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TeaShe is the great happiness of this year strictly come dancewhich has long had a tendency towards good behavior and proper behavior, that is la voix, a dazzling drag queen Always closed off and full of self-aggrandizing quips and sidelong withering. He has incorporated a rare sense of comic menace into the show – telling Tess Daly that her dress looks like a bathmat; Craig Revel commenting on the authenticity of Horwood’s hair; I am asking curiously Outgoing Claudia Winkleman How and where should he submit his CV to BBC. it takes two, strictlyThe televised nightly spin-off show has only come alive when La Voix is the guest. Note one recent moment in which a video sent by a well-meaning friend, a standard trope of these reality TV sideshows, expressed fake admiration to La Voix for her fabulous outfit: “Look, when you’re not working or busy like me, you have time to make a dress like that.”
La Voix, the alter ego of artist Christopher Dennis, currently resides in The Tension of the Chaotic Camp by Allen Carr On another BBC smash, celebrity traitorHe, too, is a gay funnyman enjoying the fruits of his ruthlessness – in keeping with the show’s trademark goth-horror showboating, Carr has become more and more wicked over the course of its run, relishing his role as the sweatiest yet surprisingly under-the-radar traitor.
La Voix and Carr both exemplify a kind of comedy that once ruled the primetime schedules of BBC One and ITV – in game shows and chat shows, both serious and satirical – but which was phased out in favor of the anodyne stylings of Stephen Mulhern or Marvin and Rochelle Humes. This humor is sharp, acerbic, a little dirty, and always falls on the right side of meanness: think of Julian Clary, Mrs. Merton, Dame Edna Everage or Lily Savage, where the most insulting comments were fired off with a mocking smile or protestations of complete innocence. They dance a fine line – hit your targets enough and your audience starts gasping in shared recognition (“So, what attracted you to millionaire Paul Daniels in the first place?”); Punch too low and you’re Anne Robinson.
Such Nineties figures, who grew up in working-class men’s clubs and comedy bars, benefited from a television industry – still fueled by the provocative button-pushing of the fledgling Channel 4 – eager to offend and shock in their personas on camera. Savage, portrayed by Glamazon, an ex-sex worker playing the beehive game The late Paul O’GradyWas recruited to present BBC One Blankety Blank just because he was not The droll, deadpan Terry Wogan or Les Dawson, whose comic rhythm defined earlier incarnations of quiz shows. Senior BBC executives gave O’Grady permission to go off-script, vamp until the cameras were off, and express all kinds of gallows humor to ordinary people who were unsuspecting of it (but eager for notoriety).
As a nation, we loved this kind of thing. Each of these “characters”, whether real or unreal, became a defining personality of British TV 25 years ago – Clary, even after facing severe criticism for a scandalous sexual act and an infamous lie involving a Tory MP, seemed to everywhere At that time, a comedian with a gentle face but a cobra’s tongue. Why and how he and personalities like him disappeared from sight is a matter of debate. It is true that this type of dark humor can sometimes become rote for those presenting it. O’Grady largely retired Lily Savage at the turn of the millennium, and mellowed out (but only somewhat) herself to become the host of a long-running evening chat show; Mrs Merton will be succeeded by the late brilliant Caroline Aherne Sharpen his observational, dark mind in scripted televisionMost famously extremely funny and strangely real. royal family,
But it is also true that overall the state of TV has declined a bit, with channels moving from shock to safe. The commissioners still liked the principles of Lilly-Savagian humor – the tug of power; A shocking final blow of a punchline – but it migrated to reality TV, where it was put into the mouths of unsuspecting and unamused people. Gay representation on television has become a little, well, even “respectable” – put it that way. strange eye-Primetime was classified as arrogance and contempt, replacing anger and civility. RuPaul’s Drag Race A budget was found and its edges were cut; Graham Norton stops featuring obscure pornographic websites on his chat show; Dame Edna kept getting cancelled. Yet despite the dilution of prickly, acidic, “dangerous” queerness in the mainstream, gay people still face the most open hostility in the public sphere since the eighties.
One rare silver lining of our current sociopolitical campaign is that such eagerness for benign respectability – led by the well-intentioned but frankly disturbing middle-class liberals who run our television channels – has been thrown out the window. It’s getting worse for (almost) everyone, so why not make a ruthlessly trenchant observation – humorously expressed and presented with impeccable timing – that would make Tess Daly blush? Thank God for La Voix and Alan Carr, paragons of sly, devious elegance currently dominate BBC One’s evening programme. They’re a gay powerhouse that delivers wild, unbridled fun, in a moment where being gay, wild and unbridled has never felt braver – and more necessary. Paul O’Grady would be proud.