The Sun on Mrs Slocombe’s Pussy

Via Gloria Brame, who gives good blog, this bit of silliness from (of all things) The Sun, reheated by Ananova. It’s probably nonsense, but it has a small whiff of plausibility about it. Are You Being Served isn’t remembered all that fondly in Britain – it was dated long before it ended, and operated on a level of sophistication one small step above Christmas pantomime. And yet the whole Mrs Slocombe’s pussy riff was amazingly daring, in a way that I think resonates entirely differently in the US and Britain. As the PBS guy says, British comedy thrives on double entendre, and always has done, at least from music hall onwards. Max Miller; Frankie Howerd; the Carry Ons; and then the post-modern spin given by The Fast Show. But however lewd the other entendre – and they don’t actually get much lewder than Mrs Slocombe’s pussy – there’s always been a comfort, whether misplaced or not, that the audience will get whichever entendre is appropriate for them. Or, at least, that they’ll fail to understand any entendres that aren’t appropriate for them. It follows that you don’t need to censor, because the level of linguistic sophistication needed to get both entendres acts as a kind of child-friendly filter, allowing Mother and Father to get the joke, while Little Johnny doesn’t, but doesn’t entirely realise that he’s missed anything. I’m not sure that assumption is made in the US, where double entendres aren’t quite such a refined art.

Anyway, enjoy this collection of the juiciest bits of Mrs Slocombe’s pussy.