Sian Gibson press clippings - Page 10

The show [Peter Kay's Car Share] is known for its gentle observational comedy (gags about local commercial radio, street signs, workplace jargon) and romantic sub-plot about whether the couple will eventually cop off. The penultimate edition had a USP of being improvised, but it made a different splash when the trans community had a Twitter hissy about a chat in which the pair listen to a "Your Song" radio feature in which a woman requests More Than a Woman in priase of her husband, who transitioned. They barrack the story, leading objectors including Peter Tatchell to argue that the BBC was encouraging transphobia.

An obvious response is that the actors were in character, and it seems a reasonable possibility that two north-west retail employees would not necessarily have got with the gender fluidity programme. Also, Gibson, realising that Kay had thrown a nuclear spud into the discussion, is careful to, in modern parlance, call him out for being so "harsh" about people.

Even so, it seems extraordinary that the BBC, which traditionally sees its remit as caution, should have ended up being more provocative about the most controversial contemporary topic than C4 [broadcasting Genderquake the same week], which boasts a licence to provoke.

The solution to this conundrum lies in the BBC1 show's title. Being "unscripted", it missed out on the editorial phase during which the BBC bosses do most of their cleaning work. By the time they saw the trans gaff, the only option was to cut it from the finished product - a far more radical act of censorship than at script discussion stage.

So the subject proved expectedly controversial in an unexpected place, but the big question - of whether one community should be permitted a veto on media coverage of itself - remains stubbornly unresolved.

Remote Controller, Private Eye, 18th May 2018

Press clippings Page 10

Share this page

Subscribe to our newsletters