I went to see shock comedian, Frankie Boyle, perform at the Anvil in Basingstoke last night as part of his tour of Britain’s provincial towns.

I have long been a fan of Boyle’s, particularly enjoying his ongoing tirade against elitism mixed with jaw dropping jokes on subjects we dare not talk or joke about, such as establishment child abuse, disability and cancer.

Of course, this has cost him dearly and by expressing on Children in Need that he was surprised to be asked to present on the BBC because he had no history of abusing kids, he slammed the final nail into the coffin of his mainstream TV career.

Some may say this is good news but on the rare times I turn on mainstream TV, it is not long before I turn it off. This is because in my opinion, it is riddled with the same faces churning out the same oblique nothingness, a bit like metaphorical horses being flogged to death.

“Tonight on The One Show, we are going to talk about nothing.”

The comedy is just so repetitive, whether it’s John Bishop going on about being “just an ordinary lad…from Liverpooooool”, Sarah Millican saying how much she loves cakes, or some Iranian woman going on about how interesting it is whenever she goes through customs at Heathrow.

Our screens are flooded by the same individuals who seemingly arrive from nowhere before getting offered some sort of central contract allowing them the rights to present almost any programme invented. It systematically dilutes them until, eventually, any humour they once possessed is eradicated and they are offered an opportunity host a programme that has little relevance to their talent.

What happens when David Attenborough finally dies?

“Now on BBC One, Life on Earth presented by Sarah Millican.”

“Hellooo pet, the earth is round pet…a bit like me pet, because I eat too many cakes, pet.”

So anyway, Frankie Boyle made me laugh but not as much as I had hoped he would. I can’t really put my finger on why this was the case but it may have been because I was under the weather or more likely because, in preparation, I had spent the last week reading his newspaper columns and watching his stand up shows on Netflix.

This got me really excited and we all know what happens when we build up in our imaginations how brilliant a party or a gig is going to be, don’t we?

That’s right; everything turns into a bit of an anti-climax.

Rather than spending the week watching and reading the best stuff Frankie Boyle has ever produced, I would have been far better off doing something inane like watching ‘A Question of Sport’  or the ‘The One Show’, to make me appreciate him more.

“Mat Dawson…what football team plays at Brammall Lane?”

“I Know this Sue…it’s…it’s…Sheffield Wednesday!”

“Nooooo…it’s Sheffield United!”

Apparently, in the world of Phil Tufnell and some morons in the audience, these sort of errors on sporting knowledge are comedy gold and are more than worthy of a slot on prime time TV, so I am obviously missing a trick.

Please don’t get me started on The One Show which is basically Blue Peter targeted at adults who are either mentally ill, or too tired from their day at work to change the channel over when the regional news and weather finishes.

In my opinion, what Frankie Boyle does do with comedy so well is use incendiary jokes to keep his audience captivated on the subject matter which is often depressing in nature and unpalatable for the authoritarian pious who know it is exposing them.

However, this makes it easy to ban and means that on mainstream television, the pious get what the pious want and the public gets what the public is given…until the public eventually believe it is what they want.

Frankie Boyle has, like Jerry Sadowitz before him, been marginalised because he is unpalatable to the masses, but we must remember that what is often seen as being incendiary, spiteful or even vicious comedy, is actually, in many cases, the exposure of really, really, awful individuals in politics or the media.

This was the case with the Jerry Sadowitz video that got banned due to accusations aimed at Jimmy Savile way back in 1987. Savile threatened to sue, the self-righteous backed him, the video was removed from the shelves, and abused kids had to wait another 25 years for justice.

Sadowitz was pursued and banned by Savile sycophants

After a day of deliberation, I understand that it was my own fault that I didn’t get to enjoy the gig as much as I had convinced myself I would, however, it reminded me that whether we enjoy the content or not, marginalising shock comedians from having a voice due to fear of PC fascists, is a narrow minded form of progression.

If the self-righteous have too much control of any large organisation and any jokes or criticism aimed at its failings, be it the BBC, the Police, the NHS or Parliament, corruption and abuse will become a cyclical movement, a bit like a forest fire that is put out but the embers remain, ready to flare up again at any opportunity.

The likes of Frankie Boyle challenge that and should be applauded for doing so, whether you like their humour or not, because you will often find that underneath, they have more morals than the whole of the establishment put together.

Right, its seven ‘O’ clock, I wonder what’s on the box?

Probably a programme about one of the biggest news stories of the day released by the Public Health department…did you know that if, in your forties, you eat better, drink less alcohol and take more exercise, you are likely to be healthier when you retire!

Ground-breaking stuff and wonderful subject matter for The One Show.