Read this in The Sunday Times yesterday. It was part of a feature titled 'What's the Big Idea?'...."Sixteen experts identify the key concepts that redefining the arts."
On comedy Richard Herring said:
"The internet will change comedy. People willmake TV-quality programmes, put them on the internet, get advertsing, then sell them to television. my weekly podcast with Andrew Collins can be heard within an hour of being recorded and is downloaded by 20,000 people. With radio, it takes six months to persuade someone to put it on.
Comedians are always pushing back the boundaries. Some do it for shock value, others as satire. Islam is the new thing it's dangerous to talk about. The comedians of the 1980s were at the forefront of changing attitudes to sexism and racism. Now that most people accept equality, you can mess about with it. People will do jokes about race and rape. They might sound straight out of Bernard Manning's joke book, but they're delivered with a different spin. "
Lucy Lumsden, BBC Comedy Controller:
"The Office made hearing laughter and having obvious jokey moments seem really odd. We're coming through that, and have sitcoms with Omid Djalili and Miranda Hart that have a big comic persona at their heart.
To a certain extent, comedy catches the spirit of the moment, but often it works by opposing it. It can be the thing you didn't really know you wanted, like Gavin and Stacey. If we had tried to predict that, we probably would have come unstuck.
I'm missing the stronger subjects and the stronger ways we dealt with them. I want to make sure we can look the latest taboo in the eye and do a comedy about it. It takes a brave creative spirit to make people laugh, let alone also make them think.
Lucy Lumsden is BBC TV Controller of Comedy Commissioning.
