Frankie Boyle isn’t a victim of cancel culture

Has comedian Frankie Boyle become the latest victim of the BBC’s ‘right-wing purge’? Frankie Boyle seems to think so. Following news this week that his BBC Two show, Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, has not been renewed for a seventh series, he took to Twitter, where he implied the cancellation was down to the rightward turn of the corporation: ‘Ah well, there’s to be no more New World Order on the BBC. Not surprising in the current climate, I suppose.’ In a similar vein, UK comedy bible Chortle has warned that ‘the cancellation will also fuel fears that the corporation is avoiding shows that are critical of the government’.

Now, to anyone who has actually watched the BBC recently, talk of it becoming a kind of Tory Russia Today will come as a surprise, particularly going by its comedy output. We seem lumbered with a generation of BBC comics who confuse lazy Tory bashing with political comedy.