Funny girls

There’s a programme I sometimes do on the right-wing guerilla media website 18 Doughty Street which I think you might enjoy. It’s called Culture Clash, presented by Peter Whittle, and it’s a bit like Newsnight Review would be if you took away the pseudery, the left-liberal cant and Ekow Eshun.

Obviously, the production values are a lot ropier than you get on proper TV, and because the guests are generally less media-exposed there’s quite a lot of ‘you know’ and ‘I mean’. But what’s good about it is that everyone feels free to say what they actually think about the films, books and TV programmes they’re reviewing rather than going ‘Heaven help us. We’re on TV! Better take care!’ and subconsciously censoring themselves.

For example, had I been on Newsnight Review, I don’t think I would have said that the reason Daniel Craig is a better James Bond than Sean Connery is that his performance isn’t ruined by the voice in your head going ‘Hairy milkman. Tedious Scottish nationalist’. And I certainly wouldn’t have dared say, as I did on Culture Clash the other week, that chicks can’t do comedy. Do I really mean that? Well, not totally. Miranda Hart (the big one from Hyperdrive) is funny; Tamsin Greig (Black Books) is funny; Jessica Stevenson (Spaced) is funny; Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French when on form are funny; and I know loads and loads of women — Caitlin Moran; Sarah Vine; Sophie Laybourne; my sister… — who are effortlessly, naturally funny, far more so than any men I know.

I still suspect, though, that were you to choose the 50 greatest comedy programmes of all time, from Dad’s Army through League of Gentlemen to The Office and Peep Show, you’d find barely a handful (Ab Fab; erm…) in which girls figured prominently.