I remember watching a very rare interview with the comedy actor Sir David Jason when he commented that the television companies seemed to have forgotten the basic premise that they exist to entertain people. It shocks me how many television programmes begin with a disclaimer warning viewers that they would be subjected to scenes they might find upsetting. Like Sir David, I long to be entertained again.
One of my favourite television sitcoms back in the 1990’s was “One foot in the grave” and I can remember sitting and watching it, crying with laughter at the ridiculous scrapes Victor Meldrew found himself in. We were experiencing some dark times at that point in our lives as a family and this half an hour, once a week, brought joy back into my life. Whenever I hear the words “I don’t believe it” I can hear the voice of the actor Richard Wilson who played the grumpy Victor Meldrew exclaiming total disbelief and I used to love to pity his long-suffering wife Margaret played by Annette Crosbie, who stood by him through thick and thin.
The best sitcoms, and I think the best stand-up comedians can take the very ordinary things of life and turn them into pure comedy, life is funny, and is quite often unbelievable and if you are like me, you will find yourself saying “this is unbelievable” or like Victor Meldrew “I don’t believe it”.
Around this time each year in Church, we reflect on the resurrection appearances and not matter how religious or holy we are, we must admit that they stretch our understanding of credibility to the limit. People tend not to die on a Friday and be alive again on a Sunday and for a lot of people this is too incredible to be true and they discard the story and the whole of the Christian faith with it. Even in Saint John’s account of the resurrection Thomas the disciple needs to see evidence or her won’t believe.
The fact is that unbelievable things happen every day of our lives, spend half an hour in the company of the Naturalist David Attenborough and your mind will be blown away. The scientific world we live in today demands evidence, but in reality, there are so many questions in the world today where we don’t know why things happen, things can’t be proven, there is no credible evidence. If we stand in total disbelief and speak the immortal words “I don’t believe it! All we have left is faith.