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This time the Beeb has gone too far.
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Beeb → see → Source
It’s cancelled Santa.
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It → cancel → ?
Yes, but not half as ridiculous as the BBC’s decision to censor sketches from the children’s show Horrible Histories, including an episode that features the writer Terry Deary as Father Christmas.
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that → censor → Christmas
If you’ve never seen Horrible Histories, you’re missing out.
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you → see → Histories
The show first aired in 2009 and, based on Deary’s series of more than 60 books, starred the team who went on to make the beloved BBC1 sitcom Ghosts.
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who → air → sitcom
Every episode is crammed with educational, witty and scabrous sketches, brilliantly written and performed and, above all, historically accurate.
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episode → cram → all
The most revolting facts from history supply the basis for silly re-enactments, the muckier the better.
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facts → supply → enactments
Overflowing chamber pots, farting court jesters, gruesome disembowelments and dank dungeons, Horrible Histories revels in all of it.
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Histories → fart → it
Generations of children have lapped this up since the first book appeared in 1993.
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book → lap → 1993
Deary made learning feel transgressive.
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learning → make → ?
History isn’t supposed to be this much fun.
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History → suppose → ?
If you’ve never seen Horrible Histories, you’re missing out.
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you → see → Histories
Every episode is crammed with educational, witty and scabrous sketches aimed to teach the younger generation about history
Yet the corporation has now removed or edited episodes of the show on iPlayer to meet its ‘guidelines’ – the latest in a series of bizarre cancellations.
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corporation → cram → cancellations
These include scenes featuring blackface in The League Of Gentlemen and Little Britain, and an exchange between John Cleese as Basil and Ballard Berkeley as the antediluvian Major, in Fawlty Towers.
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These → include → Towers
No show is too popular to be safe from the Beeb’s po-faced mission to save us from jokes that might offend.
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that → save → jokes
The recently banned Horrible Histories episode (part six of the first series) includes a satirical skit on no-win-no-fee adverts for injury lawyers, which were endemic on daytime television in the Noughties.
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which → ban → Noughties
A small child in rags is seen working a gigantic factory machine.
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child → see → machine
‘Reconstruction!’ blares a caption, as the wheels trap the boy’s hand.
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wheels → blare → hand
He shows us the bandaged, bloody remains with two missing fingers.
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He → show → fingers
‘He got ZERO compensation!’ brags the voiceover for the imaginary insurance company, Victorian Claims Direct.
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voiceover → get → company
Another segment satirises the Roman system of chaining captives to oars in galley ships.
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segment → satirise → ships
A stewardess takes the slaves through safety procedures, budget airline style: ‘Manacles fasten like this “– click! –” and should be tightened until they are extremely painful.’
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they → take → click
The most innocuous of the banned sketches has Mathew Baynton as a snooty butler and Simon Farnaby (now writer of the Paddington films) as a chimney sweep, summoned to a London mansion to deal with a blocked flue.
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innocuous → ban → flue
‘Not to worry,’ he declares cheerily.
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he → worry → ?
‘I fink a Number Six should clear it.’
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Number → fink → it
Number Six is a boy with soot-blackened face and hair.
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Number → blacken → face
‘Git up there!’ orders the sweep.
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sweep → git → ?
‘Remember what I told yer.’
‘Try not to die,’ recites the boy.
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boy → remember → yer
He finds the blockage and dislodges it – a bigger boy, and then a teen and, finally, Father Christmas, played by Deary, who emerges spluttering in clouds of smoke.
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who → find → smoke
It’s bewildering that anyone could think that offensive.
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that → ’ → ?
How the BBC arrives at the decision to haul these sketches off iPlayer is equally a mystery.
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arrives → arrive → iPlayer
The Corporation’s press office issued a statement yesterday: ‘Edits to programmes on BBC iPlayer are made on a case-by-case basis to ensure they adhere to our editorial guidelines and reflect audience expectations today.
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they → issue → expectations
One censored sketch depicted a young boy as a chimney sweep who was forced to climb a blocked flue and clear it
Supposedly, the censorship is done in consultation with show makers, and the process is not overseen by a specific department.
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process → censor → department
Deary himself is wisely staying well out of it.
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Deary → stay → it
He has previously said: ‘No comment.
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He → say → comment
I just write the books.’
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I → write → books
Whether the bans are done in response to protests is not clear.
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done → do → protests
Perhaps some parent has been appalled by Horrible Histories – that was rather the point, after all.
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that → appal → Histories
But why would the Beeb take a complaint seriously?
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Beeb → take → complaint
Few topics are more sensitive, but this was a send-up of Roman cruelty two millennia ago, which inflicted suffering on people of all races.
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which → inflict → races
…and 22 more, not listed.
The Aporia
