Anthony Clavane: Why the '˜Professional Yorkshireman' label is just a lazy one

In his latest TV series Who Is America?, which has received mixed reviews, the multi-millionaire Hollywood star’s victims include a polite pro-Trump couple and a friendly art gallery consultant. Hardly cutting edge political satire.

The show works best when one of Cohen’s personas, an Israeli counterterrorism expert, pranks some gullible gun-lobby fanatics. But even these segments, in which he gets his interviewees to advocate the arming of toddlers, are more scary than funny.

For me, the moment the creator of such memorably hilarious characters as Ali G, Borat and Bruno jumped the shark was when he tried, and failed miserably, to master a northern accent in the film Grimsby. This box office flop was a cliched take on the amoral practices of a down-at-heel, post-industrial town. It was fun to watch Cohen’s previous targets – rich and powerful figures like Mohamed Al-Fayed, Jacob Rees-Mogg and even The Donald himself – getting their comeuppance. But in Grimsby he began to punch down.

The movie came out in 2016, the year he was elevated on to the Sunday Times rich list having amassed a fortune of over £100 million. His portrayal of Nobby, a northern layabout addicted to benefits, booze and football hooliganism, seemed to be an inversion of the anti-establishment humour that had once been his trademark.

Without wishing to sound too much like a northern version of another of his spoof creations, the supreme ruler Admiral General Aladeen, can I suggest that he attend a re-education camp where he will be forced to listen, on a loop, to the recent Radio 4 documentary Could the PM Have a Brummie Accent?

Presented by Chris Mason, this superb programme explored the changing accents of British politics. “As one of only two members of the Yorkshire Dales branch of the parliamentary lobby of political reporters,” wrote Mason, “and as someone who prattles into a microphone for a shilling, I’ve always been fascinated by voices.” This wasn’t a chippy piece. Mason was not reprising Monty Python’s Four Yorkshireman sketch. “Prattling into a microphone for a shilling? You were lucky. I only got a tanner. A tanner? Luxury!” It was, instead, an entertaining examination of the way our national conversation is still dominated by upper-middle-class, London-centric opinion-formers who, as it were, speak proper. The only thing I took exception to was the presenter’s description of himself as a “professional Yorkshireman living in London”.

This term seems as out of date as other tired phrases such as “grim up North”, “trouble at t’mill”, “by eck” and anything Fred Trueman might have uttered whilst introducing the table skittles, shove ha’penny and darts to a bewildered public on the cult 1970s show Indoor League. “Professional Yorkshireman” is a label lazily applied to anyone born in the Broad Acres who has made it down south. Any man that is. For some reason it doesn’t apply to successful women like Jodie Whittaker, Judi Dench and, well, the Brontës. It is a form of insult and implies the chap in question is dour, has a penchant for flat caps and whippets and constantly prattles into a microphone about the wonders of God’s Own County.

Ending his radio show on an optimistic note, Mason reported that political parties were increasingly keen to recruit more socially diverse voices to Westminster. The most interesting revelation came from Steve Nallon, the man who impersonated Margaret Thatcher in Spitting Image. The Iron Lady, he disclosed, made her voice posher as she was rising up the Tory ranks – and then dropped it to a manly tone when she became more powerful. “She knocked the edges off and the vowels began to sound more natural,” he explained. “She loosened her RP tone and tried to make it more of the people.”

It was great to hear Nallon’s brilliant impressions once again. He truly is a master vocalist. One of the greatest, in fact, of the post-war era.

Born in Leeds you know.