mind your language

As I await the Christmas offerings, shiny new socks in hand (or on foot), I spotted Mr Linehan had picked up on this story about Frank Skinner's current experiment, which was also mentioned on Have I Got News For You last night in passing. When it comes to swearing as a Christian, I see people falling in to one of three camps: firmly, and somewhat justifiably, completely against; only occasionally, in the secure comfort of other Christian friends when they feel they can actually be themselves; or to hell with it.

I guess most of the time I can fall in to any of these categories to be honest, but when it comes to swearing in comedy, the waters are murkier still. A recent debate with a certain oversized vidiot has surrounded this. Most of the time, I think swearing is unnecessary; but every now and again, it can be a glorious drop-in of the English language for some comedy. I have very little time, however, for those who use it to take half-assed jokes and make them appealing or funny purely by adding the edge of copious swearing - see the output of many of Channel 4's favourites.

Hence I will always point to Linehan & Co's output over the last few years. Ted, Black Books, The I.T. Crowd and even material from the likes of Big Train have repeatedly given us some of the most side-splitting comedy possible, and what's more, for the most part it has been completely inoffensive. As much as this is tribute to writers' talent, it also goes to show that each of these shows had the skill to be funny without having to fall back on shock value. Of course, on occasion a well-placed bit of cursing has resulted in fantastic humour, but a lot of the reasoning behind this is because of the unexpected nature.

[And no, Father Jack's "swearing" doesn't count here folks...]

So I'm not congratulating Graham Linehan, Frank Skinner and others so much on purely faith-based reasoning (as they would probably be relieved to hear!) but also because in "cleaning up" their acts, they've discovered that even better humour can be produced in more original and novel ways. Huzzah!

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