Read the latest from Pete Price
Read the latest from Pete Price
Bob Monkhouse passed away in 2003 at the age of 75 after a courageous battle with prostate cancer.
For decades, he was one of the most recognisable and brilliant faces of British television. To me, however, Bob was more than a celebrity; he was a dear friend who championed my career, just as he did for countless others in the industry.
In 1995, Bob famously offered a £10,000 reward for the return of his stolen joke books. He took that theft harder than the public ever truly knew; his entire life was recorded within those pages.
When they were finally recovered 18 months later following a police operation, it was a national relief. These weren’t just joke books – they were a meticulously kept diary of a life in comedy, filled with his own incredible, hand-drawn cartoons.
After Bob passed, he left these ‘priceless’ volumes (if you’ll pardon the pun) to Colin Edmonds, a dear friend and long-time writing partner. This is why I was shocked, horrified, and deeply saddened to learn that a plan to restore one of these handwritten treasures on The Repair Shop was quietly scrapped.
The segment would have been fantastic television, showing skilled experts restoring a cherished piece of British entertainment history. It wasn’t dropped because the books lacked warmth or value.
It was dropped because someone, somewhere, decided to be offended by the content.
Let’s be clear: Bob was a craftsman. He was meticulous.
He carried these private notebooks everywhere, constantly shaping and refining his material. Thousands of jokes and a lifetime of work – that isn’t just comedy; it is history.
And history is not meant to be edited or erased to suit modern sensibilities. These books were products of their time.
Naturally, some of the material may make for uncomfortable reading by today’s standards. But these were his private journals.
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Furthermore, the purpose of the show is to repair the physical object, not to audit the prose. The Repair Shop could have used the moment to explain and explore that context.
All it needed was common sense. My concern isn’t just about one cancelled segment; it’s about the growing instinct to sanitise the past before anyone even has the chance to see it.
Who are these people acting as judge and jury? If you are going to show the inside pages on camera, simply choose the ones that aren’t offensive.
It really is that simple. We are now in danger of rewriting not just comedy, but culture itself. Once that starts, where does it end?
Are we simply going to erase the past? Deletion does not educate us; it only risks losing the story of how we arrived where we are today.
I am truly perplexed. Even Shakespeare’s work is filled with language and attitudes toward race and class that are problematic today, yet we do not burn his folios.
I rest my case. I only wish Bob were still alive today – I would have loved to hear his comments on this.
He would have certainly found the ‘wit’ in the absurdity of it all.
