Catchphrase comedy is a dying art, according to the former head of BBC comedy, Jon Plowman. “Playgrounds and canteens are denied catchphrases,” he writes in the Radio Times, fretting that “the art will be lost.” Which begs the question: am I bovvered? Are catchphrases really on the wane? And if so, is that a meaningful index of the health of UK comedy?
I write as someone who came of age in the “comedy is the new rock’n’roll” era, my university days a blur of “milky milky” and “That’s you, that is”. I thought then, and I’ve thought since (at arena comedy shows, among thousands of people shouting “What’s on the end of the stick, Vic?” or “This is an outrage!”) that catchphrases are the first refuge of the moronic. A chance to participate in comedy without recourse even to the basic skills needed to tell a joke.
Yeah but no but yeah but. On the other hand, it’s no mean skill to distil a character into one pithy phrase and make it so memorable that everyone parrots it in canteens and playgrounds the next day. Plowman is right that there is less evidence of the skill on telly these days, where studio comedy (and sketch, which hatched so many catchphrases) is out of fashion and faux-documentary realism is in. Maybe fatigue kicked in, too, after catchphrases reached their Fast Show apotheosis somewhere between comedy and merchandising opportunity. The surrender of public life to catchphrase (or soundbite) culture – from “strong and stable” to “for the many not the few” – has done the artform no favours.
But the catchphrase is no dead parrot; comedians just wouldn’t let it lie. Away from TV, they thrive – in the work of YouTuber Mo Gilligan, say, whose “coupla cans” catchphrase is so popular, even the rapper Drake has joined in. In such a context, Plowman’s fears that “if young writers don’t see good BBC comedy, they will never learn to write it for themselves,” feels behind the curve. As Corporal Jones might say, “Don’t panic!” – there’s life in the sloganeering comedy yet.
