old just like the rest of us. they change. they write different stuff. but for their die—hard fans, well, they want to wallow in nostalgia and hear a rerun of the old hits. so, what to do? well, my guest today — stand—up comedian, writer and broadcaster frank skinner — has faced that challenge and responded by heading down multiple different paths. what does that tell us about the real frank skinner?

frank skinner, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. it's great to have you in the studio. you are still touring. you've been doing comedy for three and a half decades. i just wonder whether what you find funny today is pretty much the same as what you found funny all those years ago. well, there's always new sausage meat being produced. i always think of that, that it's sausage meat coming in from the world, and i'm making these sausages out of it to feed the audience. and so obviously, when i started there was no internet or... we had rationing, there was gas masks. no, it wasn't that bad. hang on a minute... but things like... i think the sort of international language of dirty jokes has stayed with me. and although i... when i first started as a stand—up comedian, the act, you know, for an hour and a half was sort of relentlessly rude. now it's a bit more paced and there's other things going on. but dirt is still where

you live, comedically speaking, because, i mean, the tour is called 30 years of dirt. so you're not trying to clean yourself up. no, i mean, i can't resist the pun, and that was a pun on a lyric from the football song that i did, of course. well, we'll get to that. but no, i... it's a thing that i don't know why it's sort of seen as a lesser form of comedy and it's called "easier" and all that. but it was, as you know, you know, chaucer, jonathan swift — there's loads of... a long history of filth. i mean, gulliver's travels is a sort of endless stream of excrement. yes. the only thing that sort of has changed radically over the years is you, in that, you know, like me, you've aged. and the young frank — and you've been very open about it — the young frank who grew up in a working—class community in the west midlands, industrial west midlands, you've said, you know, a lot of the humour of your peer group at school and whatever was all about sex and genitalia

and that sort of stuff. but you're living in a very different world now, but you still sort of draw from the same well. yeah, because i don't think that my angle on it, even back in the factory, was this super macho sex machine thing. it was about what a terrifying business, the insecurities of it, how easy it is to make a fool of yourself in that context. this terrible sense of performance required and all that. and so i think it was always a very fallible approach i took to it, and i think that's still acceptable. so you were sort of the opposite of the alpha male talking about sex. you were the self—deprecating, vulnerable male, in a way. well, i am testosterone intolerant, i think. so i struggle very much with that kind of male thing. what about the social mores in the society around you?

do you think that, you know, finding the funny in sex today is in any way sort of different in terms of the sensitivities, the acceptability, what works, what doesn't? well, i hope so, because i think that will inform my act, because, you know, the act begins with me. i have no powers of invention at all, really. it's just autobiographical. so any change in me is then reflected in the act rather than the other way round. and i think, you know, the whole woke revolution, which people think has killed comedy, i don't feel it. i don't have this thing that i'm desperate to say onstage that isn't acceptable anymore. i mean, what is that thing that people... what are they missing that they used to say in the old days? but are there things... and actually, ijust looked at a few wonderful frank skinner videos from the �*90s in preparation

for talking to you today. are there things that you had in your act back then that you look at today and you think, "oof, i wouldn't do that now?" yeah. and if so, what? but that is less about how i think the audience would react, and more about how ifeel about doing it, because i don't want to do anything onstage that i couldn't defend in a context like this, for example. and there were, i... i was doing a chat show on tv and there was twice that, um, ofsted. .. not ofsted. what's the thing that examines complaints for television? ofcom. so ofcom got involved in two different complaints. one was a song i did in a sort of bob dylan character, um, and whether it was homophobic or not was the debate. and when i look back on that song now — or i've done it, i looked back at that song — in my opinion, it was

definitely homophobic and i would never do that song now. i don't mean as a performer, ijust... that is not in my life now, that kind of talk. but you mean homophobia was in your life then? yes! really? yeah. i didn't recognise it, i think, as homophobia, because we've all got a lot more sophisticated now. mm. we've been educated, basically. do you think racism was in your life, and maybe even in... ..subconsciously in your mindset as a young man? oh, definitely. yeah. ithink... i grew up in the �*60s and the �*70s in the west midlands, and we definitely used racist language, we definitely used homophobic language, we definitely used sexist language. and i emphasise that we used the language because i never really... i never internally examined

whether i felt those things. but that was... it wasn't that i ignored the other voice that there is now, but there was no other voice then. everyone i knew used that terminology and had those attitudes. and two things happened to me — the football team i supported got three black players at a time when there was almost no black players in the top—flight of english football, and these guys became my heroes. and i was watching the opposition throw bananas and do monkey noises every week, and that i found i was disgusted by. but also at that same time, i was going into higher education and meeting people that were another voice, that had an alternative view, which i found more appealing. and yet, even though you'd watched those black players succeed at your club, west bromwich albion in the west midlands, you then did a sketch with your great friend and collaborator david baddiel, you know, which lived long in many people's memories for not good reasons. mm. you made fun of a black football player —

and this is much later, in the mid to late �*90s — a player called jason lee. he had a very distinctive haircut. you sort of mocked the haircut. david baddiel blacked up to play him in a comedy sketch. he was very hurt. mm. and you've been very honest and candid and said you regret it, but... it's more than... ..it does raise questions about how you and david could ever have thought that was acceptable or funny. well, i... i have had this conversation with david. i've spoken to the producers of the show, i've spoken to lots of people about it. i don't know how it happened. i mean, i am... i am ashamed of it now, certainly. i have no defence for it. and as you say, you know when people say, "oh, it was different times then, we didn't..." but we knew what. .. we thought we knew what racism was. but maybe our view of racism wasn't as nuanced as it is now — as i say, we have been educated. but i find it gobsmacking.

i don't have many regrets looking back, but i don't know how that happened. and it was... it wasn'tjust racism — it was bullying, and it was a sort of borderline vendetta against jason. that's an interesting word, "bullying", and comedians often talk about the absolute importance of not punching down, you know, not sort of abusing power relationships in that way. are you very much more careful, would you say, today about bullying, punching down than you might have been then? well, i think i am, as i say, as a person, and so that goes into my act. i've got a kid now. i've got a 12—year—old child and, you know, i want to make him... this is an old—fashioned term, but i want to make him a good citizen. and so i'm analysing these things much more closely. i'm scrutinising because i

don't want him to be... he won't be the kid i was, because he comes to me with much more compassionate and caring views than i had when i was a kid. what's so striking about your career is that you had tremendous success in the �*90s, and it was primarily based on two great topics, favourite topics of yours — sex, which we've discussed, and football, which we've sort of touched on as well. it was deeply sort of male—oriented, but i mean, you obviously lived a life far beyond the stand—up arena and the tv studio. were you aware that there was something slightly odd about the degree to which your identity, or the perceived identity you had, was so deeply sort of male, all about maleness? well, i, um, it's interesting because i used to do, obviously, a lot of interviews then, and when they asked me about my life, i would talk

about the fact that i'd got two degrees in english, that i read poetry every day, that i didn't drink alcohol. but they never... the alcohol thing made the interviews, but the other stuff never did. and i think... i think aristotle said that probable truth is more important than actual facts. if in a battle one side is on top, there's a few moments when the other team rallies, then you should ignore that in the story, because the truth of it is that onslaught. and the truth of me, as perceived by the media at that time, was this birmingham jack the lad guy. so that stuff about being educated and all that didn't really fit. so i think those... they got turned down to zero and the other stuff got turned up to ten, and i went with that.

that's so interesting. ijust wanted... did that, as you look back on it, actually make you unhappy? i don't know. you see, i look back on fame when that happened, when i was really, like, the white heat of fame, and all that going to film premieres and all that stuff. i look back on it as a deliriously happy time. i mean, i have taken to celebrity... but it wasn't the real you. but, well, it was... because you love poetry. you could talk forever about the joys of reading a stevie smith poem. and yet in public, you were this geezer who just loved football and sex. but i don't think i... i think my act was always quite poetic, even though it was about sex. yeah. i've always, like, basked in language and all that stuff. but i think most performers... you know, i mean, there's probably aspects of you which you don't bring to this job because they don't really help what you're trying to achieve.

and that's what i, you know, people love that jack the lad character. and it wasn't made up — it was me, but it wasn't the whole story. and what is then interesting is that, as you said, you've always told interviewers that, "you know what? "i do love english literature, and i do have a hinterland "and there's loads of things i'm interested in that "don't quite fit your agenda." but even if they weren't listening, you continued to pursue them, and i guess eventually in more recent years, they've come more and more to the fore. so have you had to push hard, for example, to do the broadcasting work you've done, actually, on poetry? you know, you've got your own podcast all about the joys of poetry. you've done lots of broadcasting on landscape painting, looking at the history of music or all sorts of different things. how hard have you had to push? well, when you, um... when you hit this sort of fame thing at a point where a broadcaster is offering you an exclusive three—year contract, they will say to you things like, "we want this series and this series and this series,

"and if you want to put a few things in that are just "projects you'd like, we'll pay for those as well." so that's how you generally get those things through. but there is a sort of a... i remember when i first did the poetry podcast, and i went out plugging it on shows, the first question was, "why on earth are you, "of all people, doing a poetry podcast?" and i don't think that was necessarily because i was a laddish comedian. ijust think, you know, maybe the accent wasn't right for that. ah, well, you see, ijust... correct me if i'm wrong, but i get the sense you have been a little bit angered by people's sort of assumptions about you, not least because, you know, you're a working—class lad originally, you have a... not so strong now, but a brummie — birmingham accent. and you have said that in the past when you've done some of these, you know, arts projects, that people have sort of patronised you and said, "how did you get

involved in this?" do you feel that the uk has a problem sometimes with pigeonholing people? ithink... i mean, i'm sure i've done it myself as well, but, yeah, i think that is the case. but, you know, as a working—class guy back in birmingham, i remember when i started doing a degree, someone on the bus started asking me about what we'd been doing that day, which was hamlet, we'd been talking about hamlet. and i couldn't. .. i thought, "i can't believe you're "bringing this up on the bus in front of these people. "let's talk about our sex lives. "it's much less embarrassing." you mean, you yourself began to feel self—conscious? yeah, because i thought people will think i've got ideas above my station and all that. huh. so it was pretty well schooled into me as well. you know, i grew up in a road where on my side of the road

it was council houses, so we rented from the local council. the other side of the road was private houses, so people owned their own homes. i remember when you looked down the road, there was cars parked on that side and none on our side, but i never even walked on that other side of the road. so, yeah, it can come from outside, but i think it also comes from inside. when i first moved to london, when i went to a nice restaurant, i used to catch myself letting the other person go in first, because i didn't want to step into this alien place. hmm. i didn't feel quite worthy of it, i suppose. is class consciousness still with you today, and does it in some ways colour the way you... i don't know, whether you feel it colours your political views? how does it work for you? i guess it... i guess it colours. you know, i vote labour, but i'm not a terribly political person, as you'll probably find out as you probe my labour loyalties. i mainly vote labour

because james callaghan waved at me, um, on a trip to london. yeah, a former labour prime minister, going back to the �*70s. yeah. and yet your dad was a tory. didn't he vote tory? he was a working—class tory, yeah. and his argument was, for not voting labour — he quoted this a lot — "if you put a beggar "on horseback, you'll ride into hell." and he felt that labour people hadn't been trained to lead the way tories had. was your dad or your mum, were your parents religious? yeah, my dad was, um, my dad was catholic. he was raised a catholic. he was a cradle catholic, as we call them. and then my mum changed to... she converted at the time of marriage, which i think was quite a common thing. because, again, i would say that most comedians, particularly those who for years have explored what you call dirt and filth and sex, they're not naturally seen as observant religious people.

no. but you have come out in recent years as being absolutely a believing, observant catholic. yeah, well, i'd say one of the few areas that talk about sex more than i do is the catholic church. they chuckle. not in the same way. no, but they are obsessed with it in many, many ways. and they often see it as more important than you would think would be more basic humanitarian concerns. i mean, it's a reasonable... you know, it's a reasonable point — i don't fit the stereotype. you don't. do you spend a lot of time in confession? i enjoy confession, generally speaking, yeah. i think it's a very liberating thing to do. i don't think sex jokes is the thing i'm confessing, you know? i'm more likely to confess, you know, narrow—mindedness or unkindness or those things. i think they are more

important. but again, you know, we began by discussing the way your humour has evolved and your act. as you've been more open about your religious faith, does it incline you, perhaps, to be... i don't know, a bit less sweary, to not take god's name in vain? i mean, that's obviously very literal, but... well, i don't. i don't take god's name in vain. one of the... i rarely get offended, but i always, if i'm talking to someone, even people i love, and they casually use like, you know, "jesus christ" or whatever as an exclamation, i never correct those people because i don't want to be a corrector — that's not who i feel i should be, but i always... but you mean internally? i wince. do you? yeah, i don't. .. even though you're the man — probably more than anybody else i can think of ever in this studio — who is known publicly for sort of exploring every word to do with sex that one can think of? yeah, but i'm ok with that. i don't mind taking those words in vain. yeah. and in terms of the church's

official positions on all sorts of things — i mean, one could think ofabortion, contraception, a whole list of things — imean, is... how do you practise your catholicism? do you sort of believe every item of catholic dogma? no, i don't know a catholic who believes every item of catholic dogma. iam... you know, i read a magazine called the tablet every week, which is a roman catholic journal. mm. the whole thing is a questioning of the church and its opinions and its official views and all that. i think that's very healthy, but i think it is a good force in my life. and i believe, overall, it's a good force in the world. you know, i know people... i can think of a couple

of people who i met who literally went and worked in africa doing all sorts of stuff that i would never have the courage to go and do, based solely on their faith and their belief, and there aren't many things that motivate people like that. so i think, yeah, i think it's a force for good. but there's a theologian called karl... i can't remember his name now, but he said the catholic church was on the road to truth, but it took several cul—de—sacs on the way, and that's how i feel about it. yeah. so i guess catholicism has been a constant in your life. one thing that has very much changed... well, not a constant, in fact. i actually left the church... did you? ..when i was 17 and stayed away for about 12 years. and it was based on doctrine and belief and all that stuff. i didn't stop believing in god, but i started worrying about these things that you're talking about to the point where it removed me from the church, which caused massive family trouble and all that. and then i tried... i became a faith tourist and went and tried all these other christian religions.

and in the end, you know, i... came back. ..wandered back home. i guess what i was thinking is one thing that has changed markedly, dramatically — for you, for me, for all of us in the last sort of 20 years — has been social media. the internet, social media, the degree to which we can access information and make communication and contact in a totally new way, which has affected culture, has affected comedy. i talked about it with david baddiel. i'm sure you have too. has it affected the way in which you feel, you sort of perform, in the cultural arena? well, i've personally opted out of social media. i have, i believe, some social media things that are handled by other people, but i struggle with criticism and so i don't want to open the door. it seems to me like living at the stage door, if you like — you don't know who's going to turn up and what

they're going to say or do, and so i avoid that. i worry about it as a social phenomenon, especially in the context of my child. but the people at the management company i have are constantly saying to me, "it'd be great," you know, "you'd sell more tickets if you had a "social media presence," and all that. but, um, ijust... i don't... i don't want to be part of it. you don't want to go viral, for good or ill? no. and i do, you know, i let them put clips of me up and they say, great, we've had however many hits or whatever they even call them. it's not my world. and i don't think my audience are very of that nature either. and there may be terrible stuff being said about me on social media, but i don't know. frank skinner, we have to end there, but thanks very much for being on hardtalk. thank you. it's been an...ordeal. they laugh

hello there. there's going to be a lot of wet, windy and cold weather to come over the new year, but the focus today remains on this amber rain warning that we have from the met office. and within this area, there are already a number of severe flood warnings on rivers. it's been very wet in scotland, some snow melt adding to that as well. the rain turns more showery in mainland scotland. some wetter weather heads to the northern isles with snow in shetland, and this band of rain clears through southern scotland, northern ireland into england and wales. to the south it's dry. windier day though, particularly across this part of the country, but it is a south—westerly wind so it's lifting the temperatures to 11—12

degrees, except in the far north of scotland, where it's going to stay cold here. now, if you are going to be celebrating new year in wales and northern england, there's a good chance you're going to have some wet weather. that rain will be heavy over the hills and it may well lead to some flooding as well. that band of rain is going to move southwards on new year's day, but on it and just ahead of it, it's going to be very windy. and then to the north, following the rain, snow and ice continues across northern scotland and a wintry mix of rain and hill snow moves down across northern ireland, southern scotland, eventually into northern england as things get colder. temperatures are going to be dropping through the day for most of us, the last of any mild air is in the far south east of england, where we end the day wet and windy. that weather front, then, does move away, and then we chase our weather all the way up to the north. it's a north to northwesterly wind that's coming down, and that's going to bring cold air across the whole of the country. and by the time we get to thursday morning, there'll be a widespread frost this time. there could be some icy patches from earlier showers too — most of the snow showers

will continue to affect northern parts of scotland. there could be one or two wintry showers for northern ireland, getting close to these north sea coasts, but for large parts of the country it will be dry on thursday. and it'll be sunny as well, but it is going to feel an awful lot colder. we've got temperatures typically only 3—5 degrees. at least it's not that windy and the winds will be a bit lighter, ithink, heading into friday, but it's still cold air. widespread frost, some icy patches, a few more wintry showers for northern ireland over the irish sea near some north sea coasts, and most of the snow falling in northern scotland. but, again, it is going to be cold after that frosty start — highs of 3—5 celsius.

president from 1987 to 1981. live from washington,

this is bbc news. a state funeral is to be held forjimmy carter onjanuary 9 as tributes continue to pour in for the longest—lived us president. china issues a response after the us treasury says it was hacked by a chinese state—sponsored actor in what's being described as a "major incident." relatives of those lost in sunday's deadly plane crash in south korea demand answers from the government as the anxious wait continues for the recovery of their loved ones. i'm helena humphrey. a state funeral will be held forformer us president jimmy carter onjanuary 9 at the washington national cathedral as part of a national day of mourning for america's longest living president. mr carter, the georgia peanut farmer turned naval officer, served as a one—term

president from 1977 to 1981. he would later go on to expand his legacy after his presidency