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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask, is Jim Davidson really a nice man?

327 replies

ashamedmummy11 · 29/01/2014 19:30

I was just chatting with OH here and I said I quite liked him on CBB. Apart from a few questionable remarks to Casey he seems a reasonably nice guy. OH reckons he has a bad reputation. Is this true? If so why?

OP posts:
puntasticusername · 30/01/2014 14:35

"I don't care for that type of humour personally but large numbers of people do".

Er...that's not the only criterion we use in deciding if something is ok...

Ubik1 · 30/01/2014 14:38

He doesn't need anyone playing devil's advocate for him. Don't feel sorry for poor widdle Jimmy - can look after himself and couldn't give a toss what mumsnet thinks because we should all be in the kitchen in short skirts and heels, getting the dinner ready for our husbands.

ComposHat · 30/01/2014 14:39

His career has been on the skids for years. You don't go on celebrity big brother because your career is going fabulously well. '

Sallystyle · 30/01/2014 14:45

My friend is actually a friend of his. My friend is a comedian so has worked with him a few times as well.

We have never spoke about what he is like as a person. I gather he is an arsehole though.

panedd · 30/01/2014 15:04

I think the fact he won sums up the voting audience who watch shite like CBB. How anyone can find this kind of lazy programming entertaining is beyond me.

ohmymimi · 30/01/2014 15:27

CBB is scraping the bottom of the barrel for the dregs of the dregs of so called 'celebrities', winning it is like being top turd on the muck heap. The fact that Davidson won says a lot about the CBB audience - that you'd have to be shallow and dim to be taken in by him would be the kind explanation. I followed comments on this series on Digital Spy and the level of sexism and misogyny was deeply dismaying and worrying for 2014. Even more depressing was that so many of Davidson's apologists were female.

FloweryFeatureWall · 30/01/2014 15:30

It doesn't say a lot about the CBB audience. It says something about the audience watching who vote. And even then only about the percentage that actually voted for Jim.

vjg13 · 30/01/2014 15:56

I find it supremely depressing that JD was the winner.

CaptainGrinch · 30/01/2014 15:57

I thought he was funny back in the day (80's). Fitted in with all the other entertainment back then - which we all laughed at, even if it's fashionable to deny it now!

Haven't seen him in anything recently so can't say. No idea about his personal life apart from sentences I've read on here (so nothing official).

I do know he used to do loads of free gigs for the Armed Forces all over the world, in all theatres of operation & was very popular - he paid for all his own travel & accommodation etc. & made substantial donations to Forces funds & charities.

So not a complete arsehole whatever people may say.

motherinferior · 30/01/2014 16:03

I was laughing at Ben Elton, not Jim bloody Davidson, in the 1980s .Far more trendy at the time. JD was well-known as an offensive dinosaur.

My mother was racially harassed out of the school where she taught by thugs shouting 'Nick Nick' at her, Davidson styleee in the 1980s, mind, so presumably they thought it was hilarious. Angry

CaptainGrinch · 30/01/2014 16:09

I just find it funny that, considering how nobody found him funny he made an absolute fortune, landed all the big, prime time shows & is still a household name.

mother unfortunately that sort of person has always existed & always will - they'll be shouting a different catchphrase nowadays I should imagine...

AmericasTorturedBrow · 30/01/2014 16:11

I worked for him 12 years ago, for his production company fresh out of school.

His adult daughter worked for him too and he used to shout and scream at her in the office. Would make fairly tepid but nevertheless constant lewd remarks to me.

Took all of us out for lunch every other Friday, then the boys would be invited onwards to Spearmint Rhino

He could be very sweet and polite but above behaviour made me intensely dislike and distrust him. Not seen hide nor hair of him since though so can only judge from the viewpoint of a clinically depressed and vulnerable 18yr old several years ago

AmericasTorturedBrow · 30/01/2014 16:12

He ran a forces entertainment charity actually, it was a subsidery of the panto production company. He didn't pay for the travel, acc etc out of his own pocket but it was his company

limitedperiodonly · 30/01/2014 16:15

I think the fact he won sums up the voting audience who watch shite like CBB. How anyone can find this kind of lazy programming entertaining is beyond me.

I watch shite like CBB. It's not all wildlife documentaries and Newsnight in this house.

I didn't vote for Jim Davidson but knew he was going to win and was grudgingly impressed by his manipulation of the audience and fellow housemates.

As I watched on a more cerebral level than most, does that make it all right?

Frankly I don't give a fuck. And I'm sure that now he's won he doesn't either.

Ubik1 · 30/01/2014 16:18

Wasn't there some probs with the panto company - he was accused of putting live musicians out of business because his productions ran off pre-recordings.

Can you watch CBB on cerebral level?

AmericasTorturedBrow · 30/01/2014 16:23

Don't know Ubik to be honest, I saved up as a quick as poss and bolted to travel round Morocco

Will say this though - thanks to working for JD I did get to experience the VIP clubbing experience in Dartford with 4 Danish dwarves and then got stoned with them in an empty multi storey car park

Such a glamorous world, panto Wink

limitedperiodonly · 30/01/2014 16:24

mother that's not only bad, that's not even the correct jibe, unless your mother was a police officer.

But like captaingrinch said, no one ever lost money underestimating what nasty people will laugh at.

I met him once 25-odd years ago. It wasn't pleasant and given that I'm a menopausal old bag now, I can't imagine a reunion would be better.

motherinferior · 30/01/2014 16:25

No, CaptainGrinch, these days thugs like that would be put on a severe warning by the school. Racism isn't considered widely entertaining any more.

limitedperiodonly · 30/01/2014 16:27

He didn't pay for the travel, acc etc out of his own pocket but it was his company

Perfectly acceptable use of company funds for tax purposes. See also the rules on charitable donations.

Obviously no reflection on someone's deep and sincerely-held views.

AmericasTorturedBrow · 30/01/2014 16:28

Absolutely, I'm just saying he didn't pay for it out of his ow pocket like a PPclaimed

enriquetheringbearinglizard · 30/01/2014 16:28

That article is horrendous and damning but, again, is from many years ago (it refers to him as 47 when he is now 60

Piscivorus, yes I am aware that, I did qualify that it was a response to his autobiography, but fair enough, appreciate not everyone would know when that was published.

I understand that people can mellow, change and can be rehabilitated. I also realize that sometimes people drink too much and their behaviour is adversely affected by that only if and when they drink i.e. can be controlled, I'm not denying that. I am though, also a believer in character traits which probably linger, even if they're kept in check.

It's not only a fashionable response to decry him years after his career high either. Some much older relatives had tickets to see him perform back in the day and invited us, we declined as even then he wasn't to our taste.

I'm afraid I don't see charitable works as a trade off for all the negative traits and activities in anyone, but I can see how the publicity and the avuncular uncle performance swayed some people who are less aware of the more distant past.
What I and others have flagged up though is information to back up why some hold such strong opinions against him, while people who've only known of him more recently find such strength of feeling hard to understand.

limitedperiodonly · 30/01/2014 16:29

That's my story and I'm sticking to it ubik

AnAdventureInCakeAndWine · 30/01/2014 16:31

"Fitted in with all the other entertainment back then - which we all laughed at, even if it's fashionable to deny it now!"

The things I remember laughing at on TV in the 1980s are shows like

Not the Nine O'Clock News
Blackadders 1-4
Alas Smith and Jones
The Young Ones
A Bit of Fry and Laurie
Victoria Wood As Seen On TV
The Comic Strip Presents...
Girls On Top
French and Saunders
The New Statesman
Yes Minister / Yes, Prime Minister

I'm struggling slightly at the thought of Jim Davidson "fitting into" any of those, unless he were playing Griff Rhys' Jones Constable Savage from NTNOCN (with no acting required).

limitedperiodonly · 30/01/2014 16:31

America'storturedbrow I forgot this: Wink

Ubik1 · 30/01/2014 16:32

That's as good as it gets in Dartford, Americas..you were truly living the dream

I went to club there once called The Library or something..no dwarves though, sadly