Dapper Laughs appears not to be dead. But luckily these days he can be found taking the mickey out of himself rather than endlessly repeating his “moist” catchphrase.
Comedian Daniel O’Reilly has uploaded a 4 minute pilot of a new sitcom called “Dapper” (he seems to have dropped the Laughs) in which the main subject of derision appears to be his controversial alter ego.
A more self-conscious Dapper makes light of the backlash his laddish character provoked, with an actor playing his manager reading a selection of choice insults (which could quite possibly be genuine) posted by the general public and reviewers.
The character still spouts his well-worn phrases (“gash”, “Oi oi let’s have a go, do you like length or girth?”, “‘Alright sweetheart, can I smell your fanny?’) but unlike in his previous work, the sitcom places Dapper firmly at the butt of the joke as his manager despairs at his antics.
A petition to cancel Dapper's ITV show On the Pull garnered over 68,000 signatures last year, after footage emerged showing him making jokes about rape during a live show in London.
ITV duly pulled the plug, a planned comedy tour was cancelled and an apparently contrite O’Reilly appeared on BBC2’s Newsnight programme and claimed to be killing off the character.
"It was great at the beginning, but it has completely ruined everything for me as a comedian," he said on Newsnight. "It's wrecked my life to a certain extent," he added.
However, the comedian, whose appeal lay in the grey area between real person and character (trodden more politely by the likes of Ricky Gervais), went on to blame the media for “creating a mass hysteria” against his “working class” brand of humour.
“I sat down and though about it, I thought to myself, ‘Nah, I’m not going to be bullied out of what I like doing. Let’s bring it back, let’s carry on,'” he told Newsbeat.
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