Promoter Mick Perrin said: “We're in the glam rock era of comedy… and the punk revolution is coming. Ominous words, but do they hold any merit?”
That's one way of putting the state of comedy in British TV. A more prosaic way is to call it “unwatchable”, which top comedian Rick Gervais said so a couple of years back.
And he's not alone. Even John Cheese has commented: “I don't think the writers work as hard as they used to. They may lack experience because I don't think the writing is as good as it used to be.”
Indeed, gone are the days when British comedy reigned on the wee screen. British TV no longer has, in terms of quality and style, the likes of Fawlty Towers, BlackAdder, or even Only Fools and Horses. The only brilliant modern comedy the English have come up with is The Office – and many hold the firm opinion that the Americans made a better version of it.
This isn't to say that you can't find anything funny on the telly anymore. We still have rich shows like Have I Got News for You and Live at the Apollo. But a panel show and a stand-up comedy programme? A Briton living in the 70s would snort at you if you claimed that's the best shows British TV has to offer.
The problem – if one would call it such –is that in the past, the British comedy shows largely relied on dated stereotypes and merciless lampooning. Now, it counts on witty replies and observational humour. But it has to.
It has to because Britons, for better or for worse, have become significantly less hypocritical, snobbish, uptight, easily embarrassed or any other descriptions often attached to the diminishing upper class. One might even say that British comedy suffers because Britons, irony of ironies, have adjusted well with the times.
So what will happen to British comedy? Well, stand-up performers – of which there's no indication of any shortage – are forced to tame down their materials to make it suitable for TV. Perhaps if the censors would just relax a bit, Britain might see a kind of comedy revolution.
So what does Punk comedy actually imply? Comedy for the next generation that want to bypass the laws and do something outrageous with no restrictions, perhaps The Inbetweeners falls into that category already – if anything, Peep Show certainly does. The sitcom is coming back to British comedy in a way that is different from the greats of old, but at the same time in a way that retains and emphasises the funniness of the situation.
Punk comedy? Mick Perrin may be right after all.