Sir David Jason has branded modern TV as “too vulgar”.
Sir David Jason says he finds modern TV 'too vulgar'
The 'Only Fools and Horses' icon, 84, has called for programmes to return to the BBC’s standards from the 40s after being shocked by the amount of crude and rude words in comedy and drama series’.
Speaking on the Plot Twist podcast, he said: “I found a book of rules in my house, from 1947, and what it was, was a rule book for writers, directors, actors, you name it, from the hierarchy of the BBC telling you what you’re not allowed to say because you might offend people.
“Blimey, if they were around today! The rationale is we’ve gone the other way. We’ve superseded it.
“In order to be a working class person in television today, you use the expletives constantly, all the time.
“And some of them are pretty vulgar, in my opinion. So everybody is using that, constantly, all the time.
“That’s filtered through to everyday language, so young people today are using all the language that we were banned from saying in everyday speak.
“The problem with that is, is that you’ve given up manners, and you’ve given up respect for your fellow man, for your fellow woman, because the argument was: ‘But it’s in common use, it’s been there in Shakespeare’s time’, well that’s not good enough.”
When David was playing the smooth-talking south London market trader in the John Sullivan sitcom, he notably used terms, such as ‘dipstick’ and ‘plonker’ when venting at his younger brother Rodney, played by Nicholas Lyndhurst, 63.
He added: “If you tried to follow the rule book today you wouldn’t have a show at all. I think we’ve gone too far away from that book of rules.
“In order to offend the audience you were given this set of rules that you had to abide by, writers, actors, directors. You weren’t allowed to say anything about religion or religious people, it’s all there.”
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