The new director-general of the BBC, Tim Davie, has voiced his determination to show more rightwing comedy and less leftwing comedy. Many are concerned, on account of the fact that there are no rightwing comedians worthy of the name.
It’s an unusual job, isn’t it? You could be a doctor and fail to heal a person, but, hey, you would be trained; you would still be a doctor. A comedian, contrariwise, needs to get a laugh, or it isn’t comedy. It’s a minimum two-person job. Ideally, you want tons of people, as many as possible, all laughing, a yardstick of complete inclusivity. It is no job for the rugged individualist, the dedicated Ayn Rand-reader.
This is the kindest possible explanation for the non-existence of rightwing comedy, and it’s the one I’m sticking with.
However, the announcement could not have come at a better time for my sitcom idea. So there’s this house. It’s a bit like The Young Ones, except the flatmates are all people who were previously darlings of the liberal left who, for one reason or another, veered wildly and with velocity in the other direction. When it starts, it’s just Germaine Greer and Morrissey, and they get on OK, but he hates the word “menopause” so she says it constantly, and they, inevitably and vehemently, fall out over the ins and outs of veganism.
It’s actually a three-bedroomed house, so they interview John Cleese, but he is just insufferable from every political and human angle. Instead, Kate Hoey moves in, which is fine up to a point, except that she never does any washing up, which gets right on Germaine’s wick, and the house descends into entropy and squalor – OK, that bit is heavily Young Ones-influenced – as they walk the emotional tightrope of who has and has not been invited on to an LBC panel that week, and whether the invitation related to a personal project, or they were just a representative from Planet Wow Do You Really Think That, Or Are You Just Beefing With the Liberal Elite?
Look, nobody said it would be laugh-out-loud. Sitcoms have different rules.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
