The Times - UK (2022-02-21)

the times | Monday February 21 2022 2GM 13

News

Stars such as Victoria Wood and
Bernard Manning would regard cancel
culture as far less restrictive than the
taboos they were forced to work
around, Russell Kane, the television
presenter and comedian, has claimed.
Kane said he had little sympathy for
present comics’ worries because the
dangers of offending now were less
than in the past. Modern stand-ups
worked in a more relaxed era, he said,
and simply needed to be smart enough
to judge the changes in sensitivities that
have led to a move from older people
being offended to younger
generations.
Kane, a novelist and
former Edinburgh
Comedy Awards winner,
said that comedians
today could joke about
sex and could use
swearing — as seen in
shows such as After Life,
The Inbetweeners, Sex
Education and even chat
shows. He said they had
less to complain about,
though he did not
adhere to the view of
those comedians who
feel that any subject is
fair game, regardless of
what offence it may cause.
“I don’t believe it’s more
difficult to be a comedian
now, speech-wise, than it
was,” Kane said. “If we
were sat with Bernard
Manning, Jimmy Jones,
Victoria Wood, about to
do a gala in the 1970s,
the list of shit you
couldn’t say was much,
much longer. I mean any-
thing to do with any sex, any
swearing — imagine not being
able to use a swear word to emphasise.
“Yes there’s different things that you
can be cancelled for, but they just
replaced the other things that were
much more difficult in the past.”
Kane said that when he first toured in
2009 his comedy would contain
obscenities “mixed with intelligent
stuff” and the people who would walk
out were “always silver hair”, muttering
“I’m sorry it’s not you, young man,

Cancel culture?

At least we can

joke about sex,

says comedian

you’re very nice on TV, but my wife, it’s

a little bit coarse, we’re going to have to

leave”. But in a total turnaround, he

said, “now all the people with silver hair,

they’re the people who first watched

alternative comedy, they’re people in

their seventies, eighties crying with

laughter the ruder it gets.

“People walking out, people aged 15

to 21, who are triggered or hurt — ‘oh

my god, it’s so controversial’.

“So it’s not that it’s more difficult, it’s

public speech where you’re trying to be

provocative has always been difficult.

It’s just difficult in a different way.”

Kane said he did not consider that

any topic was fair game. “The

rule I follow is if everyone’s

put their hand in their

pocket for 20 to 50 quid to

come and see me, and

someone leaves and

they’re upset and

they’re crying in their

car, who am I to have

done that to that person?

“But that’s the working-

class ethic come through.

That’s the only reason I

would never punch

down, not because of

some lefty Guardianista

moral thing.

“If there’s a couple

from Nigeria in the front

row and I do some

horrible joke making fun

of British Nigerians and

they’re crying in their car,

I feel like I’ve failed in my

job, which was for them

who spent their money

— maybe they booked a

hotel and had some

dinner — my job is to

make them laugh, not to

be so edgy someone leaves

crying.”

Geoff Northcott, the comedian

on whose podcast Kane was speaking,

said: “I think there should be that people

have a pop at you and you apologise.”

Kane, who chose “The Life and Novels

of Evelyn Waugh” as his specialist sub-

ject on Celebrity Mastermind, has not

escaped controversy entirely himself.

In 2010, while on the Australian

television show Good News Week, he

made a joke centred on autistic children,

prompting an apology from the net-

work and criticism from the parlia-

mentary secretary for disabilities.

Language police are crushing creativity,

Trevor Phillips, page 26

Ross Kaniuk

JONATHAN WILKINSON/DAVID HOCKNEY

D

avid Hockney

has cemented

his status as

the elder

statesman of

the British art world with

a new self-portrait and

exhibition placing his

works in “provocation”

with the masters of

previous generations

(David Sanderson writes).

Numerous works by the

artist, including the self-

portrait completed in

November, are to be

displayed in Cambridge at

the Fitzwilliam Museum

and the Heong Gallery in

Downing College.

The curators, including

Professor Martin Kemp

and Martin Gayford,

Hockney’s long-time

“Boswell”, are due to

place his works alongside

seminal pieces by artists

including Claude Monet,

Jan Brueghel the Elder

and Camille Pissarro.

The exhibition, which

will open at the two

locations in March,

delves into Hockney’s

explorations of

perspective and space, as

well as his decade-long

preoccupation with

digital art.

Despite his declining

physical state — he has

severe hearing

impairment — Hockney,

84, has continued to be

productive. The

Yorkshire-born artist

spent the first lockdown

in 2020 in a Normandy

farmhouse and created a

series of images

capturing spring on his

iPad. More than 100 were

shown in an acclaimed

exhibition at the Royal

Academy last year.

In 2017 Tate Britain

held a retrospective of his

career, pointing out that

he “continues to change

his style and ways of

working, embracing new

technologies as he goes”.

The new exhibition will

bring together works not

previously exhibited in

Britain. They include

those from his time as a

student at the Royal

College of Art in

the 1950s, his

renowned (and

very expensive)

paintings made in

the United

States in

the 1960s

and 1970s,

collages

and

digital

drawing.

It also

will show

his fascination with the

use of optical tools by

artists before the advent

of photography. After a

visit to an exhibition on

the painter Jean-Auguste-

Dominique Ingres at the

National Gallery in 1999,

Hockney began

experimenting with a

camera lucida. A

selection of drawings he

made using the device,

including of Sir Ian

McKellen and Damien

Hirst, will be displayed.

Hockney’s drawings,

paintings and digital art

will be shown “in a

series of provocative

encounters with historic

works”. The curators

hope this will

demonstrate

“how Hockney

both respects

and diverges

from tradition

and

Renaissance

ideas of

perspectival

space”.

Hockney takes his

place among greats

David Hockney’s

new self-portrait

will be among

the works in

the exhibition

g

nd

x

yp

rule I

put

poc

co

so

th

th

ca

do

“B

e

do

so

m

fr

row

hh

hat

ad

class

That

wo

d

,

y-

any

t being

to emphasise

jo

w

—

h

din

ma

bbbbe so

crying

Geoff No

onwhose podca

e

an

t

hor

ofB

they

I fe

j

How farmers made money in Roman Britain (possibly illegally)

An ancient mausoleum that was host to
the largest illegal silversmithing site in
Roman Britain has been discovered.
Archaeologists found a large amount
of litharge, a lead oxide and by-product
of silver extraction, suggesting efforts
had been made there to obtain the
precious metal.
The 15 kilos of litharge discovered at
Grange Farm, in Gillingham, Kent, is
the largest find ever at a site from the
period. A 15-year research project

began excavations there in 2005 and

2006, before the land was developed for

housing.

The earliest evidence for occupation

at Grange Farm dates to the late Iron

Age, about 100BC, before the site grew

into a small Roman rural settlement in

the late 1st century AD, evolving until it

was abandoned in the 5th century.

Metal extraction took place at one

end of a building, with fireplaces in the

middle and evidence of domestic use at

the other end. Researchers think it like-

ly a large clan was farming, hunting,

keeping animals and metal working.

A gold and silver economy operated

in the middle of the Roman period and

was tied to imperial taxation, leading

investigators to believe the silversmith-

ing may have been illicit.

Dr James Gerrard, senior lecturer in

Roman archaeology at Newcastle Uni-

versity, said: “Was that legal? Quite why

people were refining silver from silver-

rich base metal alloys is a mystery.

Quite what the objects being melted

down were is a mystery too. We might

expect that the refining of silver here

was either being done officially by the

Roman state, or perhaps illicitly. It’s an

unusual aspect to the site.”

The investigators also discovered a

monument, which would have stood at

almost the height of a two-storey

house, proving that the occupant was of

very high-status. In the lead coffin,

investigators found a middle-aged to

elderly woman, who may have been a

leader or chief of the clan.

Dr Gerrard said: “The silver suggests

wealth. The mausoleum is wealth. It

takes resources to build the structure

like the mausoleum and it takes resour-

ces to put someone in a lead coffin. She

had quite a hard life, though. She had

osteoarthritis but lived to a good age.

She was no peasant and she was some-

one with clout locally.”

Russell Kane, top, thinks it was harder
for Victoria Wood to make jokes than
modern comics such as Jimmy Carr