Comedy 2009-10: All About Taste

It was all done in the worst possible taste, as the late, great Kenny Everett didn’t say: 2009 started with the fallout of the mother of a ruckus over a radio broadcast that probably three people actually heard when it went out, but more than 30,000 individuals felt they should complain about in the ensuing row. I refer, of course, to the Russell Brand-Jonathan Ross telephone-message jape concerning elderly actor Andrew Sachs. Ross returned to his BBC One chatshow and Radio 2 programme at the end of January 2009, and the ripples still run as we enter 2010. Much has been said or written on the subject, so I won’t add to the blather here - what is more interesting is the incident’s fallout.

It was all done in the worst possible taste, as the late, great Kenny Everett didn’t say: 2009 started with the fallout of the mother of a ruckus over a radio broadcast that probably three people actually heard when it went out, but more than 30,000 individuals felt they should complain about in the ensuing row. I refer, of course, to the Russell Brand-Jonathan Ross telephone-message jape concerning elderly actor Andrew Sachs. Ross returned to his BBC One chatshow and Radio 2 programme at the end of January 2009, and the ripples still run as we enter 2010. Much has been said or written on the subject, so I won’t add to the blather here - what is more interesting is the incident’s fallout.