, I see now" insight into the central character's insecurities. Christ, now that had to be watched through several sets of fingers.

	LAWSON And although Victor Meldrew had died, um, in 'One Foot In The Grave', that was because the series was coming to an end - they decided not to go on... and the audience was well-used to it. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Still a shockingly plaintive end to a long-running series, albeit shrouded in delightfully farcical goings-on via a safari park flashback. Again, no evidence that Lawson has ever seen it, and has just relied on his own absent-minded columns from The Guardian.

	LAWSON Um, in... one episode of 'The Book Group' just ends with a death from a her-hoine (sic) overdose and... it is extraordinary that you can now accommodate that kind of thing in a... in a sit-com. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

I kind of agree with this. Having a character dying in a sitcom may be common but never of something as serious and dramatic as a her-hoine overdose. It probably could be argued convincingly that this was a clever and original turning point in the sit-com. Unfortunately it wasn't in the least bit funny and was undermined by the next episode's ridiculousness where James Lance came back as his twin brother who was quite nice and fell in love with Anne Dudek's character instantly. A bit like something 'The Brittas Empire' would do. But everyone will miss the point, and by this time next year every sitcom will feature a character dying of an overdose. Even 'My Family'. Brian Murphy's character jumped to his death in the Christmas Day 94 episode of 'One Foot In The Grave', and still managed to make whole rooms rock with laughter seconds later by leaving his priceless collection of false teeth to Victor and Margaret. Oh yes, and Ronnie's wife Mildred did unto herself at the beginning of the final run. Margaret's mother's death in series four (with a neat answering machine gag) was watched by nearly half of Britain. Beat that, Miss 83 Viewers On Channel 4. I've just realised what this whole argument reminds me of: the Smith and Jones head-to-head about modern comedy going too far. Griff thinks that the News, and footage of people on fire jumping off oil-rigs, is the new trend for comedy: "I laughed of course. It's my kind of humour. But I still think it goes too far".

	ARMSTRONG The... the idea of 'death' as a joke is not really featured in British television comedy. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Apart from every programme ever. 'The Young Ones'! 'The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy'! Every series of 'Blackadder'! 'The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin'! 'Red Dwarf' even, a sitcom about a man sent, against his will, into the future, where everyone he ever knew had died. One of the lead characters was dead. *hums theme tune from 'In Loving Memory'*

	ARMSTRONG Interestingly... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Hmm.

	ARMSTRONG ...what you found is that in the past, British drama, which dealt with that, would occasionally have lighter moments. And now, if you like, we've switched. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

No - both comedy and drama have been devalued. Comedy has acquired an inflated idea of its 'dramatic' importance, whilst drama only gets commissioned if it's a fluffy, sign-posted, here's what's-happening-in-this-scene three-parter with Tamzin Outhwaite in it. They've met in the middle, pleasing nobody except critics and bean-counters. (Jonathan Harvey says you're not allowed to use the word 'Jesus' in the title of a mainstream ITV play, purely because the advertisers think it will get low ratings; hence he had to change his recent offering to a more channel surfer-friendly 'Birthday Girl'.)

	ARMSTRONG It's a sense of a world without any particular answers. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

You've been listening to 'Garden Party' by Marillion again, haven't you Stephen?

	ARMSTRONG There aren't any ideologies; there aren't any faiths, it's... it's all about just 'things are painful'. People die... and that's what life is like! Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

"Shit happens - get used to it!" Yeah, that just about sums it all up.

	LAWSON So, at the turn of the twenty first century, Meldrew became the first central British sit-com character to die... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Apart from Grandad in 'Only Fools And Horses', Compo in 'Last Of The Summer Wine', or for that matter Fred Mumford in 'Rentaghost'! I can think of characters dying before in 'Cheers' and 'The Vicar Of Dibley' but they weren't the central characters. Reginald Perrin had died in 'The Legacy Of Reginald Perrin' but that was rubbish! Coach in 'Cheers' was pretty central, I thought. Edmund Blackadder - long before series four. Almost the whole cast of 'Blackadder' characters in the first two series - in a pastiche of yer actual Shakespearean tragedie. 'The Young Ones' and 'Blackadder' are the two main examples of central sitcom characters dying. But because they're pantomimetic deaths rather than 'dealt with' ones they don't cut it with Lawson. 'Girls On Top' - all the main characters killed by an explosion at the end. 'Whoops Apocalypse' - the final instalment had the whole of Israel wiped out by a nuclear explosion, and the implication that the rest of the world was about to go the same way. I suppose 'the whole world' can be considered a 'central character' in any sitcom. 'South Park' - Kenny died every week! The parents in 'Next Of Kin', if you really must. Adric in 'Dr Who'. Not strictly comedy but I still laughed like a drain...

	LAWSON ...and his exit established a mood which entrants to the genre have picked up. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

This can't be right. When did Victor Meldrew die? I'm sure it was a few years after the League Of Gentlemen's first series. Was it before 'The Office' and 'Black Books' (which isn't even 'dark', it's just field-removed)? And to say Victor's death inspired 'I'm Alan Partridge' in any way is stupid in the extreme. The final 'One Foot...' was late November 2000. 'Jam' predates that by eight months. Partridge obviously began in 1997, 'The Office' was already piloted and the League Of Gentlemen were getting ready for a panto, some time after Series 2. If you want to include it, 'Spaced' was mid-production on its second and most recent series. So what does that leave? 'The Book Group' and 'Velvet Soup'? Should mention the original ending of 'Father Ted' - with Ted about to commit suicide. A brilliant, perfectly structured ending. A rare example where the 'dark' version would have been better.

	LAWSON Where such moments had once been exceptions, cruelty and humiliation are now almost the rule. Apart from a darkness of tone, the 'Sit-Trag' shows, such as 'The Office', 'the Book Group', 'I'm Alan Partridge' and 'Black Books'... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

There's that list again.

	LAWSON ...tend to have something else in common. Historically a majority of hit comedies in this country have featured people occupying the wrong jobs. Fawlty should never have been in customer service. Captain Mainwaring was a hopeless soldier. Del Boy Trotter had no head for business. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

So these would be, to all intents and purposes, the 'deepest fears' that you earlier claimed were absent from such sitcoms.

	LAWSON The 'situation-tragedies' continue this tradition of missed vocation. But, as 'Alan Partridge' writer, director, producer Armando Iannucci and 'Black Books' actor, writer, Dylan Moran observe, these wrong jobs all tend to be in the media world. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

So what? How can this possibly be an important factor? How can the perceived 'realism' have any bearing given that the majority of the audience cannot possibly have any detailed insider knowledge of jobs, wrong or otherwise, in the 'media world'? 'Front Row's been doing a listener survey, clearly. They used to be about the media world, but now they concern themselves with lay losers. Case in point - media types adoring 'I'm Alan Partridge' while dismissing 'Knowing Me Knowing You' as 'lowly beginnings'.

	MORAN A lot of the better shows do seem to, er, incorporate a comment on the nature of television itself in their shows, y'know. If you look at 'The Office', it was originally supposed to be a 'mockumentary'... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

I thought it was a steal from Partridge and Roy Mallard in equal measures. But thanks for putting me straight, Dylan. Very telling Spinal Tap-ism there. Oh, but 'I'm Alan Partridge' wasn't meant to resemble anything akin to the presentation or look of a fly-on-the-wall documentary. It was a straight sit-com, clearly. They only added the 'fourth wall' because there happened to be one lying around at the time! Presented in a different way, admittedly, but 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' and 'The Kenny Everett Video Show', to use two random examples, traded on the nature of television itself in a far more explicit manner. They played around with form, content, and even on occasion the physical dimensions of television (something that even Rod Hull also did on a regular basis). Incorporating commentary on the televisual medium itself into comedy is nothing new or groundbreaking, and shows from decades ago found more exciting and sophisticated ways of doing it than 'I'm Alan Partridge' did. As long ago as 1956, Spike Milligan was parodying TV conventions for ITV vehicles like 'A Show Called Fred'. But people like Lawson are too young to know this. And too thick to care. Add to all this the fact that, far from being any sort of attempt to 'comment on the nature of television', Gervais and Merchant only chose the 'docusoap' format because it was an obvious easy-reference to the amount of 'Reality TV' shows which were taking over the mainstream schedules at the time (and therefore far more likely to be recognised and acknowledged by commissioning editors as an audience-winner). Dan Gastor and Paul Powell attempted similar manipulation with a never-transmitted Radio 4 comedy pilot about a TV chef. It was called 'Eat This!' and starred Chris Barrie. Any good? Guess.

	CLIP OF 'THE OFFICE' - BRENT TALKING ABOUT COMIC RELIEF Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

If there isn't an 'Office' special for Comic Relief (March 2003) I will eat every hat in London Town. Apart, presumably, from them three hats what Lisa fucked off with.

	MORAN People are just so used to television now... the generation that's grown up with television... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Anyone under sixty then?

	MORAN ...are really fairly sophisticated... viewers... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

And so much brighter than the racist cretins of the 1970s who lapped up mainstream pap, eh Dylan? The born-before-the-early-70s idiots!

	MORAN ...so the 'act of viewing' is in some way common to the public. CLIP OF 'I'M ALAN PARTRIDGE' - ALAN DOING 'NORFOLK NIGHTS' IANNUCCI I think the thing that saves Alan from complete self-destruction is his thick skin. He has an 'inkling' of what people think of him but he's strong enough to put that inkling to one side. If he fully knew what people made of him, and if he fully knew what his life actually looked like I think he'd... he'd mentally sink without trace. One of my favourite scenes of Alan is... in the first series of 'I'm Alan Partridge' - his 'walk' to the petrol station, swinging a bag of, um, windscreen washer fluid, singing Goldfinger. Now, people hold that up as a very sort of saaad... moment, but he's very happy. That's his idea of happiness! Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

This does not come across clearly in the finished product, though. This unshakeable self-confidence is not evident in either series of 'I'm Alan Partridge' - in fact, quite the opposite is true. And yet it was most certainly manifest in both 'On The Hour' and 'Knowing Me Knowing You'.

	CLIP OF 'I'M ALAN PARTRIDGE' - ALAN SAYS "BACK OF THE NET!" AND THE AUDIENCE LAUGH Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

That Goldfinger clip would have been a bit long - nearly 30 seconds, perhaps. Mark would have had to cut one of his 'death' paragraphs. And another line from a press release, copied out by the Alkarim Jivanis of this world like the good boys they are. "Back Of The Net" was printed on their end-of-series party invites too. I'd really love to have seen the reaction of Iannucci et al on the day when, having deliberately reduced the phrase to artless by-line overkill with all the PR and free DVDs, they discovered The Mirror actually using it as a cover-headline - totally without irony - congratulating themselves on having won some newspaper awards. Even an eternal optimist like Iannucci must surely have realised they'd taken a wrong turning somewhere. A "Bomb The Bastards" / "Loadsamoney" for the 90s (with the added pain of knowing that it was entirely their fault for dancing with the devil in the first place)!

	IANNUCCI Grim sadness is in the eye of the beholder. And it's not in Alan's eye. If... hosting a fireplace conference goes badly 'cos he spiked his foot on a fence getting in and is then violently sick throughout the event itself, that won't stop him from touting for business the next week to try and get another sales conference to host. It'll just spur him on and tell him "oh, maybe I could have done better that night." Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Ditto the writers and performers. Sorry, make that "writers, performer, and shocked bystanders".

	LAWSON If the public now have the taste for such shows, it's largely because broadcasters have allowed the audience's palate to expand in recent years. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

It's all still niche comedies though. None of these are proper mainstream, main-channel shows, no matter how much they want to be. The key channels are still full of traditional sitcoms ('My Family', 'Absolutely Fabulous For My Money') or jolly sketch shows ('Big Impression', 'French & Saunders Buy Some More Hats'). The minority channels are expected to be a little more leftfield, and have always done that. This is obvious. If anything they've allowed our palates to be shrunken, shoe-horned in to niche channels, ignored, inflated out of all proportion or a combination of all four. A giant marrow might get you in the Guinness Book of Records but a normal-sized one will taste nicer. This also applies to entertainment. Create a climate based on what license-payers "expect" and the whims of advertisers and you get stagnant programming.

	LAWSON While one of the jokes in 'Fawlty Towers' was that the hotelier shouldn't mention the Nazis, comedy writers were also given a long list of genuinely forbidden topics by their bosses. Now comedies contain frequent references to sex... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

'George & Mildred'.

	LAWSON ...masturbation... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

'Bottom'.

	LAWSON ...drugs... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

'Only Fools And Horses' (Rodney's "funny cigarettes")

	LAWSON ...death... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

'The Brittas Empire'.

	LAWSON ...and murder. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

'Murder Most Horrid', obviously. I suspect there are better examples but my mind's gone blank. American sitcoms such as 'Cheers', 'Seinfeld', 'Roseanne' or even 'The Golden Girls' have devoted whole series to each of these topics. I've seen references to all five in 'George and Mildred' alone. Not so much an increased level of tolerance as a concern for tapping into that over-rated youth audience who will, after all, help the ratings - maybe while they're spazzed up on twatpiss juice. Channel 4 was the big step forward surely, just over twenty years ago. The 'Who Dares... Wins' team had the spare key for the 'Right To Reply' studio by the end of their run. And what about 'The Comic Strip Presents...'? Just pick three of them: 'Susie', 'Eddie Monsoon - A Life', 'Mr Jolly Lives Next Door'. Everything in Lawson's list is covered there. Thing is, there may very well have been a list of 'taboo' subjects in the halcyon days of comedy. But if a comedy writer or team felt strongly enough that a show needed to break one of those taboos they would fight tooth and nail to get it in. Not because they had any great need to 'push back the boundaries' and 'smash unnecessary censorship' but because they tended to believe in what they did. The trouble with Gervais and his ilk is that they're given practically all the 'freedom' they need as regards 'taste and decency' but have nothing to fill it with. Yet they still seem to like the idea of talking about 'pushing the boundaries' and being perceived as breaking or spearheading sodding 'genres'. As indeed do the cultural commentators. This is just a bloody game, the whole thing. But some of them seem to actually believe it. Ricky Gervais has probably spent longer talking about being David Brent than actually being David Brent. Tells you a lot, that.

	LAWSON The comedy group 'The League Of Gentlemen' had been regarded as a 'dangerous' stage act. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

So is the average troupe of circus acrobats. Maybe BBC Three/Choice will give them a six-parter on Tuesdays at ten. Regarded as dangerous by whom? Is this just Reece Shearsmith saying "fuck" whilst mugging at the audience? It was only regarded as 'dangerous' in the eyes of journalists who knew nothing about comedy and mistake gushing, look-at-me profanity for comic prowess. I seem to recall some journo - way back before the radio series - asking Jerry Sadowitz what he thought of the 'dangerous' League Of Gentlemen live shows (perhaps thinking "well - both acts are a bit sweary and dark!"). Sadowitz dismissed them as nothing particularly special.

	LAWSON So when BBC Head of Comedy Jon Plowman brought them to television via Radio 4 they might have expected censorship. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

You're going to say 'but' now, aren't you Mark?

	LAWSON But 'The League', Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, and their writer Jeremy Dyson, told me - in a rare quadruple interview... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

A 'quadruple' interview with the League Of Gentlemen isn't rare, they're always talking together. 'The Big Breakfast', 'Richard And Judy', 'In Conversation with...' They were even on 'Robbie The Reindeer' together over Christmas. Not being interviewed though, surely - unless they've changed the format a bit since the previous Christmas. Mind, you, wasn't Ricky Gervais on 'Robbie The Reindeer' as well? Maybe this special edition of 'Front Row' is just part of an extended kids' show narrative...

	LAWSON - of the freedom they found. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

The League Of Gentlemen arrived in that period where the BBC were absolutely desperate to replace the long standing sitcoms which were all beginning to die out, and have since been brought back against better judgement. As I think one of us said a million years ago, 'The League...' was an okay radio show with a ridiculous budget thrown at it for TV. The freedom was more accentuated in series three, it has to be said. With Sarah Smith gone and, reputedly, total edit control, any sound judgement went out of the window.

	DYSON I can't believe what we got away with! LAWSON You've never been stopped from doing anything? PEMBERTON No, not at all, no. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

PEMBERTON: They even let us do loads of really lazy writing and didn't make us change any of it!

	PEMBERTON One or two questions about how we're going to achieve what's in the scripts.... DYSON What is it that Plowman always asks? Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

"Did you know I was the researcher on Alfresco?"? "How come my face so closely resembles Peter Baynham's?"? "God, oh, God, what's the bloody point of it all?"? "Where's the cheese?"? "Who's taken my Papa Lazarou desk-tidy?"? "Why do I always hear the faint sound of giggling just after I leave the room?"? "What's for lunch?"?

	PEMBERTON "How old's the boy?" LAWSON This is Jon Plowman here? DYSON Yeah. GATISS He has only asked that question once - it's not every season is it? PEMBERTON "How old's the boy?" LAWSON "How old is the boy?"? PEMBERTON It was a 'Herr Lipp' question. But no, no, we... we've been very lucky in that we haven't had to go through those kind of focus group type things and run scripts by several different people. LAWSON Do you ever censor anything yourself because you think 'This is television - we can't'? DYSON There was one thing in the first series with 'Pop', and it was a sketch we'd started on stage and it had a line that he said "Things haven't been good..." - he's had one of his "niggers". One of his bad moods... SHEARSMITH "One of my black moods - one of my..." DYSON "...one of my niggers." We filmed it and then, then we realised after we'd done it, maybe that's a bit... weeesh... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Just imagine if Felix Dexter was in your gang instead of Pemberton or someone - then you could have done it, no problem You could have even had a scene with Papa Lazarou asking him "Mr Wog, is it alright if we call you Mr Wog?", like that thing in 'The Office' where the black employee says it's ok for people to be reeeeeeeally patronising to his face, because we all know racism's not nice, like Gervais when he remembers it's going out on BBC2 now and not Thames in 1971.

	GATISS It's one of those... I mean obviously it's a characteristic. It's the defence of drama isn't it - you say "well, it's not me!" and, er... but, it was one of those things where it was just contentious... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Maybe you should be in character as writers, then.

	DYSON It felt the wrong side of the line... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Whereas 'zany' jokes about the mentally subnormal being beaten up and burnt alive don't, presumably?

	PEMBERTON And there's been other things. SHEARSMITH Yeah yeah - in the second series, the character of Ian who goes to the dating agency and I'm the woman that's interviewing him trying to get a profile to match him with a suitable female, and, um, and grilling him and grilling him and he finally outbursts with "I didn't rape her! ...I didn't rape her..." and it all goes horribly sour, and we changed it to "force her..." GATISS "Force her..." Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

PEMBERTON: Or "kick 'er in the cunt for half-a-fackin'-'our till I was exhausted!" GATISS: Have you got a pen? When are we onstage again?

	DYSON "Force her", yes. SHEARSMITH 'Cos we thought... Well no, it wasn't... we... did we really have a..? Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

...a gag stolen - badly - from Chris Morris' Blue Jam?

	DYSON It was Jemma wasn't it. GATISS Jemma... PEMBERTON We had a very female-strong production team... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

All called Jemma, apparently. Yeah, those pesky women, always spoiling everyone's fun by pointing out that childish, sneering and misogynistic jokes about rape can't be defended on the grounds of artistic merit. If that's how they feel, why don't they just go and live in Russia? Jemma Rodgers, ex-floor manager on Going Live. And 'Fist Of Fun'. "Have you ever had batter in your mouth?"

	SHEARSMITH Sensibility... PEMBERTON There... there was a show of hands I think! Heh heh heh. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

In the book, of course, they devote two pages to this character's mad scribblings describing how he kidnapped this woman and now keeps her locked up in a box, or something. The Gents are experts at taking moderately entertaining throwaway pieces and extending them to death (cf Papa Lazarou) Don't be silly - they're simply responding to 'the fans'. They all asked if Papa Lazarou was coming back (to stifle general yawns over the second series) and, bless 'em, they went and brought him back. Now all we need to do is wait for Iannucci et al to answer fans' 'demands' for a full episode of 'Skirmish' and we can all go back to bed.

	SHEARSMITH And we'd go "oh!"... PEMBERTON But it's one of the rare... y'know, few times when we have backed down and now I do, er, we all wish that we had kept it the way it was... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Fools. "I didn't force her" is a much better line. The League of Gentlemen may or may not be correct in assuming that their female production team didn't like the word because it describes a horrible action. What they failed to consider was which version was funnier and this highlights an important problem with their work. It's actually less funny to be obvious. "Force" is much better because it is ambiguous, less definite. It's less funny to have blood flying everywhere than to suggest that blood might be flying everywhere. This is why the sexual innuendos in everything from Benny Hill to 'I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again' are a million times funnier than in 'The League of Gentlemen'.

	SHEARSMITH Because that was us and we'd have done that onstage and that is one of the... yes, it's alarming but it's what... GATISS It's the point... SHEARSMITH ...we're about! Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

"Alarming". Remarkably appropriate word, actually.

	LAWSON Are you surprised because, um, the kind of television you grew up watching, you could never have done this kind of thing. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Is this factually accurate, though? Is there really that much distance in terms of subject matter between, say, the 'Undertaker' sketch in 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' and the average episode of 'The League Of Gentlemen'? And isn't much of their humour built around references to old television shows - albeit not all of them comedy shows - that they admire precisely because they feature that 'kind of thing'?

	LAWSON Are you surprised with what you've got away with? DYSON Yes! Absolutely. I was watching episode five of the new series which was... all the... 'masturbation'... PEMBERTON Heh heh heh. DYSON ...since we're on Radio 4! PEMBERTON Jeremy's making hand signals! DYSON And... and I couldn't believe it! I couldn't... what made me laugh the most was that the woman before the... the announcer, the continuity announcer says "and don't spare your blushes!". It was just... y'know... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

And the arse-fucking in episode one preceded by "there won't be a dry eye in the house!" I imagine. Don't worry, chaps. Radio 4 can't even say "onanism" without weeing themselves. The League Of Gentlemen still think masturbation is a 'shocking' topic. That's what gets me cringing behind the sofa. Men in their mid-30s still getting kicks from referring to hitherto obscure sexual words like 'frotting' and pulling a 'yes, I've heard of that word' face afterwards. It's really embarrassing. The Python generation were always funny when they referred to sex because it was talked about in such an odd way, with a throwback to the semiology of old-school dirty-talk ("You have what we doctors call a naughty complaint"); imagine how tedious 'Flying Circus' would have been if they'd been allowed to say "cock". Part of the problem with today's comedy teams is that none of them have a John Cleese figure to act as a professional wincer when things become a bit too childish. Disagreements within a team act as a much better catalyst for artistic growth than a team where everyone agrees on everything. When the League Of Gentlemen are interviewed it's like one person split into four - all with the same drive, motivation, influences, ambition, excuses, etc. Can you imagine them ever having an artistic argument (at least one that doesn't involve the colour of a stick-on moustache)? At least Jemma Rodgers' tutting allowed the group to rethink their ideals a bit in the face of all the 'freedom' they've been given. Doesn't look like they've really learned from it though. They do the "How old's the boy?" 'anecdote' on the "rare quadruple" commentary on the Christmas Special DVD too. Terrible commentary, they just go through the whole show pointing out which films they stole from. I, ha ha, mean, 'paid homage to', of course. After what is practically the first joke of the episode (Bernice putting a glass under a statue of the Virgin Mary and having it pour out scotch), Gatiss describes it as "this joke copyright Dave Allen, 1974". Although I bet it was quite funny when Dave Allen did it. They also point out that the better ideas in that show come from other people: Jemma Rodgers suggested the whole idea of Bernice in the church as a linking device, and Jon Plowman told them how to make the show funnier by, rather cleverly, making the witches less demonic and more bungling by accidentally setting the voodoo doll on fire rather than being purposely sadistic as in the first draft. Pemberton then says in the commentary that they should have done it the other, 'darker' way, and the others all nod and say "yeah", ruefully. So they do sort of have John Cleese figures script-editing their stuff and generally making it funnier. They just ignore them most the time. Incidentally, Michael Palin did say "cock" in 'The Meaning Of Life' (well, actually he said "sock" as there were children present, but that's another story). But even on the LPs and live shows the Pythons didn't revel in every possible opportunity to cuss like schoolboy troopers. The 'fuck's were very much in character. The perfect example of the Pythons using swearing sparingly for greater effect is in 'Life Of Brian', when Brian tells his followers to fuck off ("How shall we fuck off, oh lord?") making it much more shocking and surprising than if Graham Chapman had sworn throughout. Today we've got Avid Merrion and 'The Book Group' expleting left, right and effing centre, making swearing much less shocking and much more bland. What was it Ricky Gervais said on the Derek And Clive doc? "Swearing is actually big and clever". Yes, Richard, but only if you're Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and understand how comedy works. You're not and you don't. Back to masturbation - I'm reminded of the Seinfeld episode where they have a wager to see who can abstain from masturbation the longest. The M word isn't mentioned once, nor are any euphemisms - either of the Carry On or Chris Morris-fan variety. But it's completely clear what it's about, and much more satisfying as a result. "No hugging, no learning, no wanking..."!

	PEMBERTON Heh heh heh. GATISS Really funny! DYSON ...holding hands... GATISS Really disturbing. GRIFFIN The 'C-word' is the worst thing that you can use on television. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

After watching The Book Group I assume she means 'comedy'

	GRIFFIN We're just finishing series 2... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Aaaarrgh!

	GRIFFIN ...and there's one point at which, um, Dirka, the Swedish character, starts swearing in front of her husband. And I wanted her to say 'C-word', 'F-word', 'C-word', 'F-word' and s... and she and Gotti, who plays her husband, were saying "That isn't a bad word in Swedish!" What is a bad word is 'devils' and 'witches' and things - their swear-words are different. So, I think it's interesting that the worst thing you can call someone is a woman's genitalia. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Observations © Morwenna Banks' mother, sometime in the fifteenth century... Ignorance of the way swearing works anyway. 'Cunt' as an expletive and 'cunt' as a reference to female genitalia are mutually exclusive. Same with 'going for a piss' and 'piss off, Annie Griffin'.

	LAWSON Was there anything that was taken out for that reason? GRIFFIN No... but you can not say the word before ten o'clock, so... it was shown at nine-thirty with bleeps on it and then it was shown... the repeat was shown at ten-thirty without bleeps on it. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

She's not fooling anyone, the repeat of 'The Book Group' was on around midnight. Yeah, post-midnight. The repeat moved around in the schedules a lot. Anyway, this was the third episode, 'Magical Realism' (26/04/02). A dozen or so cunts in one scene, bleeped in the early Friday slot and clear as a bell on 02/05/02. Weirdly, the bleeped version was actually quite funny, like a test tone getting in the way of C4's usual Friday night cobblers. The late version was just a bunch of idiots swearing. Little or no point to it in fact. Didn't South Park do this in their first show? Bleeped swearing is funnier anyway, quite often. It was usually much more exciting to see performers and writers try and get around the "don't say fuck" rule, than reach a situation where such words are not remotely outrageous to anyone except (ironically) the very people who imagine that they're still molesting the limits of broadcasting. 'Blue Jam' featured swearing, like subject matter, to underline the unedited nature of dreams. Derek & Clive utilised it with the implicit understanding that it was never intended for broadcast but for private listening. Once you have an only-just post-watershed Steve Penk introducing uncensored clips of people saying fuck, there is no point in trying to play the 'outrageous' card anymore. In other words people are still talking about 'taking it to the edge' even though that 'edge' has effectively been removed. What was the first brightly-lit audience-laughing sitcom to use the word 'fuck'? I have a feeling it was 'Drop the Dead Donkey' in the mid-90s. I recall being quite taken aback at the time. Totally unexpected and very funny because of it. And only used the once during that series too. Series 3, March 1993-ish. Sally Smedley 'gets religion' for most of the series and then loses it. Returns to the office and an unusually jolly editor. "Oh, fuck off George!" And yes, it works because it comes from absolutely nowhere. That's a full two years before HIGNFY got away with it unbleeped, before 'The High Life's dancing around the word with "you f'coffee?" and similar affairs with Father Jack on Channel 4. 'Drop The Dead Donkey' spoilt things by doing it again as a crowd pleaser but generally, at a guess, 1995 must have been the turning point.

	IANNUCCI We talk frequently of... awful things that might happen to Alan... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Putting him out to grass? Making him much more successful so that Peter can't shoehorn in a line about toilet-roll pizzas or suchlike?

	IANNUCCI ...including him ending up, I don't know, paralysed from the neck down, and using a voicebox to speak. Maybe one day we'll do that, I don't know. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

They bloody will and all!

	IANNUCCI I mean, Alan's had people die of heart attacks in front of him. and he seems to have got by alright! He's had dead animals thrown over bridges on top of him. And he's come out the other end, smiling. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

But, again, this didn't come across in the programme! He's far from smiling about his predicament most of the time - he wouldn't be so bitter about his schooldays or the BBC if he was the cheerful eternal optimist being suggested here. Alan Partridge is portrayed as a 'bitter, failed loser'. The show is inordinately popular with people clutching desperately onto the periphery of the media who are always the first to call someone a "bitter, failed loser" to protect the little worlds they're trying to create for themselves. You'd think Iannucci et al would have worked out the connection by now. Nobody's rooting for the character at all. When Partridge first arrived in the early '90s, his old-school approach fitted the times. Bland sports reporters had been hosting chat-shows on television (indeed Coogan had even appeared on one such programme). Radio 1 had presenters who were twice your age. Clearly, aspects of this had to change. But even by the time the TV transfer of 'Knowing Me Knowing You' had reached the screens, the chat show was dead in the water. Funny as the show was, it was spoofing something that didn't actually exist anymore on TV. And the trouble with Coogan et al is that they've spent the intervening years continuing to try and laugh at obsolecent media creations. A moustachioed European singer backed by self-consciously 1975 production values? Ridiculous Hammer films with self-consciously 1975 production values? Can we see a pattern emerging here? And what could be more obsolecent than someone reduced to doing a programme on local radio? Never mind that without local radio, Britain might never have got to hear of Chris Morris, Victor Lewis-Smith, or (well I never) Armando Iannucci. Yeah, sure, so much of local radio is trivial and nothing special. But better that than bunging a shitload of money at attempting to revive characters that simply don't make sense anymore. If Partridge was a character still rooted in some semblance of reality, he might actually be running a management agency or internet business. But then Coogan, Baynham and Iannucci couldn't get us to laugh at him in quite the same way anymore. And it wouldn't fit Jane Root's "Let's sneer at forgotten celebrities on BBC2" philosophy - there's probably a whole department of it now. Run by Louis Theroux, no doubt. This time next year: THEROUX: I have always been a fan of the TV funnyman Tony Slattery... The 'what a loser' qualities of working for 'local radio' are just one step up from the same directed at people who work for 'hospital radio'. And even The League Of Gentlemen used that one again recently.

	IANNUCCI He has a terrible relationship with the Ukrainian girlfriend... Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

Not least because her character is virtually non-existent.

	IANNUCCI ...but he still seems to get a lot of sex out of it. so, yes, it's a dra... I mean, you never sit down and think 'Oh, what awful awful thing can we make happen now?', you just think 'What's the funniest thing that could happen?'. Front Row - a 'Sit-Trag' Special 7.15pm, 27/12/02, BBC Radio 4

And then write another series of 'I'm Alan Partridge' instead.

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