Antiques Roadshow expert scolded by BBC after complaints

Andy McConnell, a long-standing expert on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow, has voiced his concerns about the future of the show as he believes the BBC is succumbing to 'wokes' and the 'PC brigade'. The show's expert revealed that he had been reprimanded by his superiors after viewers lodged complaints about his 'rubbish jokes' and his handling of a guest's glassware.

During a talk in Somerset titled 'Banter with Bonkers', he also alleged that some of the specialists now appearing on the show - hired because they 'have a limp' - are providing 'poor valuations' for the treasures brought in by the public. The 72-year-old, who has been part of the show for 21 years, told the audience: "I know I am not PC anymore because that requires a degree of wokeness. I am old, posh, hetero, white and male. The new producer said 'As of 2020, 50% of all on-screen presenters will be female, 18.4% must have a leg missing and 17% have got to have Dairy Milk for breakfast. I did not conform to what the BBC was aspiring to."

"The fact is I have got a mouth out of which anchors fall. So I am hauled up yet again and you find out you have made some stupid joke and somebody has complained or they didn't like the way you handled something.... That was the last one. Somebody had objected to the way that you handled somebody else's gear.

"I said I have been doing the roadshows for 21 years and I have never broken anything so what the f*** are you on about? What exactly is the nature of this complaint? And making c**p jokes... which you cannot make any more. It depends what you want. Do you want the guy who has written books on the subject or tosspots who happen to walk with a limp? Or whatever are their characteristics that are in demand this week.

"Now I can pick holes in recordings and think it's just chronic, just bad, bad valuations, bad identifications, but accuracy has become subjugated beneath who is saying the words rather than what the words are. Over-valuations, it's chronic. But I am not what they want. I am on one out of five shows in this series.

"At my zenith...when I was quite frankly the star of Antiques Roadshow I did 11 out of 12 shows. That was me at my absolute peak where my jokes weren't un-PC and un-woke because that did not exist. Today doing three shows is regarded as a good haul. If you can get three out of five but really my days are numbered. I do feel as if the chop is just awaiting my demise which is just a fact of life."

Andy remains featured on the Antiques Roadshow website, which reveals he joined the programme in 2005 and became "the first expert on the Antiques Roadshow who specialised in glass".

The site also details how Andy began purchasing and selling antiques at just 14 years of age and has since become a specialist glass historian who has authored three publications on the topic.

The biography on the BBC website also states "he regularly keeps visitors entertained with his unique style, combining his humour and passion and which he regards as a form of 'street theatre'."