Crikey

It was a slightly prissy press release from the Nine Network that trumpeted that Little Britain was being shown on Nine from 7 July, after it has been to air at least twice on the ABC and countless times on Foxtel.

“LITTLE BRITAIN, written and performed by Matt Lucas and David Walliams, is a small and surreal parallel universe peopled by gloriously over-the-top eccentrics, lunatics and social misfits who live in towns with strange names like Flange and Scoffage.

“Featuring an array of characters, including Vicky Pollard, the incoherent trailer-trash teenager. Marjorie Dawes, the tubby, tyrannical leader of her Fat Fighters class. Emily Howard, the world’s least convincing transvestite. Daffyd Thomas, who insists he is the only homosexual in his village…

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve always heard Daffyd exclaim that he was “The only gay in the village”. There was no mention in the release of the great line “The computer says no”, which is perhaps the most long-lasting contribution of the program to the modern lexicon.

The irony is that Nine and the rest of the commercials wouldn’t go near Little Britain when it was new because of the content. The 10.30pm timeslot tells us just how confident Nine remains of its audience attraction even after millions of people have seen it on the ABC and Foxtel.