You Never Had It So Rude

The rude expert's view - Dominic Sandbrook

It's a myth that rudeness and obscenity are modern creations: in Britain at least, their roots go deep into our history. To the Elizabethans or the Georgians, the rude comedy of the 1960s and after wouldn't seem shocking at all; it would simply look like more of the same. So you can certainly see things like Private Eye, Not the Nine O'Clock News, Blackadder and even Little Britain as part of a long historical tradition, the only difference being that the medium has changed.

It's often said that television is a great democratising influence but I think the crucial thing about it is something different: the fact that it beams rudeness and obscenity into the living rooms of millions of people who otherwise would be able to shut it out. In a funny way, therefore, the new technology has made rudeness more controversial, not less, because even maiden great-aunts can't avoid hearing or seeing it.

And as far as great rude artists or comedians since the Sixties are concerned, I'd pick out three: Gerald Scarfe as a great cartoonist, Warren Mitchell's creation of Alf Garnett as a great satirical monster whose bad language broke new ground on television; and the team behind Blackadder, who played a crucial role in bringing a moderated form of the rudeness of the 1970s to a mainstream audience a decade later.

Dominic Sandbrook – Historian and author of ‘Never Had It So Good’, ‘White Heat’ and ‘State of Emergency’