Michele Hewitson: Comedy, the new reality

COMMENT

The end of the world as we know it? Mark Thompson, the director general of the BBC, has signalled a major new direction in programming for the corporation, pledging to ditch reality TV and lifestyle shows in favour of comedy and other areas of "excellence".

No more Changing Rooms. That one's been dumped by the BBC. "Instead the BBC will shift its focus to areas such as comedy, which play an important role in the cultural life of the nation," Thompson said.

"Although comedy is a branch of entertainment, I still think most people would accept it, too, plays a critical part in reflecting our national culture and the way we live now," he added.

It should be noted Thompson is the former Channel 4 chief executive responsible for Big Brother, which must have been somebody's idea of a joke. The new comedy perhaps. So cutting edge it doesn't make you laugh, it simply bores you to death.

The old comedy is good. The old comedy can now include the Christmas edition of The Office which, after much nagging, is to screen here. Some time soon. Just in time for ... ? Oh well, it's Christmas in Coro right now, so we're used to being treated this way, way down here in the Antipodes.

But what is this nonsense about comedy playing a critical part in reflecting our (or their) national culture and the way we live now?

The Office told us we should all go out and kill ourselves, right away. I'm not sure what the dire William and Mary tells us about the way anyone lives now, unless you happen to be an undertaker bonking a midwife, perhaps.

What most comedy tells us is that it is very hard to write good comedy and that most comedy isn't funny.

And we already know that most reality TV isn't real and that it is, from time to time, unintentionally funny. Especially when blondes and the country are involved.

But reality telly can be riveting, and worthy viewing, according to the man from the BBC. He cited a programme called Jimmy's Farm, in which a man tries to make a living as a pig farmer, as an example of reality TV which added something to the genre.

This is not, apparently, a comedy. I wonder if the programme about the pig farmer is worthy in ways that Paris Hilton going to live with some good ol' farmers is not.

Is it worthier than a giggle of blondes going to risk life, limb and makeup supplies on a tropical island? Is it something to do with the pig, do you think?

Although these sorts of questions exercise my mind from time to time, I don't really care. I can't be bothered getting all bothered about reality TV because nobody watches it. You know this because everybody denies watching it. Except me, and I get paid to watch it so I can hardly complain, can I?

Actually, I can and do, in print. I would never watch this stuff unless I was being paid to do so. Dunno about that pig farming one, though. But I bet the pig farmer's not butt ugly.

Comedy. Reality TV. People swapping lifestyles for worthy or not-so-worthy purposes. Ho hum. It's all been done before.

For example, now we are paying huge amounts of money to some outfit called Sky (as in The Sky's the Limit in how much rubbish we can charge you to have access to) I can watch The Good Life on a Sunday.

This has it all: comedy, suburban folk turning to country pleasures, as in "self sufficiency in Surbiton", daft lines like "A goat? It's sheer folly".

Well, of course, it is. Always has been. Always will be. A pig? Sheer folly in the form of The Good Life dressed up as reality telly.

Makes you laugh, really.