'Till Death Us Do Part' and the sequel series, 'In Sickness and in Health', were comedy sitcom tv programmes of the 1960s and 1970s which caused controversy quite often because of their content, including what would be considered today as mild swearing and (although the debate was less clear than it is nowadays) race, racism and racialism. An ex-postman mate of mine had just posted a link showing part of one of the episodes situated in an Asian cornershop, where Alf's recently-deceased wife had a 'slate' which remains unpaid. Present in the scene are Alf, Sabu (owner), and a 'camp' West Indian guy. Bigot Alf, we anticipate will 'go off on one', while the Asian/Black tension that exists/existed will be evident, but is gently dealt with. I reckon that the writers, the actors and perceptive viewers will pick up on the irony. Of course, irony is a feature of drama imperceptible to some 'receivers'. The following dialogue I have taken from the recent Facebook interaction between myself and Royal Mail friends of mine. It has the potential of a decent sit-com in itself and goes to show how comedy writing 'by committee' has its benefits.
Martin Archer: Brilliant. They're scared to show this sort of thing now; what a state of affairs!
David Hume: Alf; we're laughing at him, not with him. That's right Nick, isn't it ?!?!
Martin Archer: I think the point is that Alf's a buffoon amongst buffoons, Dave. We're all of us buffoons.
David Hume: Mart', for a moment, I thought you were calling 'them'.... Baboons ! Mind Your Language, eh ?!?!
Alvin Drummond: Fuckin' hilarious. we should have MORE of this good old fashioned English comedy on English TV.
David Hume: Sitting there in your gravy stained In-ger-land shirt !
Nick Fagan(quoting from the scene): 'Bloody marvellous! They're flying 'em in now'.
Martin Archer: Now 'Mind Your Language' was funny too, in parts, but to see the scamming it
gets now by those half-wit politically-correct talking heads on countdown shows, you'd think it was inciting murder. Foreign people are funny; foreign people think Brits are funny when we visit their countries. So the fuck what! Offended by it? Yes, MYL was ignorant and it hasn't dated well, but I take offence at people who want even now to change the natural and casual racism that our grandparents and even parents exhibited merely out of a similar sort of ignorance. But then, I know quite a few thoroughly ignorant people of my generation who I dont expect to change, but we have to allow them to get on with it, too. But what annoys me intensely is that there are adherents to foreign ideologies in this country that want to change traditional British attitudes; I find them just as intolerant as it is said English people were in the 70s for instance. Rant concluded.
In my final comment above, and in response to ethnic Scot Dave Hume's reference to it, I cite another contemporary and inferior show, Mind Your Language, set in an evening school where disparate and stereotypical foreign visitors/immigrants to these shores meet with their English tutor to improve their mastery of the English language. The characters were depicted by actors having some commonality with the ethnicity portrayed (itself a contrast to the blacked-up comedians of It Ain't Half Hot Mum or even David Sachs's Manuel in Fawlty Towers): a French actress doing her ooh la la maid routine; an Asian in turban with rocking head movements; a Latin type, suitably mustachioed; and I seem to remember a severe fraulein in Valkyrie plaits). There is so much written on this subject out there by 'post-colonial' academics, including the wonderful 'Orientalism' by Edward Said, with which we are able to engage with debates around race and offence, ignorance through insularity and the Other in general.
I went to Egypt and was laughed at (not necessarily ridiculed) by the locals for my bald ''Kojak'' head and hairless face. I wonder if, after a while of such treatment, I would have become somehow oppressed by such behaviour. We are two or three generations on from the days of Till Death Us and MYL and the offspring of the original immigrants of those days understandably demand a degree of respect in this the land of their birth. The UK is a country in which they do not necessarily see themselves as 'English' or perhaps 'Scottish' in the way that the ethnic Whites of these islands feel secure in their identities, whether those identities are chosen or are 'given'.
Thanks to Dave Hume, Nick Fagan, Alvin Drummond and the writers of Alf (Warren Mitchell), http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/T/htmlT/tilldeathus/tilldeathus.htm and Mind Your Language http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075537/.
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