Sunday, June 05, 2011

Was Winston Churchill a Myth (a pig in a hat)?

One of my favourite comedians is Stewart Lee and I am loving the second series of his Comedy Vehicle currently airing on BBC2.  The most recent episode featured a hilarious sketch that reminded me, with all due respect and with apologies, of the Jesus Mythicists.  It's about the historical evidence for Winston Churchill who, it turns out, was actually just a pig in a hat. (Warning: contains expletives):

2 comments:

The Thirsty Gargoyle said...

That's a superb piece. If you like Lee, and if you haven't seen it yet, you really should take a look at his How I Escaped My Certain Fate, which contains a few fine bridging essays and annotated scripts of three of his shows.

The idea that the early Christian authors were close to the events they describe is an important one, I think, and one that even has extrabiblical value beyond that of discrediting in large part any attempts to claim that they were myth-making. Hilaire Belloc showed that quite impressively in his popular and polemical 1920 book Europe and the Faith, describing Justin Martyr as being 'as near to the Crucifixion as my generation is to the Reform Bill' and Ignatius as standing 'to the generations contemporary with Our Lord as I stand to the generation of Gladstone'.

We could update that to the generation of Churchill just as easily.

Mark Goodacre said...

I agree; it's a superb piece. I haven't seen the piece you mention but will look it out. I love his "Sunday Heroes" from a few years back in which he plays Jesus too.