Neil Morrissey has branded his iconic character Men Behaving Badly character Tony Smart and Martin Clunes’ Gary Strang as “misogynistic” – insisting the series couldn’t be made today. The sitcom ran for six years from 1992 to 1998 and saw Tony and Gary drink beer, watch TV and attempt to pursue women. Caroline Quentin played Gary’s long-suffering girlfriend Dorothy, while Leslie Ash played Debs, the target of Tony’s affections.
Now 27 years after the series ended, Neil, 62, and Martin, 63, are reuniting for a new travel series called Neil and Martin’s Bon Voyage for comedy channel U&Gold. On the show, Neil says, “Tony and Gary were misogynistic ne’er-do-wells but we kind of captured the zeitgeist because there was a lot of talk about laddism and we were given that title of ‘the lads’ of the era. You couldn’t get away with making Men Behaving Badly now.”
(
ExpressStar)
However, Neil tells The Mirror that the show never intended to be sexist or misogynistic. He said: “If you said misogyny to either Tony or Gary, they’d have probably thought it was a Polish sausage. Martin agreed, adding: “Or a star sign! They were totally in awe of women and blown away by them and worshipped them in an inappropriate way.”
But both concede society wouldn’t accept the show today as issues have become black and white. Martin said: “Life has changed. With some social media and the entire world becoming a journalist, and everything becoming so polarised that it’s like, ‘they said something inappropriate, therefore it can’t be funny, it must be bad, let’s stamp it out and cancel it all,’ rather than seeing any nuance in life. Nuance has gone out of fashion. I think everything’s become bold and brash in terms of comedy.”
This isn’t the lads’ first TV tour together. Before the 2000 Olympics in Australia they took a tour Down Under taking the route the Olympic torch would take.
It was called Men Down Under and saw them travel around Australia and meet Aussie men. On the way they visited a brothel and a topless pub. Neil reminisces to Martin: “You checked out the brothel! And I checked out, well I daren’t even say it in case I get prosecuted, but I went to a bar one evening where when a pint glass got full of coins the ladies took their tops off!”
Martin has fond memories too and laughs, “Skimpies? Skimpies is still going! We went on some capers.” Just like on Men Behaving Badly, Neil and Tony enjoy their booze in their new travelogue. The series opens with the pair enjoying the first beverage of many atop a sand dune before Martin arrives at Neil’s French home and gifts him an open bottle of liquor, apologising, “I got thirsty in the night.”
However, Martin claimed the show’s editors made it look like they spent more time drinking than exploring the countryside. He said: “Is there a lot of us drinking in it? Well they’ve done that on purpose!”
Neil and Martin’s Bon Voyage starts on U&Gold on March 25 at 9pm. Join The Mirror’s WhatsApp Community or follow us on Google News , Flipboard , Apple News, TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads – or visit The Mirror homepage.
