0:00:03 > 0:00:07This programme contains strong language and some scenes of a sexual nature.
0:00:07 > 0:00:11In 1837, when Queen Victoria came to the throne, respectable Victorians
0:00:11 > 0:00:14looked forward to living in a moral and upstanding nation.
0:00:17 > 0:00:20But to their dismay, there would always be a different,
0:00:20 > 0:00:22ruder country.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31In Rude Britannia, life was celebrated in music halls,
0:00:31 > 0:00:34with bawdy humour...
0:00:34 > 0:00:36and lewd songs.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42Outrageous! Stop it right now!
0:00:45 > 0:00:50In Rude Britannia, new technologies created mass-produced offence.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54The shock of the rude nude photograph.
0:00:57 > 0:01:00The comic, whose boozy satirical star stuck
0:01:00 > 0:01:03two fingers up to polite society.
0:01:07 > 0:01:08No more of this filth!
0:01:08 > 0:01:11And in Rude Britannia, you could enjoy
0:01:11 > 0:01:14the cheeky carnival of the seaside,
0:01:14 > 0:01:17a place of saucy peepshows...
0:01:18 > 0:01:22..and smutty picture postcards.
0:01:22 > 0:01:23Stick of rock, cock?
0:01:26 > 0:01:29For over 100 years, a war waged.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32On the one side, a naughty nation. On the other,
0:01:32 > 0:01:38a country of Victorian values, now claimed in the Queen's name.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42With battle lines drawn,
0:01:42 > 0:01:43who would win?
0:01:46 > 0:01:50Rude Britannia presents bawdy songs, lewd photos
0:01:50 > 0:01:55and the most hand-wringing moral melodramas of Victorian values.
0:02:07 > 0:02:12Already, by the first years of Victoria's reign, Britain was
0:02:12 > 0:02:16experiencing extraordinary change created by industrial revolution.
0:02:28 > 0:02:32Thousands were pouring into cities in search of work.
0:02:32 > 0:02:39Manchester grows to 300,000 people, Liverpool up to 260,000 people.
0:02:39 > 0:02:45This is a new civilisation which the world hadn't seen before.
0:02:46 > 0:02:50In these cities, a new urban working class was born.
0:02:53 > 0:02:57And wherever they could, they created their own rude culture
0:02:57 > 0:03:00of pleasure, revelry...
0:03:00 > 0:03:02and escape.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05What you really get is so many people living in
0:03:05 > 0:03:08and enclosed area and entertainment springing all around you.
0:03:08 > 0:03:10So you got entertainment in the pub, you got entertainment in
0:03:10 > 0:03:13the brothels, you got entertainment on the fair.
0:03:13 > 0:03:17And it was everywhere, and anyone could do it.
0:03:17 > 0:03:21Rough-and-ready places for drink and song, called penny gaffs,
0:03:21 > 0:03:25exploded in numbers on the meanest of street corners.
0:03:26 > 0:03:30# Oh, me name it is Sam Hall Chimney sweep, chimney sweep
0:03:30 > 0:03:33# Oh, me name it is
0:03:33 > 0:03:36# Sam Hall, chimney sweep. #
0:03:36 > 0:03:38Enterprising people, not necessarily
0:03:38 > 0:03:44with a theatrical background, would take any vacant space in which
0:03:44 > 0:03:48a rough stage could be put up and they would charge people
0:03:48 > 0:03:50a penny to come in and see it.
0:03:54 > 0:03:59Into these places would be crowded all the street people from the
0:03:59 > 0:04:04surrounding area, particularly the young, particularly young men.
0:04:04 > 0:04:08There'd be drinking in these places, there'd be a lot of bawdy talk.
0:04:08 > 0:04:11There would probably be sexual suggestiveness,
0:04:11 > 0:04:14maybe some sexual activity.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18In the penny gaffs, a rowdy crowd
0:04:18 > 0:04:23drank, laughed at lewd banter and sang along to rude, bawdy songs.
0:04:23 > 0:04:27# Oh, the parson he did come And he looked so fucking glum
0:04:27 > 0:04:32# And he talked to kingdom come Damn his eyes, damn his eyes
0:04:32 > 0:04:36# He can kiss my bleeding bum Damn his eyes. #
0:04:38 > 0:04:40The working-class young
0:04:40 > 0:04:44were wage-earning from a very early age, certainly by the early teens.
0:04:44 > 0:04:49They had, if you like, a certain disposable income and they feature
0:04:49 > 0:04:54largely in the audience, often up in the balcony or the gallery,
0:04:54 > 0:04:56often noisy etc.
0:05:01 > 0:05:05Rude, common people were a threat to another class
0:05:05 > 0:05:09that also jostled for space and influence in the Victorian city.
0:05:11 > 0:05:13The middle class
0:05:13 > 0:05:19had a fierce belief in themselves as the guardians of public morality.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22The middle classes were rational, they were intelligent.
0:05:22 > 0:05:24They went to work on time and they looked after
0:05:24 > 0:05:26their families and they were dignified.
0:05:26 > 0:05:31And they were the backbone of the Victorian, mid-Victorian,
0:05:31 > 0:05:35moral culture in Britain.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37These were people who believed they were distinct
0:05:37 > 0:05:42from the working class, who were drunken and dissolute and bestial.
0:05:43 > 0:05:47They were clearly distinct from the upper class, who were interested in
0:05:47 > 0:05:50fox-hunting and drinking and equally bestial pursuits.
0:05:58 > 0:06:02When middle-class commentators steeled themselves to visit the
0:06:02 > 0:06:06penny gaffs, they were appalled.
0:06:06 > 0:06:08There can be no question that these places are
0:06:08 > 0:06:14no better than so many nurseries for juvenile thieves, the little rascals.
0:06:14 > 0:06:16The one cheers on the other in crime.
0:06:16 > 0:06:19Plans for thieving and robbing houses and shops
0:06:19 > 0:06:21are formed and promptly executed.
0:06:31 > 0:06:37Despite such disapproval and censure, the new rude culture
0:06:37 > 0:06:40of the cities went defiantly from strength to strength.
0:06:47 > 0:06:52You couldn't licence it, you couldn't control it.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55It was on the edge of anarchy.
0:06:55 > 0:07:01And that was an anxiety, I think, that the middle classes had about
0:07:01 > 0:07:02the working classes.
0:07:02 > 0:07:07For much of the 19th century it was, "What can we do to control them?
0:07:07 > 0:07:09"We don't want them going too far.
0:07:09 > 0:07:12"We must keep them under control."
0:07:17 > 0:07:22By the 1850s, the back-room bawdiness of the penny gaffs
0:07:22 > 0:07:27had evolved into the more recognisable form of the music hall.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34This world of song and dance was becoming the rude entertainment
0:07:34 > 0:07:38that would dominate the Victorian city for the rest of the century.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43The music hall comes from very humble origins.
0:07:43 > 0:07:47Essentially, the music hall begins with rooms set aside in pubs
0:07:47 > 0:07:50for people to have a bit of a sing-song round the piano.
0:07:50 > 0:07:54But gradually those back rooms begin to, in a way, displace the pubs.
0:07:54 > 0:07:57You can see this, actually, in some of the surviving
0:07:57 > 0:07:59architectural examples.
0:07:59 > 0:08:03The Wilton's Music Hall in the East End of London is this small building
0:08:03 > 0:08:07that was the pub, with this giant hall appended to the back of it.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13From the mid-Victorian era, music halls were being built
0:08:13 > 0:08:15in every major city in Britain.
0:08:15 > 0:08:19From the beginning, rude, chaotic places.
0:08:19 > 0:08:21But unlike the penny gaffs,
0:08:21 > 0:08:26the music hall became a place of rudeness for both rich and poor.
0:08:26 > 0:08:31Here, aristocratic swells would slum it with the lower orders.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35This alliance of toffs and proles in shared love of a racy night out
0:08:35 > 0:08:38was a serious threat to Victorian values.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42As you may suppose When you look at my clothes...
0:08:44 > 0:08:46I think it would surprise us,
0:08:46 > 0:08:52because it wasn't the serried ranks of fixed seating facing the front.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56The crowd in the halls at this time were mixed, mobile and preoccupied
0:08:56 > 0:08:58with their own presence.
0:08:58 > 0:09:02They often sat at tables at right angles to the stage.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05There was a lot that was going on in the auditorium.
0:09:05 > 0:09:10There was drinking, eating, conversing, socialising, flirting.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15In fact, it was a great hubbub.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18And also there was the haze of tobacco smoke,
0:09:18 > 0:09:23which meant that performers had to be bold and assertive. They had to
0:09:23 > 0:09:27cut through this noise and the smoke even to make themselves heard.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31So the early performers, their style was really a mix
0:09:31 > 0:09:33of singing and shouting.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46Crowds filled the early music hall
0:09:46 > 0:09:51to hear saucy songs which celebrated the rude delights of bed and bottle.
0:09:53 > 0:09:58And on stage, rude stars were created, none cheekier than
0:09:58 > 0:10:02George Leybourne and his alter ego, Champagne Charlie.
0:10:05 > 0:10:11# I've seen a deal of gaiety throughout my noisy life
0:10:11 > 0:10:18# With all my grand accomplishments I ne'er could get a wife... #
0:10:22 > 0:10:27Charlie's whole act was a rude provocation.
0:10:27 > 0:10:31Leybourne was noted for the majestic sweep of his hand play.
0:10:31 > 0:10:34He postured and strutted.
0:10:34 > 0:10:40It was almost homo erectus, almost a walking kind of phallus.
0:10:40 > 0:10:46# From coffee and from supper rooms From Poplar to Pall Mall
0:10:46 > 0:10:53# The gals, on seeing me, exclaim, "Oh, what a champagne swell!" #
0:10:53 > 0:10:56He's a good-time chap.
0:10:56 > 0:11:00He's got his eye open for the pretty girl.
0:11:00 > 0:11:03It's a bit sexy, it's a bit naughty.
0:11:03 > 0:11:08His songs were about the drink culture.
0:11:08 > 0:11:10# From Dukes and Lords
0:11:10 > 0:11:17# To cab men down, I make them drink champagne
0:11:17 > 0:11:22# For Champagne Charlie is my name
0:11:22 > 0:11:24# Champagne Charlie is my name... #
0:11:24 > 0:11:27Champagne was the fashionable drink of the day.
0:11:27 > 0:11:29It had come down in price.
0:11:29 > 0:11:35Leybourne exemplified, embodied, this new relish for champagne.
0:11:35 > 0:11:40He was provided with money from the champagne shippers
0:11:40 > 0:11:45to live the life of the swell off stage as well as on stage.
0:11:45 > 0:11:48Charlie's boozing was an affront to the aims
0:11:48 > 0:11:51of the Victorian temperance movement
0:11:51 > 0:11:56that saw the demon drink destroying the health and morals of the nation.
0:11:59 > 0:12:04This darker side to life in the cities was also revealed in songs
0:12:04 > 0:12:05that acknowledged a world of
0:12:05 > 0:12:10prostitution, where the upper class took their pleasure with the poor.
0:12:13 > 0:12:19# The thing I most excel in is the PRFG game... #
0:12:20 > 0:12:22What did PRFG mean?
0:12:22 > 0:12:24It took me years to find this out.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27It meant Private Rooms For Gentlemen,
0:12:27 > 0:12:31a reference to these premises that were available to men
0:12:31 > 0:12:36who could take prostitutes there or other women for their assignations.
0:12:36 > 0:12:40# Yes, Champagne Charlie is my name. #
0:12:47 > 0:12:49Flirting with taboo areas
0:12:49 > 0:12:53of Victorian life was one of the great attractions of music hall.
0:12:56 > 0:12:58And it was this prodding of sensitivities
0:12:58 > 0:13:04that allowed another rude performer to become a hit with audiences.
0:13:04 > 0:13:08Lydia Thompson was a star of Victorian burlesque,
0:13:08 > 0:13:12a style of popular theatre that used cross-dressing to
0:13:12 > 0:13:15subvert conventional gender roles.
0:13:15 > 0:13:21In Lydia's rude world, girls dressed up as boys.
0:13:30 > 0:13:33Lydia Thompson is probably one of the foremost figures in the
0:13:33 > 0:13:35history of burlesque itself.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37Lydia Thompson very much
0:13:37 > 0:13:40has earned her crown as one of the great queens of burlesque.
0:13:44 > 0:13:47Lydia's early career, she was most famous at this point
0:13:47 > 0:13:51for her sailor-boy dance where she danced a sailor's hornpipe.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56Naturally, this meant that she was wearing trousers.
0:13:56 > 0:13:59And this meant that everyone could have a good look at her legs.
0:13:59 > 0:14:02Of course, it was celebrated as a terpsichorean delight.
0:14:02 > 0:14:04But, you know, the audience knew better.
0:14:11 > 0:14:15Lydia's performance was a satirical dance of mockery.
0:14:20 > 0:14:26Every move and gesture poked fun at the Victorian male.
0:14:26 > 0:14:28Outrageous!
0:14:28 > 0:14:30Burlesque actually means "humiliation of the male
0:14:30 > 0:14:34"form through the female form", so we use the female form in terms
0:14:34 > 0:14:37of entertainment and nudity to humiliate the man.
0:14:39 > 0:14:43It is very much suggestive, it is very much funny, and
0:14:43 > 0:14:46it's almost, well, I suppose, what we call taking the piss out of.
0:14:46 > 0:14:48It is that form of entertainment.
0:14:50 > 0:14:53The way they would walk, would stand and pose,
0:14:53 > 0:14:58perhaps a knowing look, a slow wink, maybe choosing an audience member
0:14:58 > 0:15:00and giving them a long, hard stare.
0:15:00 > 0:15:04These would be typically masculine, these would be
0:15:04 > 0:15:07a strut, perhaps a cocky walk.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12But of course, it was all about the shapely legs, the breeches,
0:15:12 > 0:15:14the tights, the ankles.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18And, of course, over time the breeches got shorter and the costumes
0:15:18 > 0:15:20became increasingly exiguous.
0:15:25 > 0:15:30Lydia's gender bending provoked a chorus of disapproval.
0:15:30 > 0:15:37She is neither male nor female, an alien sex parodying both.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44Music hall had roots in a tradition
0:15:44 > 0:15:48of bawdy humour and song that went back centuries.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55But in the first decades of the Victorian age, a revolutionary
0:15:55 > 0:16:02medium arrived, a new technology to further undermine Victorian values.
0:16:07 > 0:16:11At first, it seemed photography would be a reputable art to
0:16:11 > 0:16:14capture those innocent moments of daily life.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19But pretty soon, in studios all over Britain,
0:16:19 > 0:16:22the clothes were coming off.
0:16:33 > 0:16:37Respectable Britain was most certainly not amused
0:16:37 > 0:16:39by all this nudity.
0:16:41 > 0:16:47The moral campaigners of the mid-19th century were outraged.
0:16:47 > 0:16:53Here was something completely new and very, very disturbing.
0:16:53 > 0:16:54But in the upper reaches
0:16:54 > 0:17:00of Victorian society, there was soon a taste for photographic rudeness.
0:17:03 > 0:17:05Edward Linley Sambourne
0:17:05 > 0:17:10was a cartoonist for Punch, house journal of the respectable classes.
0:17:11 > 0:17:16In the pages of Punch, there was never the rude satirical cartooning
0:17:16 > 0:17:18of the previous Georgian era.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23Punch is a safe form of political criticism...
0:17:23 > 0:17:25illustrated criticise politicians,
0:17:25 > 0:17:30You can criticise politicians, but you mustn't undermine politics.
0:17:30 > 0:17:34You can criticise the Queen, but you don't undermine the monarchy.
0:17:37 > 0:17:39But when he wasn't creating safe,
0:17:39 > 0:17:44comforting humour, Sambourne was being a very naughty boy.
0:17:47 > 0:17:51Linley Sambourne had a hobby that rather dominated his life, really.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56When his wife and two children were away, he would have models
0:17:56 > 0:18:00in his studio, and he would photograph them in the nude.
0:18:01 > 0:18:06You can gauge how he felt about what he was doing by the fact that
0:18:06 > 0:18:09if you look at his diaries, he's always doing this when
0:18:09 > 0:18:11his wife is away in Ramsgate.
0:18:13 > 0:18:15Sambourne first had models
0:18:15 > 0:18:20pose for him when he was looking for inspiration for his Punch cartoons.
0:18:20 > 0:18:23It seems to be almost like a slow-motion striptease, where he
0:18:23 > 0:18:27starts off posing models very much in line with the kind of pictures
0:18:27 > 0:18:31he was going to produce, and then there's a clear divergence as the
0:18:31 > 0:18:35photos he's taking bear no relation to pictures that he's producing.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43Sambourne's rude pictures were circulated amongst
0:18:43 > 0:18:46a small group of like-minded men.
0:18:47 > 0:18:50His private vice was tolerated,
0:18:50 > 0:18:54provided it stayed within a gentlemen's club of friends.
0:18:57 > 0:19:02But for Victorians, more public displays of photographed nudity
0:19:02 > 0:19:05were another matter entirely.
0:19:05 > 0:19:10I think there was a degree of aversion to this kind of nudity.
0:19:10 > 0:19:14One could have nudity when you are depicting historical moments, when
0:19:14 > 0:19:17you are depicting the age of Rome and the age of Greece and these former
0:19:17 > 0:19:21eras of decadence, and even then, it had to be done carefully.
0:19:21 > 0:19:26To have modern nudity was an altogether more challenging idea.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33In 1857, Dutch artist
0:19:33 > 0:19:39Bosco Rejlander became involved in this debate when he used nude models
0:19:39 > 0:19:44in his photographic tableau The Two Ways Of Life.
0:19:44 > 0:19:45Oscar Rejlander's photograph
0:19:45 > 0:19:49The Two Ways Of Life was exhibited at the Manchester
0:19:49 > 0:19:54Art Treasures exhibition in 1857. It was actually quite a complex image.
0:19:54 > 0:19:58It wasn't a single negative, a single image, it was actually
0:19:58 > 0:20:04a composite of nearly 30 different images that he put together.
0:20:04 > 0:20:09He wanted to create a high-art photograph.
0:20:09 > 0:20:13High art or not, this picture posed problems for Victorian
0:20:13 > 0:20:16guardians of taste and decency.
0:20:18 > 0:20:23Because it included a number of unclothed female figures, a number
0:20:23 > 0:20:27of critics felt this was actually an inappropriate subject matter,
0:20:27 > 0:20:31therefore the image itself was vulgar.
0:20:34 > 0:20:40Now, in an extraordinary twist, the Queen herself endorsed the picture.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43Victoria was no prude.
0:20:43 > 0:20:47Her marriage to Prince Albert was intensely sexual, so when she saw
0:20:47 > 0:20:52The Two Ways Of Life, she bought it, the perfect present for her husband.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54Danke, mein Lieben!
0:20:56 > 0:20:59But photography could never be an exclusive medium
0:20:59 > 0:21:01just for the upper-class elite.
0:21:01 > 0:21:05It was much more democratic, and that made it a threat.
0:21:07 > 0:21:12A single negative could create thousands of positive images.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16These could be sold cheaply.
0:21:16 > 0:21:20Rude photographs became affordable and available, and selling them was
0:21:20 > 0:21:24a furtive but lucrative business.
0:21:24 > 0:21:26There were certain places that you went.
0:21:26 > 0:21:29There would be tip-offs, there would be people who would have
0:21:29 > 0:21:32new stocks arriving from Paris,
0:21:32 > 0:21:35and if you were part of one of those networks, you would know where to go.
0:21:39 > 0:21:43The place to go for all this rudeness in London, a hundred years
0:21:43 > 0:21:49before the heyday of Soho, was Holywell Street, near the Strand.
0:21:49 > 0:21:54This was described in a letter to the Times in 1857 as "The most
0:21:54 > 0:21:57"evil street in the civilised world."
0:21:57 > 0:22:01You walked down Holywell Street, you would see bookshop after bookshop
0:22:01 > 0:22:07after bookshop, all of which had prints, photographs...images
0:22:07 > 0:22:12to buy that would have been kind of pornographical,
0:22:12 > 0:22:13semi-pornographic.
0:22:13 > 0:22:16Anybody could walk down this street,
0:22:16 > 0:22:20be confronted, even if they hadn't asked for them specially, confronted
0:22:20 > 0:22:25with these images up on display in the windows or inside the shop.
0:22:25 > 0:22:28Nervousness became moral panic
0:22:28 > 0:22:31when rude photography went from titillating
0:22:31 > 0:22:33to hardcore.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50In 1857, politicians decided to act.
0:22:50 > 0:22:54Parliament passed an Obscene Publications Act
0:22:54 > 0:23:00to stop these dangerous images ever getting into the wrong hands.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04The key element in understanding debates about obscenity
0:23:04 > 0:23:09in the Victorian period is that they're really debates about
0:23:09 > 0:23:12who looks at images, rather than the images themselves.
0:23:16 > 0:23:22The two groups who are seen to be most vulnerable to these influences
0:23:22 > 0:23:28are young working-class men, who might, by the 1860s,
0:23:28 > 0:23:32have an income that would allow them to buy these kinds of images,
0:23:32 > 0:23:38and, more particularly, women of all classes, who are simply believed
0:23:38 > 0:23:43to be inappropriate as an audience for any kind of sexualised imagery.
0:23:49 > 0:23:54But it wasn't only the rude threat of mass-produced photographs that
0:23:54 > 0:23:55was causing concern.
0:23:55 > 0:24:01Into the second half of the 19th century, a new urban and industrial
0:24:01 > 0:24:06culture of work was in turn creating a popular culture of leisure.
0:24:08 > 0:24:12Increasing incomes and levels of literacy meant new demand
0:24:12 > 0:24:15for reading matter of all kinds.
0:24:17 > 0:24:23New print technology created a mass media of cheap newspapers.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26And to the dismay of moral reformers,
0:24:26 > 0:24:31common people showed a liking for papers filled with sex and crime.
0:24:33 > 0:24:39These people were absolutely outraged to find that what the working class
0:24:39 > 0:24:43did with their education was to read things like the
0:24:43 > 0:24:47Illustrated Police News and to read all sorts of material which was
0:24:47 > 0:24:49anything but elevated.
0:24:49 > 0:24:51Oh, my God!
0:24:54 > 0:24:56The rude weeklies were a combination
0:24:56 > 0:25:01of words and pictures that shocked and entertained in equal measure.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08Looking at "Awful cruelty to an idiot boy."
0:25:08 > 0:25:09There's no justification for
0:25:09 > 0:25:13that story at all, however, showing a kid being thrown onto the fire by
0:25:13 > 0:25:15ungracious parents!
0:25:18 > 0:25:19Oh, Mama, why?
0:25:21 > 0:25:23By the time you get to the Ripper murders,
0:25:23 > 0:25:28they'd had no access to the photos, so they speculated on images.
0:25:28 > 0:25:32They just made stuff up that provided probably the best images.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35"We'll just make it up. Who knows? The police don't care. No-one cares.
0:25:35 > 0:25:36"It's a big story."
0:25:38 > 0:25:43One article in the upmarket Pall Mall Gazette of 1870 condemned
0:25:43 > 0:25:45this most vulgar journalism.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50Illustrated Police News is a hideous production.
0:25:50 > 0:25:52They move the heart with murder,
0:25:52 > 0:25:56inflame it with arson, tickle it with intrigue.
0:26:00 > 0:26:05Another cheap publication with the same kind of appeal to working-class
0:26:05 > 0:26:08readers was the comic.
0:26:08 > 0:26:10And one of the first comics to
0:26:10 > 0:26:15appear had rude cheeky chappy Ally Sloper as its cover star.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25"Most Frequently Kicked Out Man In Europe."
0:26:28 > 0:26:31Ally Sloper's Half Holiday
0:26:31 > 0:26:38was first published in 1884 and was soon selling 350,000 copies a week.
0:26:43 > 0:26:46He was a con man, he was a drunkard,
0:26:46 > 0:26:51degenerate in many ways, and his name, of course, came from
0:26:51 > 0:26:56his tendency to slope down the alley to avoid the rent collector.
0:26:58 > 0:27:02He glorified in drink and sex.
0:27:02 > 0:27:06He always had a bottle of gin protruding from his coat pocket.
0:27:06 > 0:27:12Sometimes he went on the wagon, protested his horror of drink.
0:27:12 > 0:27:14In that way, he echoed some of the
0:27:14 > 0:27:18language of the reformers and also parodied them.
0:27:22 > 0:27:24The guy's slightly dressed
0:27:24 > 0:27:28anachronistically - his clothes and that weird stovepipe hat he wore.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31He had a gin-blossom nose, so you knew he was a heavy drinker.
0:27:34 > 0:27:37He's fascinating. Ally Sloper's...
0:27:37 > 0:27:40hat is Dickensian.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43It's almost like a kind of crumpled Regency hat.
0:27:43 > 0:27:48He's goat-ish, and the most obvious demonstration
0:27:48 > 0:27:53of this is this huge, ravaged nose, which is quite plainly phallic.
0:27:56 > 0:28:01Phallic imagery and symbolism is everywhere in music-hall rude
0:28:01 > 0:28:04and the rude of popular culture, but this is striking.
0:28:04 > 0:28:08And it's mimicked in other features which you see in the cartoons,
0:28:08 > 0:28:13like the erectile tissue of a horse's tail.
0:28:13 > 0:28:17And his umbrella, to a degree, is phallic.
0:28:20 > 0:28:23The big ears of...
0:28:23 > 0:28:25a very, very old man, or someone who's
0:28:25 > 0:28:29constantly listening in on other people's conversations.
0:28:29 > 0:28:31It's really a...
0:28:31 > 0:28:34face only a blind mother could love, frankly.
0:28:36 > 0:28:38By the 1880s,
0:28:38 > 0:28:42employers were giving their workers Saturday afternoons off,
0:28:42 > 0:28:46the half holiday of the comic's title.
0:28:46 > 0:28:48So Ally showed readers
0:28:48 > 0:28:52the rude pleasures to be had in this liberation from the working week.
0:28:55 > 0:28:59Ally Sloper's Half Holiday, the very name refers to the
0:28:59 > 0:29:02Saturday half holiday for the working classes,
0:29:02 > 0:29:05for the mass of the population. The idea of the weekend is coming up.
0:29:05 > 0:29:08This is a periodical devoted to the weekend.
0:29:09 > 0:29:13Ally's drunken gate-crashing of high society also gave his fans
0:29:13 > 0:29:17the satisfaction of seeing one of their own larging it with the toffs.
0:29:21 > 0:29:27And it's perhaps the first time in print there has been acceptance
0:29:27 > 0:29:32of what the mass of the population actually does in its leisure time,
0:29:32 > 0:29:34when it lets its hair down, when it drinks
0:29:34 > 0:29:36and when it enjoys the weekend.
0:29:38 > 0:29:40You can kind of see a root for
0:29:40 > 0:29:42WC Fields in his image, as well.
0:29:42 > 0:29:44It is quite an
0:29:44 > 0:29:48antisocial expression on his face.
0:29:57 > 0:30:00In the 1890s, Ally Sloper
0:30:00 > 0:30:04had such celebrity that he was being played on music-hall stages.
0:30:06 > 0:30:10But by now, it wasn't only swells and proles who were flocking to
0:30:10 > 0:30:15what had become the most lucrative entertainment business in Britain.
0:30:15 > 0:30:20Proprietors were trying to broaden the appeal of the music hall and
0:30:20 > 0:30:26attract the middle class to bigger, ever more ornate pleasure domes.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29So owners felt a need to control
0:30:29 > 0:30:34the rowdiness and rudeness that was always the essence of music hall.
0:30:34 > 0:30:39The audiences are fed into these houses more expeditiously,
0:30:39 > 0:30:44they are all now more disciplined, they all face the front...
0:30:46 > 0:30:49There were controls upon artists in terms
0:30:49 > 0:30:51of what they could or could not say.
0:30:51 > 0:30:56These were house rules, forbid anything offensive - allusions to
0:30:56 > 0:31:02royalty, to religion or any kind of vulgarisation, on pain of dismissal.
0:31:02 > 0:31:07And the audiences also were patrolled by uniforms, officials
0:31:07 > 0:31:13who cut down on any attempt to shouting, booing or hissing.
0:31:13 > 0:31:14Shhh!
0:31:16 > 0:31:21In this more cautious atmosphere, performers had to employ strategies
0:31:21 > 0:31:24of nods and winks to give their audiences
0:31:24 > 0:31:26what they still really wanted,
0:31:26 > 0:31:28a good bawdy night out.
0:31:33 > 0:31:37Someone with a genius for the rude innuendo now needed
0:31:37 > 0:31:40was Victorian superstar Marie Lloyd.
0:31:40 > 0:31:43Now come on, everybody, join in the chorus.
0:31:43 > 0:31:46You know it, sir,
0:31:46 > 0:31:49don't you? You've been here before.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52# A regular farmer's daughter thought
0:31:52 > 0:31:57# She'd like to come to town What did she know about railways? #
0:31:57 > 0:32:03You couldn't be out and out terribly, terribly lewd,
0:32:03 > 0:32:05but you could be suggestive.
0:32:05 > 0:32:12And so I think what built up was a language of suggestiveness.
0:32:12 > 0:32:17Now, Marie Lloyd is the one that everybody knows about, because
0:32:17 > 0:32:23she wiggled her hips, she did her look over her shoulder, she winked,
0:32:23 > 0:32:26and all of that sort of built up
0:32:26 > 0:32:30this persona of the good-time girl, the naughty girl.
0:32:30 > 0:32:35# She told them all she'd never had her ticket punched before... #
0:32:38 > 0:32:43Marie Lloyd loved to play teasing, rude games.
0:32:43 > 0:32:45One of her songs
0:32:45 > 0:32:50was the sugary Victorian favourite Come Into The Garden, Maud.
0:32:52 > 0:32:54# Come into the garden
0:32:54 > 0:32:56# Maud
0:32:56 > 0:33:03# Where the black, black night has flown... #
0:33:03 > 0:33:08Marie, through her suggestive performance, gave the song
0:33:08 > 0:33:10a completely new, lewd meaning.
0:33:10 > 0:33:15# Come into the garden, Maud
0:33:15 > 0:33:20# I'm here by the gate. Come out! #
0:33:24 > 0:33:28Despite attempts to create a more respectable image
0:33:28 > 0:33:32for their business, owners hypocritically turned a blind eye
0:33:32 > 0:33:38to the rude reality that music halls were still places for prostitution.
0:33:38 > 0:33:40Soliciting on the promenade,
0:33:40 > 0:33:45a meeting place at the back of the music hall was commonplace.
0:33:45 > 0:33:51In the music hall, managers claimed that they exercised a growing sense
0:33:51 > 0:33:55of moral vigilance to exclude the Volunteers of Venus, women
0:33:55 > 0:33:58of a so-called "light character".
0:33:58 > 0:34:01But, in fact, they endorsed their presence.
0:34:01 > 0:34:04Marie Lloyd cheekily confronted
0:34:04 > 0:34:09owners and audiences about the illicit goings-on around them,
0:34:09 > 0:34:15playing a lady of the night in a provocative piece of melodrama.
0:34:15 > 0:34:18# Since Mother Eve in the garden long ago
0:34:18 > 0:34:22# Started a fashion, Fashion's been a passion
0:34:22 > 0:34:23# Eve wore a costume... #
0:34:23 > 0:34:28Now, the presence of prostitutes in the audience, it also gave
0:34:28 > 0:34:33extra point to many of the songs, an extra kind of sexual resonance, and
0:34:33 > 0:34:38these were songs which mimicked the soliciting techniques of prostitutes.
0:34:38 > 0:34:42"Do you like my dress just a little bit?
0:34:42 > 0:34:45"It's the little bit the boys adore."
0:34:45 > 0:34:51# When I take my morning promenade Quite a fashion card
0:34:51 > 0:34:55# On the promenade I don't mind nice boys staring hard
0:34:55 > 0:35:02# If it fascinates their desire Think my dress is a little bit?
0:35:02 > 0:35:05# Just a little bit? Well, not that much of it
0:35:05 > 0:35:08# It shows my shape just a little bit
0:35:08 > 0:35:11# That's the little bit the boys admire. #
0:35:17 > 0:35:24Victorian moral reformers argue that music halls, linked to prostitution,
0:35:24 > 0:35:28were part of an exploitation of women, undermining the morals of
0:35:28 > 0:35:30the nation.
0:35:31 > 0:35:37By the 1890s, they had put pressure on local councils across Britain to
0:35:37 > 0:35:43set up Watch Committees, to keep an eye on theatres and vet performers.
0:35:43 > 0:35:47The leader of the campaign to clean up rude music hall
0:35:47 > 0:35:53was Mrs Ormiston Chant, head of the National Vigilance Society.
0:35:55 > 0:35:57She is a progressive figure.
0:35:57 > 0:36:00We should not dismiss her as a Mrs Grundy.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03She's the sort of woman who got women in this country the vote.
0:36:03 > 0:36:05She's not a backward-looking person.
0:36:05 > 0:36:09She's not somebody who just wants to spoil people's fun,
0:36:09 > 0:36:10she's an activist.
0:36:11 > 0:36:16In 1894, Ormiston Chant took on one of the biggest and most
0:36:16 > 0:36:21profitable theatres in the country, speaking out against the Empire,
0:36:21 > 0:36:24Leicester Square, London.
0:36:29 > 0:36:31The place at night is the habitual
0:36:31 > 0:36:34resort of prostitutes in pursuit of their traffic.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38Portions of the entertainment are most objectionable, obnoxious and
0:36:38 > 0:36:43against the best interests and moral wellbeing of the community at large.
0:36:51 > 0:36:57This crusade to clean up the music hall prompted one eminent
0:36:57 > 0:37:01and aristocratic young Victorian to do battle.
0:37:01 > 0:37:06Winston Churchill, who was a cadet at Sandhurst during this period,
0:37:06 > 0:37:08felt strongly enough about
0:37:08 > 0:37:14the pleasures that he had had in the promenade to make what is effectively
0:37:14 > 0:37:20his unofficial maiden speech... a speech against Mrs Ormiston Chant.
0:37:20 > 0:37:25"Where does the Englishman in London always find a welcome? Where does
0:37:25 > 0:37:30"he first go when, battle scarred and travel worn, he reaches home?
0:37:30 > 0:37:34"Who is there to greet him with a smile and join him with a drink?
0:37:34 > 0:37:36"Who is ever faithful, ever true?
0:37:36 > 0:37:39"The ladies of the Empire promenade."
0:37:44 > 0:37:47And he meant that. He meant that. He practised a speech on the way
0:37:47 > 0:37:50that he didn't use. That is straight from the heart.
0:37:52 > 0:37:56Ormiston Chant's campaign had only limited success.
0:37:59 > 0:38:03The Empire was closed for two weeks before opening again
0:38:03 > 0:38:05for business as usual.
0:38:12 > 0:38:17A new century saw the battle between rude and prude continue.
0:38:17 > 0:38:23Victoria may have died in 1901, but the Victorian values claimed in
0:38:23 > 0:38:29her name lived on into a new, Edwardian age and beyond,
0:38:29 > 0:38:33and the tensions between rude and its opponents would increasingly
0:38:33 > 0:38:38take place in a mass culture of entertainment and leisure.
0:38:40 > 0:38:42What you see in the city is really
0:38:42 > 0:38:47the development of what we would recognise as a modern mass culture,
0:38:47 > 0:38:50modern systems of transport which
0:38:50 > 0:38:56bring people together - omnibuses, tubes, the trams -
0:38:56 > 0:39:03modern leisure, football is going to be a booming public sport,
0:39:03 > 0:39:07and with that, also, rising real incomes for the working class.
0:39:07 > 0:39:09And the Factory Acts,
0:39:09 > 0:39:12the Acts giving bank holidays, means that they now have leisure time.
0:39:12 > 0:39:15And they have money to spend in the leisure time.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17So they're going to spend that on holidays.
0:39:19 > 0:39:24The most popular holiday destination became the seaside,
0:39:24 > 0:39:28previously the preserve of the upper and middle classes.
0:39:28 > 0:39:32Workers began to flock to resorts like Blackpool
0:39:32 > 0:39:37for the one week of unpaid holiday now given to them.
0:39:49 > 0:39:53At the start of the 19th century, a few thousand people go to Blackpool.
0:39:53 > 0:39:56By the end of the 19th century, you've got two million,
0:39:56 > 0:40:00three million, by the start of the First World War - four million.
0:40:00 > 0:40:04It's quite an amazing proportion of people who would go to Blackpool.
0:40:04 > 0:40:06It's because Blackpool is founded
0:40:06 > 0:40:09because of the industrial holidays, so the Wakes Weeks...
0:40:09 > 0:40:12When they had their week off, which they didn't get paid for, but they
0:40:12 > 0:40:16got a week off, or two weeks off, the industrial calendar would allow each
0:40:16 > 0:40:20town to have their Wakes Week, so each town would take their holiday,
0:40:20 > 0:40:22go on the train to Blackpool.
0:40:24 > 0:40:31At Blackpool, you could enjoy your very own rude carnival by the sea.
0:40:31 > 0:40:35The seaside holiday is a place to be rude. You can forget
0:40:35 > 0:40:39that you're doing this terrible job in a cotton factory in Lancashire.
0:40:39 > 0:40:43You can go to Blackpool, you can get drunk every night, you haven't got
0:40:43 > 0:40:45to dress quite so respectably.
0:40:45 > 0:40:48There are still grades of good and bad behaviour at
0:40:48 > 0:40:52the seaside, but in general there's much more space for bad behaviour.
0:40:54 > 0:41:00At the seaside, you could find all manner of rude delights, some old,
0:41:00 > 0:41:02some new.
0:41:02 > 0:41:05By the Edwardian era, there was a new kind of peep show,
0:41:05 > 0:41:07the Mutascope.
0:41:07 > 0:41:12The Mutascope is really the form of What The Butler Saw.
0:41:12 > 0:41:16They were instruments the viewer stood and peered into
0:41:16 > 0:41:21and which in a way sort of closed off the outside world.
0:41:21 > 0:41:23You press your head
0:41:23 > 0:41:28to an eye piece, turn the handle and watch these images move.
0:41:31 > 0:41:33Looking into these machines,
0:41:33 > 0:41:37holidaymakers were in for a rude surprise.
0:41:40 > 0:41:42When the pictures started to move, that was a real transformation
0:41:42 > 0:41:46of people's relationship to images,
0:41:46 > 0:41:51and it was a kind of fascination, it was an aesthetic response
0:41:51 > 0:41:55to photographs that came to life and the repeatability, the fact that
0:41:55 > 0:41:57you could press the button and see it again.
0:42:00 > 0:42:05For a few pennies, anyone could look at voyeuristic little films like
0:42:05 > 0:42:10Fun In The Bedroom or Stolen Stockings.
0:42:10 > 0:42:15On one pier alone, there could be as many as 40 machines,
0:42:15 > 0:42:19a very public experience for a very private moment.
0:42:21 > 0:42:25There is something very intoxicating about the Mutascope, the idea that
0:42:25 > 0:42:31inside this box there's something that is maybe not meant to be seen
0:42:31 > 0:42:35but something that only you should be looking at.
0:42:36 > 0:42:39But somehow, through this strange coincidence of light and chemicals
0:42:39 > 0:42:45and paper, you can gaze upon a little moment captured in time,
0:42:45 > 0:42:48and that might be a moment that you're quite glad is
0:42:48 > 0:42:50just between you and the machine.
0:42:57 > 0:42:58And of course, you've also got
0:42:58 > 0:43:02to remember that Mutascopes were installed in very public places,
0:43:02 > 0:43:08so if a bunch of lads out for an afternoon's fun were standing
0:43:08 > 0:43:12in line at a Mutascope, they were all sort of laughing, joshing each other.
0:43:12 > 0:43:14"What are you seeing? Oi! What are you up to?"
0:43:14 > 0:43:17So it's a very social situation, except that each person is getting
0:43:17 > 0:43:21their own private moment after they've put their coin in.
0:43:22 > 0:43:26All this Mutascopic rudeness was available to anyone with
0:43:26 > 0:43:29a few pennies.
0:43:29 > 0:43:32So there was deep concern that the wrong sort could get
0:43:32 > 0:43:35their hands on this kind of filth.
0:43:35 > 0:43:41In a letter to the Times, MP Samuel Smith was outraged.
0:43:41 > 0:43:44"A new source of evil has recently sprung up
0:43:44 > 0:43:46"at our popular watering places.
0:43:46 > 0:43:49"It is hardly possible to exaggerate
0:43:49 > 0:43:52"the corruption of the young that comes from exhibiting under
0:43:52 > 0:43:57"a strong light nude female figures represented as living and moving."
0:44:02 > 0:44:06Well, there was a tremendous furore about these machines
0:44:06 > 0:44:08corrupting the nation's morals.
0:44:08 > 0:44:10If the people writing those letters didn't realise there were many other
0:44:10 > 0:44:13things corrupting the nation's youth,
0:44:13 > 0:44:14they must have been living on another planet.
0:44:24 > 0:44:29The seaside was also inspiring an art form that would have its own
0:44:29 > 0:44:34rude genius in Donald McGill.
0:44:34 > 0:44:35McGill took a most proper part
0:44:35 > 0:44:40of daily British life, the postcard, and turned it rude.
0:44:40 > 0:44:42I went to a party last night,
0:44:42 > 0:44:47Mr Smith, and I've just a dreadful hangover this morning.
0:44:52 > 0:44:58Gentlemen's requisites? Yes, sir, go right through ladies' underwear.
0:44:59 > 0:45:03From the early years of the 20th century, the postcard was
0:45:03 > 0:45:05an everyday form of communication.
0:45:05 > 0:45:09Millions were written and sent each year.
0:45:09 > 0:45:11Postcards were used
0:45:11 > 0:45:15very much in the way that we use e-mails or text messages today.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18There were up to nine deliveries a day, and people would send cards in
0:45:18 > 0:45:21the morning to say, "I'll meet you for tea in the afternoon,"
0:45:21 > 0:45:23which is just unimaginable for us.
0:45:23 > 0:45:28Can I show you anything further, sir?
0:45:28 > 0:45:33McGill seemed an unlikely purveyor of seaside smut.
0:45:33 > 0:45:35McGill regarded himself as very respectable.
0:45:35 > 0:45:37He worked in a suit,
0:45:37 > 0:45:40but he has within him these subversive elements.
0:45:40 > 0:45:47I'm sorry to see so few young mothers here after all my efforts.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53McGill drew his first card in 1905.
0:45:53 > 0:45:59Over 50 years, he produced over 12,000 cards.
0:45:59 > 0:46:04His father-in-law ran a music hall, and its bawdy traditions lay behind
0:46:04 > 0:46:09McGill's rude alchemy of words and pictures.
0:46:09 > 0:46:12Just as the music hall may have within it
0:46:12 > 0:46:16innuendo and suggestiveness that are a kind of acceptance
0:46:16 > 0:46:20from the stage of the lives of the ordinary people in the audience,
0:46:20 > 0:46:25then McGill with his cartoons is producing an acceptance of the
0:46:25 > 0:46:29bawdy that's in the lives of all the people who take seaside holidays.
0:46:31 > 0:46:34I want to back the favourite, please.
0:46:34 > 0:46:37My sweetheart gave me a pound to do it both ways.
0:46:39 > 0:46:44McGill drew on a cast of well-loved characters to deliver a blue humour
0:46:44 > 0:46:48that was smutty yet also warm, without malice -
0:46:48 > 0:46:51big, fat ladies,
0:46:51 > 0:46:56busty brunettes and, of course, the dirty vicar.
0:46:56 > 0:47:01There's two women walking past a window, and there's a vicar in a
0:47:01 > 0:47:04window with a plant, and one woman says, "Oh, there's a
0:47:04 > 0:47:08"vicar sponging his aspidistra," and the other woman's saying...
0:47:08 > 0:47:09"..Horrid old man!
0:47:09 > 0:47:11"He ought to do it in the bathroom."
0:47:13 > 0:47:16Aspidistra's quite a stretch, actually, but "sponging it"
0:47:16 > 0:47:19actually makes it really dirty.
0:47:19 > 0:47:21And he's a vicar, as well. Of course, he has to be, doesn't he?
0:47:21 > 0:47:23He has to be a vicar.
0:47:25 > 0:47:31They are situations involving, often, figures of sexual potency,
0:47:31 > 0:47:33which are generally women.
0:47:33 > 0:47:38A lot of the men in the McGill cards are kind of frightened by sexuality.
0:47:40 > 0:47:43What's obscene is often what's taking place in
0:47:43 > 0:47:48the mind of the viewer and the mind of the character within the card.
0:47:48 > 0:47:51"Take this jelly away, waiter. There are two things on this
0:47:51 > 0:47:54"earth that I like firm, and one of them's jelly."
0:47:56 > 0:48:02By the late 1930s, 16 million saucy postcards were
0:48:02 > 0:48:07being sold every summer at seaside resorts all over Britain.
0:48:07 > 0:48:10Chuckling over this rudeness
0:48:10 > 0:48:14was a shared laughter that could cross barriers of age and class.
0:48:16 > 0:48:18My mum loved receiving them.
0:48:18 > 0:48:21A different type of laugh she would come out with when she
0:48:21 > 0:48:23got one of those from an aunt.
0:48:23 > 0:48:28And thinking back on them, they were about flashing knickers.
0:48:28 > 0:48:33"Here's my card, Miss. If you want a witness, I saw everything."
0:48:40 > 0:48:43They're fun. I think that's the key thing, that there is a lot of fun in
0:48:43 > 0:48:45his drawings.
0:48:45 > 0:48:49And it's amazing, you read the postcards of the time, and it will
0:48:49 > 0:48:52say, "Dear Ethel...", you know, it'll be something very saucy on
0:48:52 > 0:48:55the other side, saying, "Dear Ethel, having a lovely time..."
0:48:55 > 0:48:58And you can tell from their style of writing this person's very
0:48:58 > 0:49:03proper and so on, and they seem to have chosen this rather saucy card
0:49:03 > 0:49:07to send to someone, and they didn't mind at all.
0:49:16 > 0:49:21Rude seaside carnival reached a peak in the 1950s,
0:49:21 > 0:49:25when over 17 million people a year were visiting Blackpool.
0:49:28 > 0:49:33And this most vulgar of resorts now had its own rude star,
0:49:33 > 0:49:34Frank Randle.
0:49:37 > 0:49:40Frank Randle was a comedian from Wigan.
0:49:40 > 0:49:42He was the most
0:49:42 > 0:49:48raucous, irrepressible, terrifying figure, actually, as a man.
0:49:48 > 0:49:50He was a monster.
0:49:50 > 0:49:53Crates of beer would be delivered to his dressing room. He would then
0:49:53 > 0:49:56proceed to smash all the mirrors in his dressing room, either with
0:49:56 > 0:50:01his empties or with a gun from his collection of Luger pistols.
0:50:05 > 0:50:10Randle pushed the coarse humour of the music hall to new levels
0:50:10 > 0:50:13of anarchic comedic invention.
0:50:13 > 0:50:16Frank onstage was wild.
0:50:16 > 0:50:19It's said that he had nine different
0:50:19 > 0:50:22sets of false teeth for different occasions and he kept them in jars
0:50:22 > 0:50:26in the dressing room, and he had papier mache ones which, when he went
0:50:26 > 0:50:30onstage, as soon as he got heckled he'd fling them at the audience.
0:50:34 > 0:50:39Randle created characters to play on taboos, like the still-sensitive
0:50:39 > 0:50:41subject of drink.
0:50:41 > 0:50:47One of his most rude creations was the hiker, bottle of beer in hand,
0:50:47 > 0:50:49belching and farting.
0:50:49 > 0:50:53All the time, he's drinking from a great big bottle
0:50:53 > 0:50:58marked Allslopp's Ales, and he would belch gigantic belches.
0:51:01 > 0:51:03Allslopp's!
0:51:04 > 0:51:07And his famous catchphrase was
0:51:07 > 0:51:11"By gum, I supped some stuff last neet.
0:51:11 > 0:51:15"I sent some of this to be hanalysed, and I got a telegram back saying,
0:51:15 > 0:51:18"'Your horse has diabetes.'"
0:51:23 > 0:51:28The hiker also confronted audiences with anxieties of sex and age.
0:51:29 > 0:51:34This dirty old man had a strange, phallic stick, a libidinous prop,
0:51:34 > 0:51:37all the better to chase young girls.
0:51:37 > 0:51:42But he'd go over the edge, because he'd be surrounded by girls from
0:51:42 > 0:51:47the chorus line who were dressed a hikers. "By gum, she's a hot 'un."
0:51:47 > 0:51:52And he'd get excited and priapic, and his stick'd start shaking.
0:51:52 > 0:51:55No harm, eh? Well, I'd better be goin'.
0:52:17 > 0:52:22And Randle got laughs from the biggest taboo of all, death.
0:52:22 > 0:52:25"I were at a funeral t'other day. A little lad come up to me.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28"He says, 'How old are thee?'
0:52:34 > 0:52:38And the character would get more and more obstreperous.
0:52:38 > 0:52:39"It were very cold that morning.
0:52:39 > 0:52:42"T'limousine couldn't leave t'crematorium, so he had to use the
0:52:42 > 0:52:46"ashes to get the wheels going." Et cetera!
0:52:51 > 0:52:55Frank Randle's rude because he refused to behave.
0:52:55 > 0:52:59He took that tradition of working-class innuendo,
0:52:59 > 0:53:03of the celebration of drunkenness and bad behaviour, and
0:53:03 > 0:53:07pushed it to an extreme that nobody else at that time really matched.
0:53:07 > 0:53:09People often compare him to George Formby.
0:53:09 > 0:53:15# Every year when summer comes round Off to the sea I go... #
0:53:15 > 0:53:19George Formby was a comparatively respectable working-class lad who
0:53:19 > 0:53:22had cheeky little songs and cheeky little jokes.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25Randle wasn't cheeky, Randle was filthy.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30Randle's flair for filth made him the target of a moral crusade
0:53:30 > 0:53:35conducted by those eager to put a stop to the loose morals
0:53:35 > 0:53:38they thought had flourished during the Second World War.
0:53:41 > 0:53:45Frank, I think, was perceived as a threat by the
0:53:45 > 0:53:50Rotary Club of Blackpool, certainly by the Watch Committee in Blackpool.
0:53:50 > 0:53:53At Blackpool Magistrates' in 1953
0:53:53 > 0:54:00Randle was charged with contravening the 1843 Theatres Act.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03He had been performing material on the Central Pier
0:54:03 > 0:54:06before it had been formally vetted.
0:54:06 > 0:54:09A Mr Nugent, prosecuting on
0:54:09 > 0:54:14behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions, told the court...
0:54:14 > 0:54:18"People go to these performances to be entertained and not
0:54:18 > 0:54:20"to be disgusted."
0:54:24 > 0:54:28But Randle continued to defy all attempts to censor him.
0:54:28 > 0:54:31In Cinderella, when he was supposed
0:54:31 > 0:54:34to deliver his line, he walked to the apron of the stage and he said to the
0:54:34 > 0:54:38audience, "At this point in t'show, I am supposed to say to Cinderella,
0:54:38 > 0:54:41"I've come to cut your twatter off, but t'buggers won't let me."
0:54:44 > 0:54:48So they arrested him and dragged him off. Fined 30 quid for that one.
0:54:48 > 0:54:51There's a myth - it's a wonderful story, but, sadly, it's a myth,
0:54:51 > 0:54:54it didn't happen at Blackpool - that Randle was so fed up
0:54:54 > 0:54:57of being arrested and the court cases and the hassles, that he hired
0:54:57 > 0:55:01an aeroplane and flew over Blackpool and bombarded it with toilet rolls.
0:55:01 > 0:55:05It's a true story, but he bombarded Accrington, not Blackpool.
0:55:20 > 0:55:25At the same time comedian Frank Randle was being pursued through
0:55:25 > 0:55:28the courts, artist Donald McGill was being
0:55:28 > 0:55:33scrutinised by Watch Committees from Southend to Scarborough.
0:55:33 > 0:55:36"Censor or no censor, I've got to hold my hat on!
0:55:39 > 0:55:43No fun, my babe, no fun...
0:55:45 > 0:55:49During a nationwide back-to-basics campaign by the government of
0:55:49 > 0:55:54Winston Churchill, McGill was investigated for obscenity.
0:55:54 > 0:56:00The young defender of rude was now the elderly slayer of smut.
0:56:00 > 0:56:02"She's a nice girl.
0:56:02 > 0:56:08"Doesn't drink or smoke and only swears when it slips out."
0:56:08 > 0:56:09It was ordered destroyed in Grimsby,
0:56:09 > 0:56:14in Brighton, in Folkestone, in Margate, in...
0:56:14 > 0:56:19McGill could be a little cute in defending his right to be rude.
0:56:19 > 0:56:22One can say he was slightly disingenuous.
0:56:22 > 0:56:25For example, there's a famous one of a stick-of-rock cock,
0:56:25 > 0:56:29where this man is holding this enormous stick of rock in front of
0:56:29 > 0:56:34him, and he actually says it's balanced on his knees and so on,
0:56:34 > 0:56:38so any phallic suggestions were obviously not anything
0:56:38 > 0:56:42he intended, and he never saw it before it was pointed out to him.
0:56:46 > 0:56:52In 1954, McGill, after numerous local bannings, was charged in
0:56:52 > 0:56:57Lincoln under the 1857 Obscene Publications Act.
0:57:00 > 0:57:05After a night in the cells, the 79-year-old artist pleaded guilty
0:57:05 > 0:57:09to obscenity and was fined £50.
0:57:09 > 0:57:12Thousands of his cards were then ordered to be destroyed.
0:57:15 > 0:57:19It's no surprise, given the reach of these laws,
0:57:19 > 0:57:24that Donald McGill is prosecuted under a Victorian law, under the
0:57:24 > 0:57:261857 Obscene Publications Act.
0:57:26 > 0:57:32These kind of ideas, the kind of public morals and public morality
0:57:32 > 0:57:38about rudeness, about lewdness, still dictate much of the official culture
0:57:38 > 0:57:40and the laws on the statute book.
0:57:45 > 0:57:49Yet, within a decade of McGill's prosecution, Gerald Scarfe
0:57:49 > 0:57:55could draw a picture showing Prime Minister Harold Macmillan nude
0:57:55 > 0:58:00in the infamous pose of call girl Christine Keeler,
0:58:00 > 0:58:03and Scarfe could get away with it.
0:58:03 > 0:58:07A rude revolution was under way.
0:58:07 > 0:58:13I could draw pubic hair, I could draw nipples, I could draw nostrils,
0:58:13 > 0:58:15I could draw bottoms, you know?
0:58:15 > 0:58:17They let me do what I wanted to do.
0:58:17 > 0:58:18I want to be rude!
0:58:23 > 0:58:26Welcome to the mass democracy of rude,
0:58:26 > 0:58:29next time on Rude Britannia.
0:58:30 > 0:58:34# Girl, you really got me now You got me so I can't sleep at night
0:58:36 > 0:58:39# Yeah, you really got me now
0:58:39 > 0:58:42# You got me so I don't know what I'm doing now
0:58:42 > 0:58:46# Oh, yeah, you really got me now
0:58:46 > 0:58:49# You got me so I can't sleep at night
0:58:50 > 0:58:51# You really got me
0:58:51 > 0:58:53# You really got me. #
0:58:53 > 0:58:56Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:56 > 0:58:58E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk