Caitlin Moran: TV has abandoned working-class comedy | ...but is that really true?

Caitlin Moran: TV has abandoned working-class comedy

...but is that really true?

Caitlin Moran has claimed that TV no longer makes comedy about working-class characters.

But she blames social changes more than middle-class executives for the situation.

She told Radio Times: ‘As someone brought up in an ex-mining family on a council estate, it was observable that, in the 1980s, there was such a deliberate, systematic attack on the working classes that it became increasingly hard to write mainstream comedy from that place.

‘Comedy needs your characters’ lives to stay static – they have to be trapped in a frustrating box they can never get out of. But there was such a terrible decline in the lives of the working classes – which continues now – that there was no stable box to write from.’

Despite Moran’s protests, most of the comedies on BBC One and the main ITV channel revolve around working-class families, including Birds Of A Feather, Benidorm, Citizen Khan, Mrs Brown’s Boys, Still Game and Still Open All Hours.

Moran and her sister Caroline are currently crowdfunding to revive Raised By Wolves after it was axed by Channel 4. They are seeking £320,000 to make a single extra episode.

However, with just five days left to go they have still not hit the halfway point. In a separate Radio Times interview, she said: ‘Let’s just see if the fans do want it back and if they don’t, that’s democracy.'

Published: 15 Nov 2016

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