adrian monck

Andrew Sachs and two faces of the BBC

For anyone who is angry with the BBC for allowing two radio presenters to bully and humiliate an elderly man, 78-year old actor Andrew Sachs, listen to this programme.

Radio presenter Tim Samuels takes Sachs for a walk through London Zoo and hears about his childhood in Berlin, his Jewish father’s arrest, and the family’s escape to the UK in 1938.

One programme is cruel, crude and funny in a self-debasing kind of way. The other is gentle, informative and moving, in an ‘improving’ kind of way.

Which of the two is worth preserving?

Adrian Monck

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11 responses to “Andrew Sachs and two faces of the BBC”

  1. I really wonder if these to presenters were knowingly making an antisemitic attack when they intentionally tried to belittle Mr Sachs maybe they knew that many of their fans would appreciate a bit of Fascist knockabout fun.

  2. I have listened to both stories. Each had their own merit. one was a work of comedy and the other a serious piece of journalism. I have to say though…. I found the phone calls to be side splittingly funny. Just like the kind of interplay between two good friends when wildly expanding on a silly idea.

  3. @Keith I wouldn’t go that far, although my mind did go back to Sid Vicious wandering the Marais with a Nazi armband on.

    @Ben We can all agree and disagree on how funny it was. Personally I like my humour hard-edged, but my tastes aren’t universal. If giving me a laugh means humiliating an old man, I probably don’t deserve the laugh.

    Bear-baiting was doubtless a jolly good watch in the centuries before television, but nowadays we seem to think we’re better off without it.

  4. Tasteless beyond belief. Brand and Ross should ‘hang’ their heads in shame. And those at the BBC who authorised the broadcast should be sacked

  6. I don’t see what his age has got to do with it. It was unacceptable behaviour because it upset him. It’s not more unacceptable because he’s in his 70s.

    I agree that this particular episode of the Brand show should have been seriously edited – and the editor should have had a stern word with both presenters for stepping over the mark. But to compare Brand’s Radio 2 show as a whole with the lovely documentary piece with Sachs in the zoo and say that one is inherently better than the other is pointless. It’s like apples and pears. Brand’s Radio 2 show has been witty, challenging and thoroughly entertaining for lots and lots of people. There’s room for it all on our airwaves. And it will be a sad, sad day if the BBC decides to stop broadcasting comedy that pushes the boundaries because of this incident.

  7. @Tamsin There doesn’t seem much cutting edge about JR and RB, the former is about as mainstream as it comes – a pillar of R2 and BBC1 – doing the kind of cheekie chappy act that Max Miller would have recognized.

    My problem is this: how does Russell’s show merit the label ‘public service broadcasting’?

  8. That’s your opinion Adrian. And I respect it. But there are hundreds of thousands of licence fee payers (including me) who have listened with joy to Brand’s show each week. If that’s not public service broadcasting then what is? I have loved listening to it because it is very often thought-provoking and always deeply entertaining (this current incident aside). The BBC is here to serve the needs of everyone and the views and tastes of those who enjoy shows like Brand’s are just as legitimate as those who don’t. My fear, based on what has happened in this situation, is that it would appear that some members of the “public” are more deserving of “service” from the BBC than others . . .

  9. The BBC isn’t here to serve the needs of everyone, it’s here to provide public service broadcasting. And right now, what constitutes PSB is up for debate…

  10. I urge you all to look at satanic-sluts.com (although the images may not be to your taste, they’re certainly not to mine!). I would think Mr Sachs would be more embarrassed about who his granddaughter is palling around with. Look at the logo, seen it somewhere before? Check out the promo for the dvd, what’s that emblem on the woman’s arm? That looks familiar! It looks like the same logo/emblem that over 6 million Jews saw before they were slaughtered. Especially when you consider his family fled Nazi Germany in 1938.

    If the family wanted to avoid embarrassment then the WRONG way to go about it was to invite the gutter press on board. A private conversation followed by public apologies would surely have been more beneficial to Mr Sachs.

    As for the calls, I found them quite funny, not malicious and certainly not anti-semitic. That said they probably should not have been broadcast but then surely that’s a management decision.

    I too pay my licence fee but it seems that we have to check with the Sun and the Daily Mail as to what we are allowed to watch and listen to at the moment. I see they’ve moved onto Mock The Week now.