[TV] Till Death Us Do Part.

[Brovion]

Lenny Henry has actually spoken about the unintended consequences of Johnny Speight's good intentions:

"Even Till Death Us Do Part. Johnny Speight created the racist, right wing, monster Alf Garnett, brilliantly portrayed by Warren Mitchell. You might say that Speight was being brutally honest about how racist white people spoke about ethnic minorities, but it didn’t stop Alf being adopted as a hero by the very people he was satirizing.

Speight tried to ensure that in each story line, Alf came off the worst. But when I went to school the next morning, it was always me who came off worst."

Now racists don't need TV, or these days social media to be racist, but the mediums do ease the exchange of terminology and provide convenient and easily communicated pegs for racism to be hung on.

Johnny Speight's voice was Rita and Mike's voice. He was displaying the stupidity of divisive right wing politics being espoused by the working classes, but the character he and Warren Mitchell created became too big and too dominant. People forget that Dandy Nicholls' Else often had the best lines, because Alf had the most lines. A lot of his lines were written to show the failure of his internal logic and the satire was great if you recognised it as satire. However, he became the sitcom monster: The character who took over the show, became an archetype and found a life outside of the sitcom world. The character became too big for Speight, or the even more left wing, Mitchell to control and, in losing context, he ended up losing meaning.

I wouldn't argue that the OP is going out on a limb by suggesting that the show was funny. It was, and is, very funny and its intent was always anti-racist. However, it's methods are perhaps to subtle for these times. I remember an alternative comedian, (probably Stewart Lee, it usually is) saying that the irony used in nineties comedy to deal with race, sexuality etc. was possible because we all thought, perhaps a bit smugly, that everbody had agreed that discrimination was wrong. We've found out since that this hadn't been agreed, just that those who didn't agree had gone quiet for a bit. Now that they are far from quiet, playing with offence in a knowing way becomes easily stripped of all context and can be grist to their mill. Alf's rants were meant to be so stupid and so extreme that you laughed at their ridiculousness and self harm. Unfortunately, the satire has been overtaken by the idiocy of the world and showing it to mass audiences today may leave a few wondering why he was laughed at and not elected.

Great post. And to be fair even at the time some/a lot (I'm not sure of the numbers) of progressive people weren't convinced that airing bigoted views, even in a satirical way, was the right way to go about combatting them. Yes in the course of an episode Garnett would eventually be shown up to be a narrow-minded bigot often defeated by his own idiocy, but taken out of context (which they often were) his speeches about "bleedin' coons" did resonate with a depressingly-large number of white people.

My mum, who was/is a progressive feminist would always turn the TV off/over when TDUDP came on.

 

[Monkey Man]

I remember watching an interview with Warren Mitchell in which he talked about people in the street congratulating him "for having a go at the [expletive deleted]s last night".

He said his response to such people was that the show wasn't actually having a go at ethnic minorities. It was having a go at idiots like them, who shared Alf's racism.

No doubt it was cleverly written and quite funny at time, but I think the subtlety of the humour was lost or wasted on quite a lot of people.

It always seemed to me that however stupid and unreasonable Alf was, you couldn't help liking him.

 

[Official Old Man]

By the way, anyone listen to TMS (cricket) Wednesday. A black cricketer was asked to come in to the commentary room and talk about the racist report just out. He spoke gently but his words were well thought out. "I'm the only black person in this room full of middle aged white men & women". The room fell silent and Johnathan Agnew moved the chat on to something else.

 

[Stato]

I remember watching an interview with Warren Mitchell in which he talked about people in the street congratulating him "for having a go at the [expletive deleted]s last night".

He said his response to such people was that the show wasn't actually having a go at ethnic minorities. It was having a go at idiots like them, who shared Alf's racism.

Poor old Warren, not only spent his life explaining that he was a Jewish socialist, not a right wing bigot, but also that he was an avid Spurs fan with no time at all for West Ham.

 

[worthingweird]

Always looked forward to TDUDP...

 

[Questions]

So in the last few days we’ve now had the following threads (essentially);

- GB News, what wonderfully balanced reporting
- Lenny Henry is shite and we know there’s only one reason why he got famous
- “Til Death Us Do Part” was actually alright?

Eugh.

Bollox. My thread on Lenny Henry had f*** all to do with his colour. Oh Deary me…

 

[A1X]

Bollox. My thread on Lenny Henry had f*** all to do with his colour. Oh Deary me…

Originally no, the replies, however definitely were. Not your fault.

 

[Icy Gull]

I always found TDUDP cringy as it was so unpc (before that became a thing) but it had some very amusing moments. Different times though. I can remember the no Irish no blacks and no dogs signs in boarding house windows too

Little Britain more recently, how did they get away with that?

 

[The Clamp]

How did

I always found TDUDP cringy as it was so unpc (before that became a thing) but it had some very amusing moments. Different times though. I can remember the no Irish no blacks and no dogs signs in boarding house windows too

Little Britain more recently, how did they get away with that?

 

[A1X]

Little Britain more recently, how did they get away with that?

Little Britain had it’s moments but was nothing like as bad as the follow up one they did as a mockumentary in an airport, can’t remember the name but that was bad

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

Lenny Henry has actually spoken about the unintended consequences of Johnny Speight's good intentions:

"Even Till Death Us Do Part. Johnny Speight created the racist, right wing, monster Alf Garnett, brilliantly portrayed by Warren Mitchell. You might say that Speight was being brutally honest about how racist white people spoke about ethnic minorities, but it didn’t stop Alf being adopted as a hero by the very people he was satirizing.

It is similar to Al Murray and his Pub Landlord character. Sadly there are too many who fail to realise that it is a caricature which must be frustrating given what an intelligent person Al is.

 

[Klaas]

Lenny Henry has actually spoken about the unintended consequences of Johnny Speight's good intentions:

"Even Till Death Us Do Part. Johnny Speight created the racist, right wing, monster Alf Garnett, brilliantly portrayed by Warren Mitchell. You might say that Speight was being brutally honest about how racist white people spoke about ethnic minorities, but it didn’t stop Alf being adopted as a hero by the very people he was satirizing.

Speight tried to ensure that in each story line, Alf came off the worst. But when I went to school the next morning, it was always me who came off worst."

I remember watching an interview with Warren Mitchell in which he talked about people in the street congratulating him "for having a go at the [expletive deleted]s last night".

Sums it up for me. Yep, good intentions, very clever and all that, but the writers weren't the ones on the end of Alf Garnett style rants.

 

[A1X]

It is similar to Al Murray and his Pub Landlord character. Sadly there are too many who fail to realise that it is a caricature which must be frustrating given what an intelligent person Al is.

The reaction of many when he stood against Farage in that election flushed a lot of them out

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

Warren Mitchell was, as mentioned by many on here, a fine actor and a great man - as far from the character he was playing as it is possible to me. For me and all my ultra-woke friends and family it was unmissable.

unfortunately for some it would be a documentary.

“I’m trying to learn uo7 something!”

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

The reaction of many when he stood against Farage in that election flushed a lot of them out

I loved his Party Political Broadcast: “we’re going to make this country so sh1t, nobody will want to come here anyway!”

 

[Pavilionaire]

I think there is a tendency to overlook the subtle but significant role in helping reduce discrimination and promote 'race relations' that 1970s shows like TDUDP, Love Thy Neighbour, Curry and Chips, It Ain't 'Arf Hot Mum and Rising Damp had. A common theme in British comedy throughout that period was the ignorant, prejudiced white person and the innocent / normal non-white person.

By stark contrast, there was no such effort made to challenge views and prejudices about homosexuality, indeed quite the opposite. Overtly camp humour, gay innuendo and jokes about "poofs" were staple ingredients of your average Saturday night viewing entertainment on the 2 main channels.

 

[Blue3]

How an actor can become typecast when in reality they were the opposite of their public persona

 

[Cowfold Seagull]

I think there is a tendency to overlook the subtle but significant role in helping reduce discrimination and promote 'race relations' that 1970s shows like TDUDP, Love Thy Neighbour, Curry and Chips, It Ain't 'Arf Hot Mum and Rising Damp had. A common theme in British comedy throughout that period was the ignorant, prejudiced white person and the innocent / normal non-white person.

By stark contrast, there was no such effort made to challenge views and prejudices about homosexuality, indeed quite the opposite. Overtly camp humour, gay innuendo and jokes about "poofs" were staple ingredients of your average Saturday night viewing entertainment on the 2 main channels.

I agree, but on the other hand, many many more people were probably only interested in the programme because that found it funny, and didn't look beyond that.

 

[WATFORD zero]

It is similar to Al Murray and his Pub Landlord character. Sadly there are too many who fail to realise that it is a caricature which must be frustrating given what an intelligent person Al is.

Alf Garnet, the Pub Landlord, HIGNFY broadcasting the idiocy of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, and each time many struggle to understand that it is parody. Before you know it, they are believing in the caricatures, supporting them and repeating their 'catchphrases'

 

[Perfidious Albion]

Alf Garnet was funny , not because we agreed with racist rants but he was so obnoxious that he was funny. Nobody could take him seriously. It is not unviewable , to me at least , but unbroadcastable today .