Travel back two hundred and fifty years and witness a Britain openly, gloriously and often shockingly rude. Rude Britannia I: A History Most Satirical, Bawdy, Lewd and Offensive
We had a fierce belief in our right to be rude. ibid.
The first chronicler of Georgian rude: William Hogarth. ibid.
Hogarth made Southwark Fair a portrait of the city. ibid.
The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay. ibid.
Henry Fielding – these attacks on political sleaze were even more direct than Gay in The Beggar’s Opera. ibid.
The Law allowed literary bitchin’ to flourish. ibid.
A master of rude words ... Alexander Pope. ibid.
Bawdy humour was at the heart of the success of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentleman. ibid.
This was the colourful world of satirical and humorous prints. ibid.
A poet with the rudest reputation in Regency Britain – the devilish Lord Byron. ibid.
There would always be a different, ruder country. In Rude Britannia life was celebrated in music halls with bawdy humour and lewd songs. Rude Britannia II: Presents Bawdy Songs & Lewd Photographs
The shock of the rude nude photograph. ibid.
The cheeky carnival of the seaside. ibid.
The alliance of toffs and prolls and a racy night out was a serious threat to Victorian values. ibid.
On the stage rude stars were created. ibid.
Music hall had a tradition of bawdy humour and song that went back centuries. ibid.
A new technology to further undermine Victorian values: photography. ibid.
Rude photographs became affordable and available. ibid.
Someone with a genius for the rude innuendo now needed was Victoria superstar Marie Lloyd. ibid.
Victorian moral reformers argued that music halls linked to prostitution were part of an exploitation of women undermining the morals of the nation. ibid.
By the Edwardian era there was a new kind of peep-show – the Mutoscope. ibid.
Donald McGill: McGill took a most proper part of daily British life – the postcard – and turned it rude. ibid.
During a nationwide ‘back to basics’ campaign by the government of Winston Churchill [cf. maiden Parliament speech] McGill was investigated for obscenity. ibid.
The seventy-nine-year-old artist pleaded guilty to obscenity and was fined £50. Thousands of his cards were then ordered to be destroyed. ibid.
Enjoying rudeness became so much easier. Rude was now in your front room. Rude Britannia III: You’ve Never Had It So Rude 3/3
We now lived in a mass-democracy of rude. ibid.
Cartoonist Gerald Scarfe drew the prime minister naked ... Private Eye’s Romantic England: Macmillan Issue. ibid.
A tradition of rude cartooning come back to life. ibid.
Plays like Entertaining Mrs Sloane and Loot [Joe Orton] with their assault on taboos of sex, class and death were a challenge to theatre audiences. ibid.
Orton’s last piece of notorious rude theatre was What the Butler Saw. ibid.
Radio was at its rudest in Round the Horne. ibid.
A counter-culture: house-journal of this underground movement was Oz which first surfaced in the Summer of Love 1967. ibid.
Inside School Kid’s Issue: Oz was a comic strip featuring the head of the much loved children’s character Rupert Bear superimposed on an X-rated cartoon by American Robert Crumb. Words and pictures were a rude provocation. ibid.
The Oz Three... were found guilty and sent down with harsh sentences ... A successful appeal. ibid.
Television ... a mass democracy of rude. ibid.
It was comedy like Till Death Us Do Part that brought rude to peak-time television. ibid.
Bernard Manning was a king of northern comedy. Manning made his part of seventies Britain laugh. ibid.
The Comedians made national stars of regional comics. ibid.
Rudeness that was crude and offensive. ibid.
Anger made Bell’s pen drip with vitriol. ibid.
Television also satirised Margaret Thatcher in a comedy show that first appeared on ITV in 1984: Spitting Image. ibid.
Spitting Image didn’t just attack politicians; the programme also went for the British establishment ... Now the Windsors were part of Rude Britannia. ibid.
A generation intent on creating a new kind of comedy ... The Young Ones were getting laughs out of new sensitivities. ibid.
What political correctness demanded was that comedians like Bernard Manning should have no place in television’s mass democracy of rude. ibid.
Banned from television Manning became the new alternative comedy that went underground. ibid.
Viz from Newcastle. ibid.
Rude traditions of northern clubland also lived on. Here the reigning king is now Roy Chubby Brown. ibid.
One series proves that television’s mass democracy of rude can still exist today: Little Britain. ibid.
What rudeness there is has a cordon sanitaire placed around it. ibid.
There has always been a war between rude and crude. ibid.
They’re the saucy seaside postcard classics that generations have grown up on. ‘These fabulous cartoon-like characters brought so much joy and warmth and happiness.’ Carry On: Secrets & Scandals, Channel 5 2023
The most brilliant actors in it. ibid.
But behind the scenes of Britain’s longest running film franchise are secret tales of backstabbing and scandal. ibid.
The cast’s anger at millionaire producer Peter Rodgers. ibid.
What were they so upset about? … Little did we know how much the plucky artistes were suffering for their art … ibid.
… back to the studio and you bought your own lunch. ibid. dude
The Carry Ons were box-office smashes despite the shoestring budgets they were made on. And the man in charge of stretching those budgets to their absolute maximum was producer Peter Rogers. ibid
They were buy-outs. They got a flat fee and that was it. So there were no royalties for anybody. It is quite scandalous. ibid. author
They should pay us for those compilations. ibid. Barabara
Some characters struggled for work. ibid.
The actors felt so strongly about their treatment they even tried to mount a legal challenge. ibid.
The Carry Ons go into battle with the censors. ibid.
Sid James died on stage on April 1976. ibid.
Good evening … Seems to be going all right so far … Spike Milligan, Love, Light & Peace, behind desk, BBC 2023
The Godfather of British comedy. ibid.
Son born this morning. So far has refused to walk. ibid.
India was possibly the greatest experience of my life. ibid.
I just ran out of steam, that’s all. ibid. Spike the soldier
In June 1952 Spike and June married. Peter Sellers was best man. Months after the wedding, Spike and June were expecting a baby. ibid.
In 1958 Spike was comissioned to write an Australian take on the Goonish humour for radio. ibid.
The marriage was already faltering. ibid. daughter
Man: What were you going in the gutter?
Spike: I was meditating in it.
Man: There’s a place for that. ibid.
She was only twenty-five when she married dad. And she took on three children. ibid. daughter
The Bedsitting Room: written, directed and designed John Antrobus & Spike Milligan. ibid. poster
Throughout the making of Q, Spike continued to suffer from depression. ibid.