Bernard Levin

[scottycelt]

Connolly probably performs more 'lavatorial' gags than any other comedian, Ams, so he should certainly know ...

To be fair, he can be very funny when he eventually manages to haul himself out of the bowl ...

[amateur51]

Connolly probably performs more 'lavatorial' gags than any other comedian, Ams, so he should certainly know ...

To be fair, he can be very funny when he eventually manages to haul himself out of the bowl ...

Interestingly, Connolly was right at the cutting edge here. Although Whitehouse's case was successful, the mere fact of her bringing it under so ancient a statute so shocked people concerned about censorship that her stock declined rapidly thereafter

[scottycelt]

Interestingly, Connolly was right at the cutting edge here. Although Whitehouse's case was successful, the mere fact of her bringing it under so ancient a statute so shocked people concerned about censorship that her stock declined rapidly thereafter

I think even Connolly might be the first to smile at that. Ridiculing Whitehouse was the favourite pastime of the liberal establishment and media at the time, and he was merely a comedian performing in front of a (then) mostly young and like-minded audience in the 'Swinging Sixties'.

However, like many other professional comedians who know their audience, his real-life personality and views might well be quite different ... who knows?

[amateur51]

I think even Connolly might be the first to smile at that. Ridiculing Whitehouse was the favourite pastime of the liberal establishment and media at the time, and he was merely a comedian performing in front of a (then) mostly young and like-minded audience in the 'Swinging Sixties'.

However, like many other professional comedians who know their audience, his real-life personality and views might well be quite different ... who knows?

Erm this was a supportive comment that Billy Connolly gave to Gay News in 1976/77, scotty, so you're a bit way off beam with your 'Swinging Sixties' there.

[Rumbaba]

He loved Wagner, which has to be good -

So did Hitler, so what?

[Petrushka]

I saw Bernard Levin many times in the RAH, RFH and Barbican and went to a book reading he gave in Bristol in 1988. Best of all, though, was at a VPO concert in the Barbican in 1983 when the great man came and sat next to me. It so happened that I had, previously that same day, attended an exhibition at the Royal Academy entitled, if memory serves, The Glory of Venice, on which Levin had written one of his typically eloquent articles. Unforgettable.

His next Times article was about that very concert with harsh words about Webern but waxing lyrical about the Schubert 9 both of which had featured. He forbore to mention the guy sitting next to him!

BL's Times articles were required reading for me for years and I miss them still.

[Richard Tarleton]

[Richard Tarleton]

So did Hitler, so what?

[scottycelt]

Erm this was a supportive comment that Billy Connolly gave to Gay News in 1976/77, scotty, so you're a bit way off beam with your 'Swinging Sixties' there.

His memorable 'supportive comment' to Gay News in 1976/77 was that Mary Whitehouses's name rhymed with a toilet?

A towering figure is our Billy .. !

[gradus]

I used to see him at the RFH often accompanied by a very attractive female, by no means always the same one. On one occasion he and she were sitiing opposite me and tucking into large slices of gateau during the interval. Whilst he enchanted her with a witticism, the forkful of cake waiting to be popped into her mouth dropped with a barely audible splash into her coffee. Neither noticed, but the silent comedy of the young woman glancing down, seeing no cake and wondering where it had landed, whilst maintaining perfect composure and rapt attention to the great man's bon mots, stays with me.

[Mandryka]

I used to see him at the RFH often accompanied by a very attractive female, by no means always the same one. On one occasion he and she were sitiing opposite me and tucking into large slices of gateau during the interval. Whilst he enchanted her with a witticism, the forkful of cake waiting to be popped into her mouth dropped with a barely audible splash into her coffee. Neither noticed, but the silent comedy of the young woman glancing down, seeing no cake and wondering where it had landed, whilst maintaining perfect composure and rapt attention to the great man's bon mots, stays with me.

Classic! Wish I'd seen that.

BL was a bit of a babe magnet, wasn't he? Which must prove the old adage that the intellect is the most powerful sexual organ of them all. :)

[Mandryka]

I think even Connolly might be the first to smile at that. Ridiculing Whitehouse was the favourite pastime of the liberal establishment and media at the time, and he was merely a comedian performing in front of a (then) mostly young and like-minded audience in the 'Swinging Sixties'.

However, like many other professional comedians who know their audience, his real-life personality and views might well be quite different ... who knows?

Connolly was a leftist when he was younger and, I believe, campagined for Labour in the mid-seventies. More recently, though, I've read that he's become disillusioned with politics and now no longer actively supports anyone. In the last thirty years or so, he's also become extremely rich and presumably now holds a considerable stake in the society that he, as a young, disenfranchised man, wished to overthrow....so maybe that explains his position.

I don't know where people get the strange idea that Mary Whitehouse was homophobic....she brought her action for prosecution on grounds of blasphemy, the offensive thing (to her) being the disrespect shown to the corpse of Christ; if the poem had been about a woman with similar hots for JC, I'd imagine she'd have done the same thing. Besides, Whitehouse had plenty of homosexual friends, who presumably didn't find her homophobic at all.

The poem in question was dreadful, anwyay: Lemon should have gone to the slammer for bad writing, never mind any 'sexual' content.

[Chris Newman]

Classic! Wish I'd seen that.

BL was a bit of a babe magnet, wasn't he? Which must prove the old adage that the intellect is the most powerful sexual organ of them all. :)

I cannot say "What had he got that I had not?" as BL and Robin Day were two of the three famous people I have peed with: both at Broadcasting House (when I sang in the chorus of the BBC Staff Operatic Society (or Ariel Opera as we called ourselves). The other was Sir Mortimer Wheeler whilst at work, but I have told that one here before. OOH, and a British Ambassador to Moscow: but that was when we were at school together.

[Ferretfancy]

There was a famous occasion when a cheerful group of gay campaigners went dressed as nuns to a Festival of Light event with Mary Whitehouse The trick was that every time she opened her mouth, her remarks were greeted with tumultuous cheers. As for her having homosexual friends, I imagine that they would have been well and truly in the closet.
It's curious how those who profess deep religious faith and conviction seem to need need to defend it over such trivial issues as a poem in a magazine.

[Mandryka]

There was a famous occasion when a cheerful group of gay campaigners went dressed as nuns to a Festival of Light event with Mary Whitehouse The trick was that every time she opened her mouth, her remarks were greeted with tumultuous cheers. As for her having homosexual friends, I imagine that they would have been well and truly in the closet.
It's curious how those who profess deep religious faith and conviction seem to need need to defend it over such trivial issues as a poem in a magazine.

No, the friends in question were openly homosexual - I think some of them were neighbours of hers from Colchester.

A 'committed Christian' might well feel duty-bound to seek any redress possible for what they perceive to be blasphemy. One shudders to think how a similarly committed Muslim might react to a poem about someone having equivalent feelings re, the corpse of Mohammed.