Thursday, March 28, 2024
NewsScottish NewsExam board deems Frankie Boyle worthy of academic debate

Exam board deems Frankie Boyle worthy of academic debate

FRANKIE Boyle may be Scotland’s most relentlessly shocking comedian but one English exam board has decided his work is worthy of academic debate south of the border.

The comic – notorious for his swipes at disabled kids and cancer sufferers – featured in a General Studies A-level exam question set by the ASA exam board.

Alongside questions about George Orwell and former PM John Major, thousands of 17- and 18-year-old students were asked to discuss Boyle’s comedy in a question on TV censorship.

Frankie Boyle was called “creepy” on a A level exam paper.

 

Students had to read an extract from a newspaper article that described the comic as “notable chiefly for his creepy mockery of breast cancer sufferers and Katie Price’s son”.

Students were then asked to write an essay using the article about Boyle, as well as their own knowledge, to  “discuss the extent to which the content of TV programmes should be censored”.

Boyle – who has half a million Twitter followers – proudly tweeted the news he had made an exam paper, after dozens of followers told him about the question.

The comic boasted on Twitter: “You ever been called creepy in an A-level question? No you haven’t m**********r.”

A-Level student fans spoke of their surprise and delight after reading the exam question.

One tweeted: “So Frankie Boyle was on our general studies paper today, which criticised his comedy, calling it ‘creepy’ Haha.”

Another student wrote: “Spent the majority of the general studies exam writing about how hilarious Frankie Boyle is!”

Another said: Frankie Boyle came up on the general studies exam. Made it slightly bearable.”

A Spokeswoman from ASA said 18,505 students sat the exam paper on Thursday morning.

She added: “Students were asked to draw on a newspaper article which was used as source material to answer the question. The newspaper article mentioned Frankie Boyle and Tramandol Nights.”

The day before the exam, Boyle caused another outcry after making “sickening” comments about 2,100 schoolchildren who formed the Olympic rings in their school grounds to raise money for charity.

The pupils of Bay House School in Gosport, Hampshire, won a new world record by arranging themselves in the shape of the Olympic logo.

Boyle wrote in a national newspaper that their effort was “the most autistic response to a global sporting event”.

And the comedian added: “For the kids of Gosport, learning how to stand bewildered in a blue jumper is all they need to qualify them for a life of working in 99p stores.”

Caroline Dinenage, MP for Gosport, said: “It sickens me, these people who make a living and spend their lives being spiteful towards others to make money.

“The kids have got themselves a Guinness world record and nobody can take that away from them.”

The Glasgow-based comedian was universally condemned last year after he made a joke at the expense of Miss Price’s then eight-year-old son Harvey.

On Tramadol Nights, which was watched by an audience of one million, Boyle told viewers: “Jordan and Peter Andre are still fighting each other over custody of Harvey – eventually one of them will lose and have to keep him.”

Boyle, 39, was slammed for his vicious comment, with Ms Price calling him a “disgrace.”

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