Hot rabbis don’t work for this Jewish writer

The original headline for this opus was A Year in the Life of Hit Comedy Hapless. Hit comedy, my tuchus, as the Ashkenazim say.

The year 2024 started off positively. British Airways, who initially refused to show Hapless because it didn’t “want to take sides in the war” admitted its error and apologised to “the Jewish community”. The wording was off – because it wasn’t only Jews who complained! But we had just signed a deal with Peacock in the USA, who would stream both series – 14 episodes in total. Things were looking sweet.

Then, I kept running into people in the UK community who had never heard of it. At shul, at parties, even at shivahs. Hapless was on Prime, it had five-star reviews from the Daily Mail and Daily Express, and The Sun called it “painfully funny”. But, despite the praise, it hadn’t even caught a breeze.

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In February, I flew to Los Angeles to discuss the US release with the distributor. I landed in the worst rainstorms to hit the City of Angels in decades. It was wetter than Manchester, with roads that couldn’t cope. My phone pinged with urgent government warnings to stay inside. The meetings I had flown over for became Zoom calls I could have had from Finchley. Still, we nailed down a release date, I hired a PR company, and I began exploring a US version with an American cast.

Why a US version for this quintessentially British series? I’d come to the conclusion that the UK’s film and TV world is a wasteland for comedy. My theory goes back to my first film, Leon the Pig Farmer, in 1992, which was turned down by every distributor before it was made – and even after it won awards. This doubled down with Hapless, which was rejected by the BBC despite the rave reviews. Rejected at the head of comedy commissioner level, first by Shane Allen, then by Jon Petrie (who had rejected it at C4 too!), and even by the BBC director-general Tim Davie, despite my offering it to him for a pittance.

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They argue it’s their remit to follow their tastes. My reply: when the sitcoms you make pull in incredibly small numbers and get poor reviews, if you’re offered a well-reviewed series at a low cost, you’re doing a disservice to the British public by refusing to show it. You’re prioritising repeats of Last of the Summer Wine over a modern, challenging sitcom. That’s not what the licence fee is for.

The nub of the problem, of course, is that it’s a comedy with a Jewish character. There are only about 230,000 of us in the UK. If my lead had been Muslim, there’d be millions of potential viewers. Ditto a Black lead. But I didn’t make Hapless for Jews. I made it for the 60 million non-Jews. That’s why the non-Jewish critics loved it. Sadly, broadcasters are obsessed with making comedies for targeted audiences – BAME writers for BAME viewers, LGBT+ comedies for LGBT+ viewers, menopausal comedies for menopausal women. It’s one reason society is so divided: targeted comedy appealing to tribal groups.

They’re wrong. Saying Muslims won’t get British satire or that we have to avoid Islamic jokes isn’t doing anyone any favours. It assumes a monolithic reaction from a community, which is the definition of Islamophobia. Fear of a negative reaction from the LGBTQ+ community to gay-themed jokes is homophobia. We shouldn’t pigeon-hole minorities – Jews included – as “humourphobic”. We shouldn’t pander to lobby groups who’ve forgotten the point of satire, which works best when it targets everyone equally. What would a fearless Spitting Image have made of Yahya Sinwar and Benjamin Netanyahu?

By October, a major earthquake hit the Jewish TV world. Yes, it’s the must-watch, binge-worthy show that no one can remember the name of. Let’s call it The Hot Rabbi Series. A romcom written by Erin Foster with a Jewish lead, played by Adam Brody, it was enjoyed by Jewish women (and men) but also watched by non-Jewish women. It reminds me of Leon the Pig Farmer and the dashing lead Mark Frankel. I’m not saying women only watched because of him, but casting him was key to the film’s success. Now, it’s the Hot Rabbi, the Hot Priest from Fleabag, and soon enough, the Hot Imam and Hot Dalai Lama.

Hollywood generally has two types of Jews: Liberals who marry out and Chabad. That might reflect the US Jewish experience, but what is Fiddler on the Roof if not a movement from Orthodoxy to Liberalism? Woody Allen’s films? Film after film features a sexy non-Jewish woman falling for the funny, intellectual nebbish. It happens, but it feels idealised, not representative. So, where does that leave our Jewish sisters?

In Leon, I made sure the hero ended up with Gina Bellman’s Jewish character, not Maryam D’Abo’s sex bomb – probably why the media establishment hated it.

Jewish friends have watched Hot Rabbi, too, and voiced reservations. I share them. They use the S-word (shiksa) freely—something I would never do. It’s like the N-word for non-Jewish women. Then there’s the scene where Hot Rabbi’s mum secretly eats ham. If this is Hollywood’s take on interfaith relationships, they’re missing the mark. They’ve reduced Judaism to food and tradition, when real Jewish life has far more depth.

The US release of Hapless went well, with glowing reviews. Critics even compared it to Curb Your Enthusiasm, but we faced challenges – mainly a lack of star power. Also, there seemed to be limited support from the Jewish community, who were preoccupied with Hamas. The solution isn’t more tours preaching to the converted; it’s making genuinely funny comedy with Jews who engage with the broader community. Jews who care about their traditions but also the world beyond. That’s the US Hapless I’m now working on.

As for the BBC, Jon Petrie has admitted that audiences have not been well served by comedy. He’s now pledging to make genuinely funny programmes. This from the head of comedy. I look forward to hearing from the head of drama about making truly dramatic TV. Their new plan is to commission more Welsh, Scottish and Cornish comedies. The audience won’t care where it’s made as long as it’s funny. The way to fix a broken society is to get all the groups laughing at the same thing. It’s time for a comedy revolution. A YouTube comedy channel could bypass the system and bring an end to mediocre sitcoms and non-existent satire.

Making humour in the style of Fawlty Towers isn’t difficult – we just haven’t tried. I watched it again recently before writing my new sitcom Jew free. No, it’s not called Jew Free… that would be ridiculous. It simply is Jew free. Trying to get the UK’s 70 million (including Jews) to laugh together is more important to me than pandering to the Jewish community.

After Leon and Hapless, it’s clear that the UK will only allow neurotic American Jews, hot Jews, or Liberal Jews. Holocaust stories are fine, but Israeli Jews with guns won’t be seen again for some time. That leaves the issues we face in the hands of the same broadcasters, writers and commentators who got us here in the first place.

Mazeltov on that.

Hapless is on Amazon Prime