Till Death us do Party

Those of you of a certain age will be instantly thinking ‘Alf Garnett’ when you read those words: in fact in my school the series was known as ‘Alf Garnett’ rather than TDUDP.  For those of a younger persuasion, the series was a ground-breaking sitcom which showed working-class characters as real people and, crucially, in crisis.  Previously working-class characters had been mostly figures of fun; cheery chappies cleaning windows or dim, uneducated figures of fun (the Mrs Mopp tendency.)  Johnny Speight’s script gave us a family in crisis; an angry middle-aged man – racist, sexist and homophobic – who takes out his frustrations on his long-suffering family (an early role for Una Stubbs was as his daughter.)

But why do I mention it now?  Well, it’s because I watched for the first time the BBC sitcom ‘Citizen Khan’, about a Pakistani family where the father is the problem.  ‘Oo – that’s a bit ‘Till Death Us Do Part-y!’ I said to Mark – and then I realised what I’d said.  The father is not as rabid nor as angry as Alf Garnett, and some of the jokes are quite lame but in spite of that I enjoyed it.

Here’s a great clip from TDUDP – ‘Jesus was English’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWKy4RHf5tQ

and here’s ‘Citizen Khan’.  Compare and contrast and then comment…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00vh04w/Citizen_Khan_Episode_1/

Today I shall be mostly… writing an article on Elephants in the Room of the Left.  All will be revealed shortly…

And finally, a photo of Daniel’s I tried to upload yesterday:

Kirk out