“Different Times” by David Stubbs (2023)

“In 2011, in the sitcom Outnumbered, the Brockmans have taken in a German exchange student, Ottfried.”

Look at Twitter or whatever it’s called this week and you’ll quickly find someone – invariably a middle-aged white man with a car for an avatar and three Union Flags in his bio – complaining that “you can’t say anything anymore”. Comedy, like all aspects of society, has shifted now to place where it’s trying to be more inclusive and less offensive. You can still offend, of course, but context r...