It was when I was watching this weeks QI XL on Sunday morning that yet another irrational hatred hit me.
Leaving aside the life of a bloke with so much time on his hands that he can spend time on Sunday morning’s watching QI, it is always good to develop an intense dislike you didn’t know you had before.
The most recent QI, if you haven’t seen it, was its usually delightfully smug, whimsical piece of television except for one important difference – they had a ventriloquist on. And she’d bought her damn puppet.
The lady concerned, Nina Conti – an actress apparently, although I have to confess I hadn’t heard of her - was reasonably funny person on her own. Intelligent too, and pretty attractive, her puppet, on the other hand billed as “Gran” was Nina is not.
It has always struck me that the point of using a puppet as a comedic prop is to say things that, as an ordinary comedian you wouldn’t say, because they are rude, racist, or just plain unfunny.
In Conti’s case she went for two of three, essentially going for the rude angle, and being totally without mirth.
This, though, isn’t to denigrate Conti particularly more the genre itself. Haven’t we moved past the “ooooh you are naughty” type joke? Is there anyone who still finds it amazing that the puppet speaks? Is there anyone who can’t see their lips move?
Isn’t it about time that, rather like the “my mother-in-law” joke they were just left for the anachronism they are?
It was genuinely uncomfortable to watch and spoilt the show. It might just a personal thing, but right from Orville and whatever that monkey was called that Keith Harris also has, to Brian Connolly who gave this blog its title, to the present day I have always hated “comedians” who resorted to using puppets.
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