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Boyle called for quotas to improve diversity in television as he interviewed sitcom star Sharon Horgan.
Boyle called for quotas to improve diversity in television as he interviewed sitcom star Sharon Horgan. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA
Boyle called for quotas to improve diversity in television as he interviewed sitcom star Sharon Horgan. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

TV comedy has gone back to the 70s, says Frankie Boyle

This article is more than 7 years old

Comedian says British broadcasters have hit a stale patch and ‘you wouldn’t know there had been alternative comedy’

British comedy has hit a stale patch, with broadcasters unwilling to take risks on alternative and edgier shows, according to the controversial comedian Frankie Boyle.

Interviewing Sharon Horgan for the Alternative MacTaggart at the Edinburgh TV festival, Boyle said commissioners were choosing safe, mass appeal shows such as Mrs Brown’s Boys at the expense of alternative shows such as Horgan’s own Pulling, which was cancelled after two series.

He suggested that the fallout from the Sachsgate scandal involving Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand had led to a more cautious approach at the BBC and other broadcasters.

“Ratings are the main thing. Critical hits are a bonus,” said Boyle. “If something is a big ratings hit – like Mrs Brown’s Boys as a random example – they try to do one of those. But when something comes out that’s a critical hit, they go, ‘That’s ticked that box for a while. Don’t need to make another sitcom with a lesbian for five years.’

“It seems to me that television has gone back past 1978. There’s a sort of air, it’s an air of you wouldn’t know there had been alternative comedy.

“Now you can pretty much watch most things. Most of the comedy is observational. Most of the shows are variety shows. Most of the sitcoms are family-friendly. I think it’s hit a bit of a stale patch.”

Sharon Horgan. Photograph: Ian West/PA

Mrs Brown’s Boys recently topped a Radio Times poll of the best sitcoms of the century so far, and has proved a reliable ratings hit for the BBC. It has repeatedly been the most watched show at Christmas, and has also spawned a film spin-off.

Boyle also highlighted the BBC’s Landmark Comedy season, which features remakes of old sitcoms including Porridge, Are You Being Served? and Goodnight Sweetheart as examples of a lack of risk.

Horgan said that when broadcasters began playing it safe it stemmed creativity.

She said:What they are trying to do is replicate a hit show and find another version of that. I don’t think it necessarily brings the best out of creative people or writers. Because you end up seeing the same thing done a different way.

“People have got to write the thing they are born to write or really need to say or it’s just going to be the same as everything else.”

Boyle also added his voice to calls for quotas to improve diversity in television.

“I just think we should have quotas,” he said. “Because they have been trying to do it for years, and they come to the TV festival as well and they were bringing quite senior people from the BBC or Channel 4 and they say, ‘Oh yeah it’s terrible, it’s terrible.’

“And I’m thinking, ‘You’re the creative head of the BBC, just do it. It’s your job to do it.’ And they just give a shrug.

“If they won’t do it they should be forced to do it because it shouldn’t be like that. It shouldn’t be some young black comedian’s job to make sure that the BBC do better on representation.”

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