According to the English model [. . .], the public self must be unassuming. No affectation, no self aggrandizement, no kinetic bid for attention. The public self should be modulated, burnished, restrained. In the language of Guest’s most repeated…

According to the English model [. . .], the public self must be unassuming. No affectation, no self aggrandizement, no kinetic bid for attention. The public self should be modulated, burnished, restrained. In the language of Guest’s most repeated…

Or has never existed, at least not as the hopeless stereotype being pedalled here. Maybe for the son of a peer, but it’s hardly representative and at the very least badly outdated.

Also “The Office” must be some new internet code word for “I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about!”

“He and my father had entered into one of those close (the adjective is excessive) English friendships that begin by excluding confidences and very soon dispense with dialogue.”

Jorge Luis Borges: “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”

I am surprised you did not mention class, as this structure (or system) is so deeply and pervasively embedded in british culture that it touches practically all aspects of daily life, including comedy. Tensions between classes manifest themselves in different kinds of comedy, which poke fun at different strata by mocking their affections, both to be baudy as well as use excessive restraint.

Shakespeare is perhaps the greatest comic writer of all time and even in his plays, characters acting according to their class expectations is very much present and a source of great comedy (and vindication) from them being revealed for what they are rather than what they appear to be. So in my view, class is a major influence on this quality of restraint.

The other thought is dignity which cuts across class boundaries. It is a pervasive trait in british culture despite the more casual, assuming nature people on the street adopt today through how they dress and how they speak. Notably though, in a national bbc sponsored poll in 1995, the country’s favorite poem was Rudyard Kipling’s IF, an apotheosis of dignity if ever there was one:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

I agree that Guest does draw on this old-school English tradition, but it’s on its last legs. (And keep in mind, Guest was until recently a member of the House of Lords.) The new UK culture is not based in this “mustn’t frighten the horses” tradition. It may be good or bad for the UK, but it’s a death sentence for this particular strand of British comedy. Repression is a great environment for comedy. Libertinism is not.

The new UK culture is much more Jerry Springer/Paris Hilton than Peter Sellers. Deference is is dead, and most UK comedy you see (with the exception of The Office) is much more in-your-face than sly.

I think it’s a pity, but hey– it’s their culture.