IT IS THAT dreadful time of year again, when intelligent people dress up in ridiculous costumes to perform direly “hilarious” skits and sketches. The entire nation is supposed to join in the fun, anybody who complains is branded a cynic and everybody drones on about how much money it is making. Yes, it is Children In Need. But I was thinking about the new series of Little Britain.

After trying and failing to launch the Little Britain backlash during the previous series, I feared that I might be the only one in the village left cold by the BBC’s most popular comedy. Now others are saying “Nobutnobutno” to the whole Little Britain kerfuffle, accusing the characters of embodying grotesque stereotypes.

I am sure Little Britain has succeeded by chiming with the humanity-baiting mood of our misanthropic times. As the title implies, its attempts at satire aim more at “little people” than the powerful. But none of that would matter so much if it were actually funny. There should be no taboos on cracking jokes. David Walliams and Matt Lucas ought to be free to make fun of whatever they see fit, just as we are at liberty to ridicule their efforts. Comedy does not have to make comfortable viewing. It surely does, however, have to make you laugh.

Take Bernard Manning (no, go on, take him please etc), a man whose bigoted humour offends every contemporary sensibility. In his prejudiced prime he was a very funny gag-teller. Which is why, although both can be thoroughly nasty, I would rather watch a recording of Big Bernard than Little Britain any day. By contrast with Manning’s unapologetically adult humour, Little Britain reflects the cultural trend towards infantilism. If the Harry Potter books are children ’s literature that touches a certain sort of adult, this is “adult” comedy for children who love the T-shirts, catch phrases and toilet gags.

To me, the only really funny thing about Little Britain was the self-justification for the characters that Walliams offered in The Times last month. Apparently, “You want to spend time with them. You don’t despise them. You’re laughing with, not at them.” Among other delights in last night’s episode, you had the opportunity to laugh along with, not at, a batty incontinent old lady peeing on the supermarket floor, two very fat naked women wrestling and a balding ugly bloke in a council flat who got a raw deal from a Thai bride catalogue.

But Walliams topped that line with an explanation of the show’s focus on transvestites, gays and alternative lifestyles that could have come from the little book of Tessa Jowell: “We don’t stereotype,” he said. “We celebrate difference.” So it’s laughalong-a-new-Labour!

Little Britain turns out to be less cutting-edge comedy than comic conformism. Now that is funny.

• I HAVE never understood why serious BBC journalists seem keen to debase themselves like reality TV contestants on Children in Need. It is more excruciating than The Office, without the wit. This year the news team promises to dress up as Queen and sing Bohemian Rhapsody. Hopefully that should at least spare viewers from Andrew Marr in fishnet tights.

  Meanwhile, listeners to the Today programme on Radio 4 could be forgiven for thinking that the big news of the week concerned egg-cups, given the endless plugs for breakfast egg holders featuring the smashing faces of Today presenters (only £12.50 each, with “at least £2” going to the charity. You can now officially get away with anything in a Good Cause. Whether such stunts are more about Children in Need or the needs of narcissistic news broadcasters is another matter.

  Mick.Hume@spiked-online.com

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