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Could Jim Davidson ever make a comeback?

Started by 2 Light Ales Please, February 25, 2011, 01:21:25 PM

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2 Light Ales Please

BBC News' magazine section has an article today about Jim Davidson attempting to seek forgiveness.  He's written a play about himself where he has to fight his demons or some such and says he "misses the fame".

The article is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12569498

Personally, I hope he's never seen again and is kept out of the public eye until he finally rots and dies. It's too late to say sorry, but if he gets Max 'anti-Christ' Clifford to help, I worry that people might begin to forgive and forget. "Oh, he's such a loveable old throwback to a simpler time when being fair to people wasn't the thing to do".

Also, the intro of the article calls Ben Elton "politically aware", I have to admit that made me gag.

What do you think the chances are that Jimmy D could ever find his way back into the nation's affections off the back of Frankie Boyle et al.

Artemis

He's tried it before though, hasn't he? A coupe of times if I recall. Each time he's blurted out some kind of racist or homophobic sentiment, and fucked it up for himself. He's now permanently relegated to 'end of pier' status, the creator of those witless tacky 'blue comedy' DVDs that grandad likes because he was a stupid old racist cunt, too[nb]not your grandad of course, he was lovely - a bit too lovely sometimes though[nb]I'm not saying he was a paedophile[nb]but he probably was[/nb][/nb][/nb]

2 Light Ales Please

Nope, you were right the first time: my granddad is a racist cunt[nb]I still love him though.[/nb], he loves that brand of right-wing shite, especially Jethro who I've never actually seen.

doppelkorn

I think people of my generation who grew up in the 90s mainly know him for presenting Big Break and The Generation Game so I don't really have any direct experience of him being a dangerously right-wing comedian, I just take it as received knowledge. I think he could reinvent himself with some less-enlightened people who are younger or the same age as me, probably via reality TV.

Does anyone have any vids of his worst stuff?

An tSaoi

Unless they bring back conscription, he's never going to reach a wide audience again.

jfjnpxmy

All he needs is for one of those slack jawed, floppy haired, neckbearded mongos that float around 4chan to decide that he's "lulzy" and that pretending to like him will relate, in some vague way, to irony.

SetToStun

I doubt he'll make it back to the limelight - I saw him do a "family" show in Weymouth back in the Eighties and, frankly, if he can't do racism, homophobia and porn gags he quite literally has no act. At one point he sat down at a synthesiser keyboard and got it to make farting noises for fifteen minutes because he needed to pad his very lame act to respectable length.

As Artemis says, he's strictly "end-of-pier" now - apart from his "hilarious" "adult" "pantomimes", which, sadly, actually get theatre space occasionally. I'm looking forward to vigorously ignoring the next one that comes to Southend, in fact.

2 Light Ales Please

Quote from: doppelkorn on February 25, 2011, 01:37:58 PM
I think people of my generation who grew up in the 90s mainly know him for presenting Big Break and The Generation Game so I don't really have any direct experience of him being a dangerously right-wing comedian, I just take it as received knowledge.

I'm probably the same age as you, but he still plies his bigoted trade today. I've always hated him and thought he was a scumbag.

Ignatius_S

Not sure about the 'seven ways to make it back' bit of the article. For example, Les Dennis was cited as an example of 'Play Yourself':

QuoteOne comeback attempt on Big Brother failed to spark a revival, but in 2005 he appeared in Extras with Ricky Gervais, playing himself in a searingly honest appraisal of his faltering career.

That appearance earned him a new-found respect and he has been in demand ever since, currently appearing in Alan Ayckbourn's Drowning on Dry Land in London's West End.

When in fact, Dennis had been doing a lot of stage work before Extras – and I think it was his stint Chicago, which made people sit up and see him in a different light.. It certainly helped Amanda Holden's career, anyway.

Quote from: SetToStun on February 25, 2011, 01:44:18 PM
I doubt he'll make it back to the limelight...
I think people said exactly the same thing when Home James finished in 1990 – but a year later, he was fronting Big Break, the start of a very well-paid 11-year hosting stint for the Beeb.

If I remember rightly, because of that surge in his career, ITV gave him a late-night series of his stand-up.

Dead kate moss

He's right-wing, misogynistic, and most of all not funny... BUT, I must admit that I watched a couple of my dad's live DVDs when I was marooned there at Christmas a few years back, and although his act was of course not funny, I didn't find any racist or homophobic stuff, and at one point he made a little speech about how he loves gay people and then brought on his tour manager who is/was gay and put his arm around him or something. It was a bit like that lost tape of Michael Winterbottom defending some ladyboys against Garry Bushell.

But then soon after he was a right cock on that Hell's Kitchen or whatever, like he self-sabotaged his comeback because he is too proud to jump through the hoops he thinks he has to for modern acceptance.

Again, in his defence - and I am NO fan - didn't he at least write his material/come up with his own characters back in the days when the old style comedians were just nicking racist jokes from each other? I was going to start a thread about all those old comics, and quote Stewart lee from his book when he says the only reason Bernard Manning carried the weight of all his contemporaries sins was that he was the only one the they could remember the name of. As far as I know all those boring comedians on 'The Comedians' and 'Wheeltappers' were equally vile - including a young Paul Daniels who loved some anti-queer material. Tangentially, does anyone know who from that scene was NOT doing racist and homophobic stuff back then, (folk club Jasper Carrott & Billy Connolly types aside)?

If Jim Davidson still cares about comedy, (assuming it's not just because he can't get a new series of Snooker-Loopy or whatever it was called commissioned) and he can come up with good new, thoughtful material, punching up, punching himself... then I'd be interested. I like an unlikely comeback.  But if he turns out to still be an unfunny cunt, fuck him.

2 Light Ales Please

The problem is that he's genuinely a bitter, twisted old cunt. I saw him on the 100 greatest stand-ups thing a few years back and he was babbling on about how much he hates women. He doesn't seem to have a nice side, rather, he's become consumed by his own comedy persona, much like Roy 'Chubby' Brown.

The Cloud of Unknowing

I saw him sitting on his own on the London-Nottingham train years ago looking tired and unhappy with several empty beer cans on the table in front of him, no doubt left by the seat's previous occupant.  I almost felt sorry for him.

Quote from: An tSaoi on February 25, 2011, 01:40:55 PM
Unless they bring back conscription, he's never going to reach a wide audience again.

Here he is entertaining our boys.  To be fair - see 01:20 onwards - he does have a stab at vehemently rejecting the racism of the past in an effort to put it all behind him, referring to it as "bullshit".  The routine that follows in no way contradicts this and couldn't possibly lead anyone to believe he may not be entirely in touch with his issues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKKPbNhTkL4

On the other hand, he does like prog rock so fair play to him.

SetToStun

Quote from: Ignatius_S on February 25, 2011, 02:02:23 PMI think people said exactly the same thing when Home James finished in 1990 – but a year later, he was fronting Big Break, the start of a very well-paid 11-year hosting stint for the Beeb.

If I remember rightly, because of that surge in his career, ITV gave him a late-night series of his stand-up.

It's true that he's a good host for game shows and the like, because he can riff off what other people say and do, but as a comedian he can't go on without exposing his real principles. the inner Jim takes over and that's that. He will always find enough people with similar views to his own that he can get gigs, but that's about it. Hopefully, anyway.

Gavin

Quote from: Dead kate moss on February 25, 2011, 02:02:52 PM
It was a bit like that lost tape of Michael Winterbottom defending some ladyboys against Garry Bushell.

How about Michael Winner defending some lesbians against Richard Littlejohn?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS5S2Dio2_Y

Blumf

Maybe his mate Chalky could give him a hand.

Nelson Swillie


Ah, the Davidson dilemmaTM.

I'm going to do my best not to do all the usual "Jim Davidson eh lads? What a twat eh?" schtick, but the fact remains that, long before this sniggering football hooligan restyled himself as a 'family entertainer' with Big Break and the Generation Game, this man was responsible for one of the absolute worst hours of television I have ever seen in my life.

Back in the early-mid eighties, Jimbo was still trading as a 'blue comedian', and Thames Television, for reasons of their own, regularly gave him his own one-off variety shows, perhaps priming him as the new Benny Hill. (Eventually, not long after Thames sacked the cherubic waddling clown, Central decided that Freddie Starr was the new Benny Hill, but that's another story...)

My mum insisted that I recorded one of his specials, because "they're always good for a laugh". I did as I was told, and watching that show must have caused some long-term psychological damage, because I can still remember chunks of it, so deeply embedded are they in my memory as prime examples of the dregs of British television's admittedly questionable eighties output.

Imagine, if you will, a show scripted by Richard Littlejohn, directed by Garry Bushell and bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch, and you're still nowhere near to grasping just how sleazy, how barrel-scraping, how outright awesome this show was in terms of rancid box-ticking hatred and pleb-pandering. I'd even go as far as saying that, had the entire show been re-edited by someone who hated Davidson intensely, it still wouldn't have been as offensively ghastly as the broadcast product.

There was a sketch in which 'nick nick' took the piss out of his numerous court appearances, playing the cheeky fucking chappie in the dock and baffling the judge and the prosecuting counsel with terms like "Rambo rumpo" (yes, updating a bit of slang that was old hat in the Confessions films by tacking a current cultural reference on the beginning always works, doesn't it, you poisonous cockney twat), which naturally elicited howls of approval from the audience.

There was a sketch, doubtless inspired by 'loveable rogue' Jim's selfless visits to the Falklands to entertain our brave lads, in which Jim underwent an army medical. Close your eyes and imagine a line-up of anonymous bit-part actors in standard army-issue PT strip and some stereotypically bastardy commanding officer pondering "where's that 'orrible Davidson". Now picture Jim Davidson himself, mock-marching into the room, wearing a union jack t-shirt, socks and pants.

If you haven't vomited, allow me to ask - did you laugh?

I'm guessing no, but the audience did. In fact, they reacted like they were present at a combination of the Notting Hill Carnival, Mardi Gras and Evel Knievel jumping over 200 buses on a 50cc moped. Visually, of course, the sketch stank from the getgo, but the dialogue made it worse.

"Sorry I'm late, sarge, I've been with my girlfriend."
"You've got a nerve, Davidson."
"Yeah, it's right on the end of my..."
"DAVIDSON!"

Later in the sketch the age-old "commanding officer grabbing their testicles and asking if they feel any pain" joke came up, complete with crass-as-fuck punchline. Jim felt no pain, not because "I'm in the army now, sir", but because the commanding officer was grabbing the testicles of... the man behind Jim! Those wacky queers eh? They'll even try and bugger you during an army medical.

But the worst aspect of this show, the VERY worst, was undoubtedly Davidson's decision to sing.

I've heard him committing assault and battery on W.O.L.D by Harry Chapin.
I've heard him murdering Twilight by ELO.
I've even heard him demolishing a Richard Digance song, which, let's be honest, is like breaking into a junkyard to fuck the guard dog.

But this was no ropey old cover-version. Oh no. It was a jaunty, upbeat, Chas 'n' Dave styled song with lyrics, possibly written by Jim himself, singing the praises of THE SUN 'newspaper'. How much lower could he aim, I ask you?

"I love the Sun, I really do
I never care what's happening there on pages one and two
I like page three, especially
On days when lovely Linda is waiting there for me
Well you can giggle, you can laugh
But to me, Linda's more than just a photograph
'Cause I love luscious Linda and scintillating Sam
What about the others, mate? I don't give a damn
If the pound plummets
Or there's trouble down the pits
I don't give a monkeys, son
'Cause I've got Linda's bits."

Ha! Do you see what he did there? He made the audience think he was going to say tits. What a wag. Eh, lads? The worst thing about this hour-long spew of half-baked ranting from the diseased mind of the ultimate pro-war, pro-Tory, pro-monarchy little Englander was the very fact that I had recorded it. I had extended its life. And my mother insisted on watching it, again and again, so often in fact that the tape did eventually wear out. Thank Christ for small mercies.

So next time someone says "Oh, Jim Davidson, hardly a hard target, is he? That's just shooting fish in a barrel", think again. The reality is far uglier than you might ever have imagined. For his crimes go beyond mere light entertainment bland-outs or Saturday schedule filler. I remain convinced that this man would gladly show his arse in Harrod's window on a damp Sunday afternoon if it meant that someone, anyone, would hail him as some kind of folk hero or comedy icon.

Jim Davidson - even more of a cunt than you thought he was before you read this.

An tSaoi

Quote from: 2 Light Ales Please on February 25, 2011, 02:11:30 PM
The problem is that he's genuinely a bitter, twisted old cunt. I saw him on the 100 greatest stand-ups thing a few years back and he was babbling on about how much he hates women. He doesn't seem to have a nice side, rather, he's become consumed by his own comedy persona, much like Roy 'Chubby' Brown.

In fairness to Roy Chubby Brown (never thought I'd say that), in one of those top comics list programmes he came across as slightly more intelligent and sensible than he does in his act; there was at least some divide between his stage persona and his real life one.

Anyway, back to Davidson:

Quote from: WikipediaIn Davidson's first autobiography The Full Monty (1993), he frankly talked about his violent and abusive behaviour towards his wife in a light-hearted manner: "We're like a couple of boxers. On the first occasion, I poked her in the eye by accident. I actually went for the mouth. Thank heaven I missed, I'd have fallen in. I just took a playful punch. Unfortunately I caught her completely wrong. The second time I gave her a shiner. I threw a bunch of keys which whacked her in the eye. Just for a giggle she kept blackening it up to make it look worse."

Whadduc Hunt.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

I once saw a clip of a very early TV appearance Davidson made and it was pretty obvious even from that what an enormous turd we were going to have on our hands.

Sovereign

Well, if Private Eye is to be believed, Richard Desmond recently offered Davidson a chatshow on Channel 5, with the instructions to "make it fucking outrageous" but then executives from Channel 5 backtracked on the idea, perhaps having more sense than their boss, refusing to answer Davidsons calls and make the programme a reality.

Glebe

It's hard to accept an 'apology' from Davidson as being genuine after so many years of bigotry. It just screams 'career resusitation'. And I know he was part of a less sensitive generation, but he's carried on with the same old tired, prejudiced jokes for years; the 'I'm just an ordinary bloke' attitude doesn't excue any of it. But maybe deep down he is genuinely remorseful.


Paaaaul

Quote from: An tSaoi on February 25, 2011, 03:45:41 PM
In fairness to Roy Chubby Brown (never thought I'd say that), in one of those top comics list programmes he came across as slightly more intelligent and sensible than he does in his act; there was at least some divide between his stage persona and his real life one.

He was interviewed by Stephen Nolan 4 or 5 years ago on Radio 5, and came across as a better spoken but probably more loathsome version of his stage persona.
He is most definitely a very right wing racist and hater of homosexuals.

Funcrusher

Quote from: The Cloud of Unknowing on February 25, 2011, 02:26:45 PM


On the other hand, he does like prog rock so fair play to him.

Is this true? I remember him banging on about Star Trek a lot at one point. I flicked through one of his autobiogs once and there was a quote from a ST-TNG character at the front.

One problem he has is that, unlike Manning or Forsyth, his comedic/entertainer skills are pretty piss poor.

The Cloud of Unknowing

Quote from: The Cloud of Unknowing on February 25, 2011, 02:26:45 PM

On the other hand, he does like prog rock so fair play to him.
Quote from: Funcrusher on February 25, 2011, 05:42:56 PM
Is this true?

Apparently.  He's mates with Rick Wakeman (another bloke who often seems to be moaning about women/ex-wives), called his autobiography Close To The Edge as a nod to Yes, and suggested ELP's Karn Evil as the new theme for The Generation Game when he started presenting it.  His album of songs -  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Watching-Over-You-Jim-Davidson/dp/B00002MHMC/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1298656415&sr=1-1  4 New and 8 Used, hurry - was produced by Greg Lake.


Louis Theroux could live with him for a while and make a documentary about his current pathetic plight.


Quote from: Ignatius_S on February 25, 2011, 02:02:23 PM
I think people said exactly the same thing when Home James finished in 1990 – but a year later, he was fronting Big Break, the start of a very well-paid 11-year hosting stint for the Beeb.

If I remember rightly, because of that surge in his career, ITV gave him a late-night series of his stand-up.

Not quite, the late night series, Stand Up Jim Davidson, was in 1990, and it was the last thing he did for ITV, then he moved to the Beeb to do Big Break, and in the first one I remember he said "This is my first show for the BBC and if it doesn't work, we're both snookered!". Big Break was such a huge hit at the start, the first one got sixteen million viewers. The worst thing about that show was that they recorded a million at a time and they'd fling them out for years on end so you'd still get episodes in 2000 with 1997 copyright dates.

When both shows ended, he did Jim Davidson's Commercial Breakdown, and in the Radio Times they interviewed him and he said his only telly work was reading the autocue between funny clips. He was on Merton's first series of Room 101, the precise moment that went crap, putting Motown in, the bastard.

Lfbarfe

John Ammonds, producer of Morecambe and Wise, produced one of Davidson's Thames series. I asked John about it and he said "I don't like to speak ill of anyone, so can we avoid the subject of Jim Davidson, please?".

Ha, the Winner/Littlejohn clip there comes from my tape. Small world. It was the first of a series and I already had a horrified fascination with Littlejohn, but I was away that weekend, so I asked mum to tape it. Came back, saw what had happened and vowed never to record over it. Fast forward nearly 16 years, I encoded it and put it on TheBox. The next day, it's on YouTube. I love technology.

Artemis

Quote from: confettiinmyhair on February 25, 2011, 08:15:44 PM
Louis Theroux could live with him for a while and make a documentary about his current pathetic plight.

In all seriousness, if he was still doing those 'Louis Meets' shows (better than the stuff he does now, I reckon), Davidson would be an interesting watch.