Nasty Girls: Interviews

Should We Be Laughing?, Radio 4
Women's Hour, Radio 4

TRANSCRIPT OF "SHOULD WE BE LAUGHING?" BROADCAST TUESDAY 17TH FEB., 2004, AT 11.30am , on BBC RADIO 4

Title: Should We Be Laughing? Programme 1
Network: BBC Radio 4, Feb 17th 2004; 11.30am
Producer: Turan Ali, Bona Broadcasting Ltd.
SHOULD WE BE LAUGHING?
Programme 1

A two part series on comedy's treatment of disability - Programme 1 explores comedy by non-disabled comedians - Programme 2 explores comedy by disabled comedians

Presenter � Francesca Martinez

Clip - Jake the Peg (Rolf Harris)
(SUNG) I'm Jake the Peg, with my extra leg, wherever I go through rain and snow, the people always let me know, there's Jake the Peg, with the extra leg.

Francesca: Hello, I'm Francesca Martinez and in this two part series we'll be looking at how comedy handles the subject of disability. I'll be presenting lots of different opinions, though not all views expressed are my own. Over the years, comedy about disability has usually been two things; firstly, pretty poor, as Rolf Harris so ably just demonstrated, and secondly, it's been at the expense of disabled people. But it's not really surprising. Non-disabled people get so awkward in the presence of disability � as Ricky Gervais, playing the great David Brent in The Office ridicules so well.

Clip - The Office, BBC 1

"There are things that I would never laugh at, the handicapped, because there's nothing funny about them, or any deformity. It's like when you see someone look at a little handicapped and go oh look at him, he's not able bodied � I am, I'm prejudiced, yeah well at least the little handicapped fellow is able minded � unless he's not, its difficult to tell with the wheelchair ones, so just give generously to all of them."

Francesca: Yes, prepare to have your political correctness go a bit wobbly as we review classic and modern examples of comedy about disability that make us ask, "Should We Be Laughing?" In next week's programme we'll be exploring the cutting edge of comedy about disability by disabled comedians, myself included, and we'll hear how and why disabled people are taking to stage, screen and microphone all over the world to push the boundaries of mainstream comedy. But in this first programme we're reviewing the many years of comedy about disability by non-disabled comedians. And we'll explore the claim that most successful British comedies of the last forty years have had disabled characters as figures of fun. But before you start thinking it's all going to be po-faced and that disabled people don't want to laugh about disability at all, rest assured we'll hear some well-observed and truthful examples of comedy about disability that disabled people welcome.

There is nothing new about laughing at disability, it's been around for centuries, as Colin Barnes, Professor of Disability Studies at the University of Leeds explains.

Clip Colin Barnes interview extract.

"It can be traced at least as far back as the ancient Greeks and Romans, it was quite common for wealthy Romans or wealthy Greeks to keep people who were perceived as abnormal in their homes as pets or objects of ridicule, the legacy of all that of course is reproduced throughout medieval Europe. In the middle ages disabled people or disabled children were often exhibited at local fairs as objects of curiosity and ridicule. Court jesters were often disabled or deformed people, indeed short people or what we sometimes refer to as dwarves have a long history of playing the court jester or the fool. Elizabethan joke books of course are full of jokes focusing on peoples abnormalities or assumed absurdities, this all developed into an industry in the 19th & 18th centuries of course with the emergence of the freak show, and when asylums came into existence across Europe it was not uncommon for asylums to open their doors to the general public so the people could actually come in and laugh at people with mental health problems, so the idea that disabled people are objects of ridicule is not really new and its not really surprising that its quite common in contemporary humour."

Francesca: And one of the simplest ways to laugh at disability is to mock the physical characteristics of an impairment, such as Corporal Jones in Dad's Army and his malaria attacks, Jack Douglas in numerous Carry-On films whose comic turn is reminiscent of an epileptic fit, Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks which ridicules any walking impairment and Ronnie Barker's character Arkwright in Open All Hours whose stammer is frequently mocked to get an easy laugh.

Clip Open All Hours.

Arkwright "One tin of soup now Mavis now thank you, l-l-large or small?"
Mavis "Large� No, small"
Arkwright "Oxtail, mulligat-t-t-t-mumumulimumulaga.mm-m-m-mtomato?"

Francesca: If laughing at disability is such a timeless behaviour for non-disabled people, why do they do it? Dr Tom Shakespeare of the University of Newcastle, one of whose specialisms is disability studies, another is stand-up comedy, sees a number of pay-offs.>/p>

Clip Tom Shakespeare interview extract

"Laughing at the outsider as it were strengthens your sense of identity and your group dynamic if you like, so I don't think there is anybody who is spared. People have always found those who look different or behave different to be figures of fun, it's a kind of way to bolster your own social norms by denigrating others"

Francesca: But why do some comedians attack minorities such as disabled people, in their comedy? New Zealand stand-up comedian Philip Patston, who self-defines as a gay vegetarian with a wheelchair addiction, and disabled comedy performer Mandy Colleran think the root of disablist comedy from some non-disabled comedians has a rather basic drive behind it.

Clip Montage of Philip Patston and Mandy Colleran

Philip: "If you do a disabled joke you're really getting onto an easy laugh because you know the audience is going to have some level of discomfort and you know that your almost guaranteed a laugh and so personally I think its laziness."

Mandy: "I just find it quite lazy and crass in a way that, you know, people use it taking the micky out of being short or having a speech impediment in a way just for a cheap gag so its not necessarily particularly well though through or well researched humour its just whatever will get a cheap and quick gag, you know for me it's the same as the kind of sixth form boy humour about farting and things like that which I just find really boring."

Francesca: Comedy and entertainment about disability over the years has evolved the portrayal of disabled people into almost a science. Professor Colin Barnes identifies eleven commonly recurring media stereotypes of disabled people, including being seen as pitiable and pathetic; as objects of violence; to provide atmosphere or as curios; as burdens; and most applicable to comedy, as objects of ridicule.

Clip Colin Barnes interview extract

"It's particularly prevalent in contemporary society and has only recently become a major issue for lots of disabled people because it has a major impact on peoples self esteem particularly children, I know at school I was very self conscious about wearing thick glasses because there were comics like the beezer where you had comic characters such as Colonel Blink the short sighted gink I think the subtitle was now he was always bumping into things and seemed to be a fool and so on and so forth, and its quite common another famous character that's aimed at young people and children in particular of course is Mr Magoo which is the same kind of depiction, many people actually do make jokes about disabled people in contemporary society so it is an issue for lots of disabled people. Only recently there was a demonstration at the House of Commons by people of short stature for the way in which they were depicted in the media with particular reference to negative images and ridicule."

Francesca: A very recent example of just this involved author Will Self and presenter Johnny Vaughan, so-called comedy which particularly disappoints Tom Shakespeare.

Clip Will Self & Johnny Vaughan on dwarves

Clip Tom Shakespeare interview extract

"It was sort of sick humour if you like it was sort of outrageous humour, but it was, a lot of people were very upset by it because it seemed to legitimise the sort of staring and hostility and mockery that lots of restricted growth people experience so and you know these are brainy guys and their on mainstream telly and they're role models and, they would never have said that about black people or gay people. But of course, people who are very obviously impaired for example restricted growth people, or cerebral palsy people or people with disfigurements or scars or unusual physics, they're the ones that are more likely to be figures of fun."

Francesca: The other common media stereotypes of disabled people that have been identified include being their own worst enemies; being super cripples who can overcome any disability; being sexually abnormal � either sexless or deviant such as the hunchback of Notre Dame and Phantom of the Opera; being incapable of participating fully in community life; and of course, the old favourite of being sinister and evil.

Clip Colin Barnes interview extract

"The disabled person as sinister and evil is probably the second most common stereotype because in historically, deformity if you like has always been seen as a major factor in triggering antisocial behaviour there are a number of examples that can easily spring to mind if you think about the James Bond villains, most of them have some form of deformity. If you think about children's stories, wicked witches are always depicted as ugly or deformed in classical literature there are a number of obvious stereotypes, blind pew for example in Treasure Island all these images portray disabled people as somehow negative, nasty, evil, it's a very common stereotype and it permeates children's literature as well which is particularly important."

Francesca This all gives young and old a chance to combine disability with some form of monster image. In its milder forms, comedy often shows disabled people as monsters of selfishness and rudeness like this less than sympathetic portrayal of a deaf woman in Fawlty Towers, which also throws in a bit of ridicule of her deafness for good measure.

Clip Fawlty Towers

Francesca: So given their long history of disablist comedy, should non-disabled comedians tackle the subject of disability? Nathalie Markham and Ann Cunningham of the disabled comedy trio The Nasty Girls don't have a problem with it in principle; nor does Mandy Colleran or Philip Patston, but there are provisos. Incidentally, Nathalie isn't being bossy in speaking for Anne. As Anne is deaf, she is typing her answers for Nathalie to read out.

Clip Nasty Girls, Mandy Colleran, Philip Patston montage.

Nathalie: "Anne was saying that personally she wouldn't say that non disabled comedians shouldn't do comedy about disability for example because if you look at Peter Kay its probably one of the best disabled characters that you've seen on television I would say, I think it hits a mark with disabled people. But the point Anne was making is what really need to know what they are talking about otherwise it will just come out as crass."

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Mandy: "I think for me, good comedy like any kind of good performance or even good literature or good art is about when its good it about something that's truthful its about something the people recognise. If a non-disabled comedian in terms of observation has hit upon some kind of truth and so represents disability or talks about disability in a way that kind of has some truth to it then I think the quality of that will probably be okay. I think it's debateable as to you know, how truthful you can be about an experience that is not yours."

Philip: When it comes to judging material that needs to be left to the audience and whether they're filling houses rather than having kind of a moral police saying hey you can't talk about this and you can only talk about such and such if you say it in this way."

Francesca: But it is a slightly different matter when disabled characters are routinely played by non-disabled actors. Caroline Parker, a deaf comedy actress many of you will have seen in Dawn French's TV series Wild West, is not impressed by this.

Clip Caroline Parker interview extract

"If you're going to use disability humour in your programmes, why not have a performer with a disability in your programme. I was watching Will & Grace last week, that's a very funny programme and it's got gay issues in it and I was amazed to hear that the lead character in it, is not actually gay and so I was amazed by that in this day and age. I don't know if it's okay or not with the gay community, I have no idea. But if it was a deaf character and it was played by a hearer, I think there would be uproar. People don't black up anymore so why should they gay up or crip up as we call it we say oh he's cripping up. And there is no need for that now, there is a lot of talent out there".

Francesca: We promised earlier to explore the claim that most successful British comedy in the last forty years had used disabled characters as figures of fun. Well, that claim was made to us by disabled comedian and academic Laurence Clark. First he had to clarify who he meant by disabled people, which is, of course, a matter of self definition.

Clip Laurence Clark interview extract

"People who define with the term disabled person can be deaf or have a hearing impairment or a visual impairment, they may be people with learning difficulties or physical or speech impairments, they may be people with restricted growth, be HIV positive or have aids or they may be people who are experiencing mental distress so the category covers a far wider section of the population than is generally thought".

Francesca There are many disabilities on this list which most non-disabled comedians would be unwilling to create comedy about. But it seems many people are still very happy to laugh at the disabilities involving mental distress and at survivors of the mental health system. These disabilities, including learning difficulties, are still fair game for comedy and ridicule, and most of our favourite sit coms are at it, as Laurence Clark explains.

Clip Laurence Clark interview extract

"There's a tradition in British comedy dating back to the time of Shakespeare to laugh at the characters lack of intellect they actually used people with learning difficulties in comedy and I think we still see that today with characters like Alice Tinker in The Vicar of Dibley, Father Dougal in Father Ted, Bubble from Absolutely Fabulous, Mickey Love in A league of Gentlemen, Frank Spencer - Pike in Dad's Army, Trigger in Only Fools and Horses, and of course Baldrick in Blackadder".

Clip Blackadder

Francesca: The other thorny issue for non-disabled people is that of language. What words to use, which ones are no longer acceptable and which are only for disabled people to use. The Nasty Girls are very clear about the matter.

Clip Nasty Girls

Nathalie: "The words that we would be prepared to use but we wouldn't expect non-disabled people to use or to feel comfortable about using would be things like deafy, handicapped, cripple, window licker, spastic, all of these things appear in our show, but we would obviously would have something to say if non-disabled people were to start thinking it was okay to use that kind of language. Nutter, nutter's another example."

Francesca: Jasper Carrott, you're right on cue.

Clip Jasper Carrott

"When your on a bus, when the nutter gets on the bus does the nutter sit next to you? The nutter always sits next to me, do you know that? Why is that, why do I always get the nutter. I'm the same as everyone else. It happened the other day, I got on the top deck of the bus, minding me own business, bus stopped and a couple of people got on, start up and then you hear the nutter coming up the stairs,
"Eeeeeeeh - has anyone seen my camel?"
"It's a nutter, Please god, don't let the nutter sit next to me?"

Francesca: Whether we are aware of it or not, we all have our own definition or model of disability. What makes the difference between disablist humour and non offensive humour about disability is which definition you use. Tom Shakespeare explains the two different models of disability, starting with the medical model.

Clip Tom Shakespeare interview extract

"The traditional way of looking at disability is to think of disabled people as people with things wrong with them. That we are defined by our impairments, you know, we can't walk, we're not very tall, we can't see - you are defecate as it were. The social model of disability which is what disabled people themselves prefer and came up with suggest that our real difficulties are about social reaction and social barriers so for example people are disabled by society and not by their bodies. And this points attention to the fact that it's the sort of prejudice or the ignorance or the discrimination of others that causes the big problem"

Francesca: So if your view of disability is from the medical model, seeing it as illness and incapacity, you'll probably create comedy that sticks to the good old stereotypes we listed earlier. But if you see disability through the social model, in terms of barriers put in the way of disabled people, a whole new world of truthful comedy and observation is possible as is superbly displayed by The League Of Gentlemen in the following sketch with a blind character. Laurence Clark sees a very welcome trend here.

Clip Laurence Clark interview extract

Times are changing and more and more I do see comedy involving disabled characters that I actually quite like for example The League of Gentlemen there's a very good sketch with a character Ernest Foot who is a non-disabled person who desperately wants to understand and be friends with the disabled people that he meets, however he constantly gets its wrong, it's obvious that his attitude is the disabling factor rather than the fact that the person has an impairment.

Clip League of Gentlemen

Ernest "There's a man sitting next to you, not another man, me, I am, I just thought you ought to know"
Blind man "Thank you"
Ernest "Oh, that's alright,It's a lovely day"
Blind man "Yeah"
Ernest "No I'm telling you � it is a lovely day, hardly any clouds in the sky, you are in a park on our bench, talking to a man � me, am I shouting?"
Blind man "Sorry?"
Ernest "Am I shouting?"
Blind man "A little, yes"
Ernest "I thought so, I expect your ears are more finally tuned than an average, normal healthy persons aren't they"
Blind man "They are important yes"
Ernest "Keep your specs on for one thing"
Blind man "They forecast rain again later this afternoon"
Ernest "I beg your pardon?"
Blind man "They say it will rain again this afternoon"
Ernest "Well how would you know, did they write it down for you in that bumpy writing?"
Blind man "No, it was on the television"
Ernest "Oh!, oh good, no good for you".

Francesca: In recent years there have been more non-disabled comedians tackling the subject of disability with quality comedy and without reinforcing the damaging stereotypes we heard about earlier. But there's still a way to go. Next week we'll explore what comedy disabled comedians are producing but we leave the last word to Anne from the Nasty Girls, for who Nathalie sums up the acid test for good comedy perfectly. Until next week, goodbye.

Clip Nasty Girls interview extract

Nathalie: "This is from Anne. I was watching a video earlier where a performer � I think he's Canadian, called David Roach he has a facial disfigurement and he says "my face is unique, but my experience is universal" which sums it up very nicely, and that is definitely where the best comedy comes from in recognising both a uniqueness and the universality of experiences".

Continuity: Should We Be Laughing was presented by Francesca Martinez, written and produced by Turan Ali and was a Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 4.

BBC RADIO 4 - WOMEN'S HOUR - Interview by Jenni Murray, Broadcast December 2003

NATALIE: Thank you Mr Dyke for inviting us here today. Now we at Nasty Girls Productions believe that disability needs to be more present in mainstream programming. But we thought ourselves rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, why not take some of the programmes currently on our screens and add a little bit of a disability slant to them. So here's just a few ideas we'd like to run up the old flagpole.

LIZ: Okay how about this, how about going for lifestyle angle, always popular, can Phil and Kirsty beat the clock and find one woman a hospital within a 20 mile radius of her home that will give her a hip replacement operation, they only have 2 years to do it, perfect! Dislocation, dislocation, dislocation.

NATALIE: Well no no no wait, don't go! I can sex it up. Hilarious home cam footage of very old people as the care home they've lived in for 10 years is shut down and they're forced to move. You've been Zimmer framed! A light-hearted look at euthanasia? They think it's all over? Crazed spin bifida serial killer seeks vengeance on people who make temporary, wobbly wooden access for wheelchairs, Biffy the ramp higher slayer, impairment specific chat show, Parkinson's!

JENNI: How did you discover you had the same sense of humour?

LIZ: Well luckily we found ourselves on the same course erm and it was a two week course where we were working erm with other disabled people to produce a piece of drama and by the end of the week we had to perform, by the end of the two weeks and erm to be honest we didn't really click with anyone else and we kind of revolted against the group and against the director as I recall and I think there's nothing like a bit of erm animosity to get people together and we erm we just clicked, we just that was it.

JENNI: And Anne what was it about your sense of humour that made you click?

ANNE: Well the thing about the course was it was quite pretentious. We also didnt have much conrol over what we finally produced.

LIZ: By the end of the two weeks, we had to produce this piece of theatre and they'd created a very artistic stage where there were these see through tubes coming down from the ceiling and they wanted all the cast, bearing in mind this was full of disabled people, they wanted all the cast to get in a tube and dance kind of like 'Tales from the Unexpected' Well the problem for me and Anne was as a wheelchair user I certainly wasn't getting in one of the tubes, it wasn't wide enough and Anne, well you know, she was too fat for the tube as well so to be honest the two of us.

ANNE: That's right I was but also the people who actually got in the tube, I mean we were sat at the back sort of like the two naughty girls sort of grumbling about everybody else on stage.

JENNI: And Natalie you joined the group later, how did you get involved?

NATALIE: Well I sort of I'd known Anne for a long time and Liz a little bit erm and I'd done a little bit of comedy stuff in the past and I was really waiting round for them to ask me to join and I was patiently waiting for that and blatantly they weren't gonna do that so in the end I begged really and said 'come on'.

LIZ: Yes you did definitely.

JENNI: Now Liz you're called 'The Nasty Girls' the show you've been touring with is called 'Mullet of Crypt Tale'(sic....this is what was on the BBC transcript. The show was really called Molotov Crip Tales ...but Mullet of Crypt Tale gives the imagination much more scope, don't ya think???) which you know some people might be rather shocked by, is that the intention?

LIZ: Oh yes, oh yes no doubt about that yeah, why make people comfortable with something when you can get a response I think and erm I mean it was just, we had to produce a title for a show because we did Edinburgh Fringe this year and you have to plan it so many months in advance and we hadn't written the show at that point so what we needed was erm you know an eye and an ear catching title and erm we just thought 'yeah, it's an explosive show' and we liked the play on Crypt Tales and we feel that gives you an idea of who we are from the start.

JENNI: So just give me some examples of what kind of sketches. I mean we've heard one of the pieces that that you've done, what are the subjects that you've actually tackled?

ANNE: Well one sketch is about the idea of using Guide Dogs but we actually think well 'what if guide dogs stopped, what could we use instead, what other animals could be called a guide animal?' so we've had some ideas about that a guide kangaroo, a guide dolphin and one of the things we showed well you know if you had a guide kangaroo, how useful that'd be to do your shopping as well.

LIZ: One of the show erm stopper really what we end with is erm a sketch called 'Scientists' and that began from just a love of there's a song called 'Perfect' originally by Fairground Attraction, and erm we just liked that idea about looking at disability and the way that we're viewed as faulty, our bodies don't work where you know the erm public perception often of disabled people not seen as attractive as whatever but you then have us in our white coats and certainly you know the size of me, it's a huge white coat, we then have novelty glasses on and we do the whole stereotype scientists thing and we have these very very powerful lyrics that we've you know put to the song 'Perfect' and we sing in this madcap way and it's actually about killing off anybody who is not perfect in any way and of the things we like is that you know the irony is the people usually making decisions like that usually aren't exactly perfect themselves. There's a part of that sketch where we have video clips and we go round catching disabled people with a huge net erm and taking them as sort of hostage, we've got them we've eradicated another one. So we have it's almost like The Goodies, all those things together.

JENNI: I should mention that your white coat is huge cos you are actually quite small?

LIZ: Indeed.

JENNI: But people Natalie are still very uncertain about what kind of language they can use when they talk about disability. So how important a part of your humour is that playing with language?

NATALIE: Well I suppose yeah, I mean a big part of our humour is playing with language and a lot of what the material that we use is wordplay and it is also, so it's partly about the jokes and the wordplay side but it's also about pushing the boundaries of how we do talk about ourselves as disabled people and other disabled people as well and I think some audiences can feel either very nervous around that or feel quite precious around it and we blow that whole thing apart really and don't tell anyone what they should use or what they should think, we just present it the way we see it and people make their own minds up.

JENNI: And Anne given that you can't hear and obviously we're signing at this interview, what are the difficulties for you of performing live on stage?

ANNE: Well I'm surrounded by these two actresses who are both hearing so when I'm actually on stage myself I have to decide perhaps I'll use an interpreter or I'm going to perform on my own, and we're actually going through a period of development now where we're using a mixture of both, sometimes I actually use another actress and they might mirror what I'm doing so if I'm signing, another actress is stood on the stage mirroring exactly what I'm signing in voice.

JENNI: Now Liz, the show's been described as a hit back against disabled prejudice, is that how you would describe yourselves?

LIZ: I think we describe ourselves as funny. [Laughter] Maybe we're delusional but no I think that's more important to us really is that what we do is good comedy and erm and the fact that it it may hit back is that I don't think we're afraid to present people with stereotypes and with a twist so I think we confront people with the way that disability is viewed, not because we're trying to make a point actually, just because a lot of our comedy comes from our real lives and erm and that's what we face, that's what we experience so what we provide for people is our twisted usually view of life and how ridiculous it is and that's where a lot of the comedy comes from.

JENNI: There is Natalie a quote on the website from an audience member which says 'that was disgusting! This has been the worst night of my life' is it genuine or did you put it up there yourselves?

JENNI: But what do you think it was that most disgusted them?

NATALIE: Difficult to say erm it's one of two things, it's either about missing the point of our material and in terms of what we're saying and what we're exploring in terms of disability or it was picking up on much more bog standard things like swearing, erm and that our show isn't full of swearing but there are occasional bits and the occasional bits that are there are pretty strong.

JENNI: It is Liz notoriously hard for women to make it in comedy still. I mean even now, is being an all female group an asset or does that just add to the difficulties?

LIZ: I think it's both, I think it's probably both. I think we I think we stand out because of who we are, because we're disabled women so there's not there are not many disabled women performers around so we stand out in that respect and we've had quite a lot of support and there are some brilliant brilliant female comediennes but the majority [inaud] non of the Perrier nominees were women this year, we felt we were in a huge competition to prove ourselves erm and we didn't really like that, we didn't really like having to buy into that.

JENNI: I think Natalie you found that the only show that you could go to in Edinburgh was yours [over talking]

NATALIE: It was our own. Interestingly enough yeah, there was nothing that was either well that was both accessible and interpreted so yes an unfortunately of course we were in our own show so Edinburgh was not the greatest experience for us.

JENNI: Are you planing a tour for 2004, have you got any idea yet what you're going to tackle in the new sketches?

ANNE: One of the things that we'd really like to do is develop our own characters.

LIZ: We haven't got a list of things that we want to do but we know we want to work with characters next time, a lot more than we currently do.