Rowan Atkinson explains why he thinks you should be able to make jokes about anything

by Daniel Falconer | 23 June 2022

Rowan Atkinson stars in all-new comedy Man vs Bee / Picture Credit: Netflix

Comedy legend Rowan Atkinson is making his return to the small screen on Netflix this month, with the arrival of his all-new series Man vs Bee.

Taking on the role of new character Trevor Bingley, we watch as he finds a new job as a house sitter in a luxurious mansion, packed full of priceless goodies and, an adorable dog called Cupcake. When a bee arrives on the scene however, a dramatic rivalry is born, leading to all the sort of chaos you would expect from an Atkinson-led project.

Speaking as part of a virtual press conference with Female First and other media, Atkinson admitted that he doesn’t think his taste in comedy has changed.

“All jokes have got to find an audience,” he said, “and it’s the audience that tends to change with time, or at least there are new sensibilities that come along in different periods of history. [In] different decades, certain things are in fashion and certain things are out of fashion but then, what’s in fashion is, you make jokes about the way people see the world around them and, the world around us changes all the time.

He continued: “I’m not talking about the appropriateness of jokes or the correctness in political or social terms, of jokes. Jokes should be about your human experience and, our human experience is developing.”

Despite this, he does worry for the future of the arts, because of the words “should” and “shouldn’t” being applied so much.

“In terms of taste, I suppose I’m a great believer that there is no subject about which you should not be able to make jokes and, I think that’s something I do worry about in the modern world,” he said.

“The words ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ are applied very often to the arts and creative things and, the words ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ don’t really belong in the arts. I always liked the definition of art as the rejection of the status quo so whatever we’ve got, art’s job is to say hang on, what about this other way of looking at things?”