The death of bad-taste humour

The recent heatwave inspired many people to bring out their stories of the summer of 1976. I have a memory of it which has nothing to do with the temperature, but which I think could be even more relevant to our times.

It happened in the baking, crammed, nicotine-steeped ballroom of a holiday camp. I was eight. The campers were gathered for the night’s fun, provided by the camp’s resident comic. On the dot of 8 p.m. he told the audience it was time for the kiddies to head to bed. We were handed over to the care of a redcoat (about 20, unvetted, just some bloke – there is an entire vanished world in that) and led back en masse to our chalets.

It felt so unfair. I could stay up for hours yet! I wasn’t a baby any more! Why was this happening? Because, I was told, the nature of the jokes was going to change. I just wouldn’t get these jokes – they might seem nasty or rude, and would likely distress me. When I was older, OK, then I would understand. But the grown-ups were talking now.

In 2022, the assumption that once you’ve passed a certain age you can fully understand the nature and function of humour has been lost. The children never grow up, and never come to understand the jokes told in the ballroom of life. This happened quite suddenly, and quite recently.

The comedy culture of the Noughties has a bad reputation, but for me it had a vulgar vigour and a direct connection to the grown-up jokes of the previous decades. TV shows such as Bo’ Selecta!, Little Britain, Strangers with Candy, Nighty Night, The League of Gentlemen; films like Psycho Beach Party and American Pie; the riotous puppet parodic musical Avenue Q, which features a jolly, hilarious song called ‘Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist’ (‘Everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes / doesn’t mean we go around committing hate crimes!’) – all of these were, with varying degrees of sophistication and of success, in terrible taste.