Secret Policeman's Ball - Channel 4

[MollieO]

Watching David Walliams and Ben Stiller. Ben Stiller looks as if he is the size of my 7 yr old. I had no idea he was so teeny tiny.

I'm watching the lovely 70s singing legends, now, on BBC4. To wash the dirt away.

Yes David Owen with David Steele in his pocket

David Steele said that that ruined his political career. He was quite cut up about it. Into teeny tiny pieces ...

Flicked on briefly to hear Mickey Flanagan tell some weird "joke" about touching a girl's boob as a teenager, meeting her years later when she was a sophisticated young woman and thinking "I fingered you".

In what way is that a gag?

Mickey Flanaghan is a cunt.

(I've been paid to say that. If MN like him he think's he's fucked. He still thinks he's 'edgy.' I know, I know ...)

all rubbish

i was going to start a thread about all the porn jokes etc and then bloody coldplay come on and sing when i ruled the world

grrrrrrrrr

btw why isn't comedy funny anymore?

Some is, just comedy that relies on being fucking horrid to others really isn't that amusing.

I've slept on it now and the nastiness of those 'performances' is still bothering me. That fingering 'joke' was just hateful.

I think Amnesty need to sort this out. They rely on DVD sales to raise money; and I won't be buying it. (I do support the work of Amnesty.)

It's all a bit sad.

Thank gods it wasn't just me who thought it was utterly unfunny. Thought I was getting old. It was dire.

I thought the whole picking on the lady in the audience (who looked jewish; was stunned at hitler joke) was really crap. Not sure she enjoyed it. Esp the stoning stuff - russell brand reponsible for them all. Not edgy just yuk.

I remember when it Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and the Pythons.

Grumpypants, I kind of missed that, so just caught them calling a woman a cow. I did catsbummouth at it, but didn't pass comment because I didn't see the whole thing.

It was a bit awful. Like noone is laughing so repeat the joke...again and again and again

I'm laughing sometimes [shrug]. But it's a bit symptomatic that of all the cartoon series they could have revived, it's Beavis and Butthead. Like, Ren and Stimpy? Hello?

oh gosh yeah the stoning bit - when did they start joking about that sort of stuff? how does that raise awareness of human rights - am i being a bit thick????

The misogyny was so overt and it was a running theme. Disgusting for a so-called human rights benefit show.

Is anyone aware of a petition or somewhere that people are making a collective point about the inappropriateness and offensiveness of some of the performances?

No, but just add your comments to this thread and I'll forward it to Amnesty.

I have supported Amnesty since 1978, FFS!

I would like to let Amnesty know how inappropriate and misjudged it was. I wouldn't support AI now and I used to be a member.

Had forgotten about Russell Brand bullying that woman, calling her a selfish cow and joking about Hitler and stoning. I think at that stage I was still giving it the benefit of the doubt.

I do kind of feel that I stepped on a step that wasn't there. 'It's Catherine Tate! And Kristen Wiig! Together! Brilliant! [blink] Hey, come back!'

And I think it's a shame for the performers that really give a shit.

Russell Brand was awful with his jokes about stoning women to death, Jimmy Carr was awful with his 'sex while she's sleeping' (i.e. rape) joke, but the one that I keep going back to and that keeps me feeling about it all was Mickey Flanagan and his reminiscing about teenaged fumblings, holding a girl's breast for the first time, etc.

And then the punchline (?) is how when he meets the same person years later and she's a successful, professional woman, and as she talks to him all he's thinking is "I fingered you!"

What is the joke, exactly? This is not a joke; there's not even a pretence of humour about it. This is just some asshole at a human rights event, standing on the stage and explicitly stating that sex=power, penetration = ownership, and girls and women are not people but sex objects, regardless of what they've achieved or how 'respectable' they think they are.

If I had happened across that bit on a random stand-up show, I would have said 'what an unfunny prick' and not thought much about it. But this was at Amnesty International's big event! I would find it very, very hard to support them in the future if they don't distance themselves from the dehumanising, misogynistic rhetoric that was spewed from their own platform.