Misogyny

Congratulations, everyone! It turns out we’re much better than those bigoted old Brits of the 1950s. After all, they were ‘class-obsessed, overwhelmingly white and Christian, and deeply conservative about the role of women’ — whereas we ‘accept difference and diversity in a way that would have been almost unthinkable in 1953’. This was the reassuring message in the first episode of New Elizabethans by Andrew Marr, where Marr surveyed Britain’s changing social attitudes since the Queen came to the throne, and liked what he saw. These days, needless to say, the ‘great man theory’ of history has rather fallen out of fashion — so instead Marr brought us a sort of ‘great activist’ version.

In Bad Taste is a slapstick comedy about five female terrorists who murder the governor of the Bank of England. They chop him to pieces, cook him in a casserole and devour the lot. Their plan is to ‘eat the rich’, literally, and to trigger a worldwide revolution. After this grimly hilarious opening the script takes a sharp U-turn when one of the women makes a speech denouncing misogynists. The others agree to drop the revolt against the wealthy and to hunt down nasty men instead. Each woman suggests a candidate for execution: a male colleague who works too sluggishly, a father-in-law who makes judgmental comments, a drunkard who gropes barmaids. The killing begins. Nine victims are axed to death and their bodies cannibalised. The police launch a manhunt.