12:02
Postimet
Alexander Armstrong, the comedian, has hit out at criticism of "posh" people who have attended public schools as a form of social injustice.
He can trace his ancestors back to William the Conqueror and hails from “the junior end of a grand Irish aristocratic family”.
So, perhaps inevitably, Alexander Armstrong has little patience with what he calls “posh-bashing”.
The television presenter, actor, comedian (one half of the Armstrong and Miller duo) regards attacks on the “posh” as more than inverse snobbery, or a way of sending up a Government with a large quotient of Old Etonians.
For him, posh-bashing is a form of social injustice.
“I do bitterly resent it when people of any kind are attacked because of something that is no fault of theirs — like who their parents are.
"Why should your background be held against you? It is so short sighted. There are plenty of reasons for disliking people, but this tribal aversion to anyone with a posh voice is very boring.”
His words echo a complaint made by the Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who said that sniping at his privileged background had made him consider decamping for America where he would be judged on what he did, rather than which school he went to.
Their concerns have been raised at a time of growing consciousness of what might be described in shorthand as “posh”, with an Etonian Prime Minister accused of having too many of his own kind in Cabinet (George Osborne, St Paul’s, son of a baronet; Nick Clegg, Westminster, son of a banker) and perhaps more importantly in kitchen cabinet: his new policy chief is Jo Johnson, the Old Etonian brother of Boris, the Mayor of London, and around him are the “chumocracy”, which includes Edward Llewellyn, his school friend turned chief of staff and Jesse Norman, another Old Etonian policy adviser.
Beyond politics, the perception that a privileged background and public school education is the key to public life has created resentment.
Our top model is not Croydon’s Kate Moss, but Cara Delevingne, granddaughter of a knight, educated at Bedales; the Archbishop of Canterbury is an Old Etonian, while Cumberbatch (Harrow) spoke out because of criticism that British acting is dominated by public school products: Dominic West (Eton); Damian Lewis (Eton); Eddie Redmayne (Eton); and Emma Watson (The Dragon School); Sienna Miller (Heathfield St Mary’s School), among others.
Armstrong’s own fightback against stereotyping on account of his parentage (well-to-do upbringing in rural Northumberland and public school — Durham, not Eton) has, he admits, been rather more modest. Xander, as his friends know him, has chosen Toff Media as the name for the production company he has set up with comedy partner, Ben Miller.
But he clearly feels the slight deeply. The perception that he is too upper class for popular taste has, he says, cost him in career terms. “I’m not anticipating an offer to appear in Shameless [Channel 4’s drama set on a Manchester council estate],” he joked.
More concrete was the BBC’s initial rejection of Armstrong and Miller’s sketch show format after their Edinburgh Festival triumph in 1996, because the Corporation said it wanted to steer clear of any more Oxbridge comics.
The pair met when undergraduates at Trinity College, Cambridge, as part of a Footlights generation that included Rachel Weisz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins.
Instead, the duo turned to Channel 4, where there were no metal detectors for silver spoons in the mouth, and built a reputation with four series before returning to the BBC in 2007.
Indeed, Armstrong’s is now one of the most ubiquitous faces on the small screen: he played Caroline Quentin’s husband in Life Begins and Reggie Perrin’s next door neighbour in the Martin Clunes remake, along with an appearance in the Dr Who Christmas special and stints as a presenter in shows including The Great British Weather.
He even has another high-profile chairing job — on the BBC teatime quiz, Pointless, which is in its seventh series. It has become the “new Countdown”, attracting audiences of 3 million, and is beloved of the same late-afternoon set who once tuned in to Carol Vordeman and Richard Whiteley.
Ironically, in 2007, Armstrong declined the chance to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Whiteley.
The reason we are meeting is to talk about a spin-off book from the quiz show, The 100 Most Pointless Things in the World, with its lists of “pointless things”: jukebox musicals, inappropriate caravan names and game show hosts.
Armstrong, though, is far too well-mannered to insist on dwelling at length on a book.
Instead, he chatters away on whatever subject comes up. Where most television presenters tend to pick their words carefully and explain, “I wouldn’t want to offend anyone”, he leans back in his chair, balances one long leg on the knee of the other, and holds forth. We could be the two RAF pilots in one of the best-loved Armstrong and Miller sketches, chewing on our pipes and the state of the world in the mess room, except that we are not talking as they do in street slang (“So iz you say you iz gonna shoot uz up wi dem gunz?”).
A question about the “pointless things” that Armstrong and his co-presenter and co-author Richard Osman left out of the book leads us on to politicians.
And then, just as effortlessly, to David Cameron, whom Armstrong has played twice in Channel 4 dramas (though there is no real physical resemblance, with Armstrong’s large ears and bony face a world away from the Prime Minister’s neater, smoother, rounder features).
The first time was in The Trial of Tony Blair, and then again more recently in Hacks (albeit under the transparent disguise of being called David Bullingdon). Did he get any feedback from the PM?
“Not directly,” he replies, “but Liz Murdoch did say to me afterwards: “I enjoyed your David Cameron.” She left a dot dot dot afterwards, which I suppose was because Hacks was rude about the men in her family.”
I wait for him to apologise for dropping this humdinger of a name, but instead, he remarks sagely: “Very balanced, Liz. The most balanced of them all. She can take a joke.”
Elisabeth Murdoch and her husband, Matthew Freud, are key members of the Chipping Norton set, near the part of Oxfordshire where Armstrong recently moved with his wife and three sons.
In the past, Armstrong has eulogised his own childhood, with his landowning GP father and aristocratic mother, in remote Northumberland. How does Oxfordshire match up?
“It’s definitely more suburban,” he admits, “not actually suburban, of course, but manicured. Very Farrow and Ball. I associate the farms of my childhood with mud and filth and more mud. There’s less of that in Oxfordshire.”
There is a note of apology in his voice. Indeed, he’s making his new home sound something he and Miller would have sent up ruthlessly in one of their sketches. “Yes, we probably would,” he concedes. “Before I had children, I had my cake. I think it would be true to say that I am now going through the phase of my life that might be labelled 'and eating it’.”
Source : Telegraph.co.uk
Posted in
