Jonathan Barnes
The Entertainer
It seems unlikely that prize-winning author Caryl Phillips was ever a fan of The Fast Show, British comedy’s daft hit of the 1990s. But if he were ever to catch an instalment, one character in particular might intrigue him – Arthur Atkinson, a squeaky-voiced parody of the light entertainment stars of the Second World War, shot in knowingly scratchy black-and-white, whose baffling catchphrase ‘Where’s me washboard?’ provokes hysterics in his audience but makes us laugh only through its overstated quaintness. The joke is reflexive – as notions of humour change through generations, Atkinson’s fate will certainly be that of the show itself, a falling away, first into nostalgia and then to obsolescence.
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