Lucifer Over Lanarkshire: Diane Morgan Is A Disgrace

I’m not asking for cancellation here, because, as I previously stated, I have a sense of ambivalence about banning artists, but there’s one actor who really winds me up: Diane Morgan. She’s a disgrace.

For those of you unfamiliar with her work, Morgan is a comedy actor who is utterly typecast. Essentially, she plays stupid, working -class stereotypes over and over, with no variation or development. Her face permanently set to “gurn” mode, and her voice a dour northern monotone, she spouts inane, iIl-informed nonsense and fails at anything requiring skill, competence or ambition.

I’m really sick of it. As a working -class woman working in the arts (I’ve been a theatre and dance critic well over a decade) the barriers have been vast, and I still feel somewhat an outsider. Imposter syndrome may be a cliche, but this is often how I feel. You’re taught from an early age not to get ideas above your station, to make yourself small. Don’t be pretentious, who do you think you are?

Characters like Morgan’s Mandy, or the insufferable Philomena Cunk really don’t help. They reinforce ugly traits: jobless; idiotic, lazy women who revel in their pointless existence. Life’s never given them anything to aim for, so why bother? You can’t transcend a poor or “less than” environment. Oh, yeah? Says you.

This would be almost acceptable if her characters were in any way likeable, but they’re so obnoxious. Morgan does not come from this background, so it seems like she’s trashing on something she doesn’t really comprehend. It’s pure snobbery.

There was a TV comedy show from Scotland, called ‘Burnistoun’. Everyone in it was pretty absurd, and that was the joke. The difference was that the writers weren’t posh, and picking on those they deemed beneath them. They’d grown up in ordinary backgrounds, so their voices were authentic. Plus, they were often witty and good-natured. It’s exactly as Tim Minchin sang in his pointed, satirical song ‘Prejudice’: “Only a ginger can call another ginger person ginger”. Indeed.

With the dominance of Oxford/ Cambridge educated people in the media and politics, it’s hard to get alternative voices out there. It’s the reason I love The Smiths, Nina Simone, Iggy Pop, John Cooper Clarke, Arab Strap, Jarvis Cocker and the lyrics of MES. As the latter once ranted, “We are the northern crap that talks back!” The aforementioned are all intellectual, on the autodidact side: readers, thinkers, who never let their less than flush circumstances hold them back. Diane Morgan represents a snide aspect of television that feels smug, dated and unhelpful. Not all poor people are morons.