It’s OK To Laugh At Cast Offs

If you associate marooning disabled people on a desert island with Long John Silver and Blind Pew, then a new Channel 4 series, Cast Offs, will have you thinking again.

From Benny in Crossroads to Chris in Emmerdale, representations of disabled people on television have usually left much to be desired. Stereotypes abound: the tragic but brave victim; the bitter and twisted cripple; or the supercrip, who overcomes his limitations to triumph in the end, often because of his compensatory abilities (anyone remember Ironside?). Every time, the focus is on the disability, although the characters have, ironically enough, usually been performed by non-disabled actors. Latterly, producers have tried to place disabled people in everyday situations, showing them as ordinary people rather than as extraordinary exemplars. In 2004 the BBC raised the stakes with a well-received drama, Every Time You Look at Me, featuring a romance between two disabled characters.

Now Channel 4 has brought disability representation into the reality TV age, with a six-part spoof drama based on a Survivor-style show in which characters, with a comprehensive range of disabilities, ranging from deafness via paraplegia to disfigurement, are sent to an “island off the British coast” and left to flirt, squabble and generally fend for themselves. Each episode tells the story of one character via flashback, as well as following the group as they work out how to cope in their new surroundings.

The set-up gives the writers, Jack Thorne, Tony Roche and Alex Bulmer, plenty of scope to parody cultural stereotypes (if not, sadly, the reality TV format itself). For example, when a friend tells Tom, the blind character played by Tim Gebbels, that there is some scientific basis to the idea of adaptive advantage, he remarks in disgust, “Well, I must just be a bit crap, then”, because his visual impairment has not been accompanied by a heightening of other senses.

The first episode has fun with well-meaning, non-disabled people, in the form of the right-on but anxious parents of the newly paralysed Dan (Peter Mitchell). Every disabled person will cringe in recognition. There are also some good examples of the black humour that often arises when disabled people come together. Deaf Gabriella (Sophie Woolley) complains that she can’t lip-read Carrie (Kiruna Stammell) because her mouth is too small: Carrie, of course, has restricted growth.

At this point, viewers of an anxious or progressive disposition might be wondering whether it’s all right for them to find this material funny. After all, we’ve all been brought up not to mock the afflicted. More recently ideas of political correctness have proscribed certain language and recommended a more respectful treatment of minorities. But here’s a programme with input from disabled writers, featuring disabled characters, making sick jokes about disability. So what’s going on?

If humour isn’t subversive, then usually it isn’t funny. Laughter is a common response to what we find uncomfortable, difficult or threatening. Laughter that makes us think — as with Lenny Bruce — has the potential to change attitudes. When Gabriella teaches blind Tom sign language it’s a funny situation, full stop, and only the most narrow-minded person could find it offensive. All disabled people are more than familiar with the ridiculous, and between ourselves our jokes are darker than anything you will see on Cast Offs. But there are limits, and there is something important about how jokes work and what consequences they have. For example, personally, I do find the comedian Jimmy Carr offensive. While he is an equal opportunities comic in that he is offensive to everyone, I think that disabled people remain so unequal in our society that it is dangerous to make us the butts of humour. Laugh with us by all means, but not at us, please.

But above all, offer laughter not lecture, something Cast Offs sometimes forgets. For example, the producers seem to be on a mission to explain to the non-disabled world that disabled people are sexual beings. Having witnessed the efforts of Dan’s wheelchair basketball team to get him laid in episode one, and Tom’s mixed success in episode two’s blind date, I fear that none of the characters will remain unentangled by the end of the series, such is the writers’ determination to challenge what is “the last taboo”.

While I hope that Cast Offs is a success, I also hope it is just a stage in the journey of TV representation of disability, not the end point. Channel 4’s commitment should be applauded, but not overhyped. After all, TV audiences have already been more than willing to vote for oddballs — as evidenced by people who win Big Brother despite their Tourette’s or unconventional sexualities.

While it’s great to normalise disability by having a prime-time comedy show featuring disabled characters, we don’t want ghettos. Remember Desmond’s, Channel 4’s African Caribbean comedy show of 15 years ago? Rather than segregating six disabled people on an island of their own, why don’t soap operas or continuing dramas feature incidental disabled characters, played by our many fine disabled actors? Why not a doctor with restricted growth, a blind lawyer, a wheelchair-using business man?

And in case you think these are improbable fictional stereotypes, they aren’t: they’re real people I know and work with. It’s time that such characters took their place on our TV screens, week in, week out, as unremarkable reflections of the diverse world in which we live, love and laugh.