Driver of a Black Cab: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
Although in America, [[The Taxi|taxi]] drivers often have a [[Funny Foreigner]] stereotype, it's quite different (in a sense, the antithesis) in England. Often ex-[[Old
Another stereotype is that cab drivers like to drop the names of celebrity passengers, as in "I 'ad that Liam Gallagher in the back of my cab last Friday".
The test taken to qualify as a Black Cab driver in London is called "The Knowledge<ref>of London Examination</ref>", takes about ''three years'' to study for it, and involves a ridiculously intuitive knowledge of [[One London Thirty Three Boroughs|London geography]]. As [[Bill Bryson]] put it, "[London cabbies] would sooner entrust their teenage daughters to [[Evil Chancellor|Alan]] [[Really Gets Around|Clark]] for a weekend than admit they've never heard of your destination", but chances are they have.
{{examples
== Film ==
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* The second stereotype occurs in ''[[Shakespeare in Love]]'', where the black cab is replaced by a Thames ferry boat.
* The racist cab driver in ''[[Football Factory]]''.
* A deleted scene in ''[[
* Anthropomorphic British taxis can be seen during the last third of [[Cars|''Cars 2'']], which takes place in London, England.
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* Alluded to in the novel ''[[Neverwhere]]'', when after Richard returns to "London Above", the first thing he does when hailing a cab is to express interest in hearing all of the driver's geopolitical opinions. He is so eager about it that the guy thinks Richard is mocking him.
* From ''[[Dirk
{{quote|
"Er, who should?" said Richard, who realised he hadn't been listening to a word the driver said.
"Er-" said the driver, who suddenly realised he hadn't been listening either, "er, the whole lot of them. Get rid of the whole bloody lot, that's what I say. And their bloody newts," he added for good measure. }}
* ''The Book of Dave'' by Will Self is about the diary of a London cab driver accidentally becoming the basis of an [[Intellectual Property Religion]] 500 years into the future.
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** And another one in which a sat-nav starts making right-wing comments (this joke has been done in other media).
* The British gangster black comedy ''Underworld'' had a taxi-driver hitman who drove a (plot-significantly) white cab, complete with constant moaning about the state of the country to his passengers, including those who he'd kidnapped or killed.
* When ''[[Have I Got News for You]]'' discussed [
** Another time it came up was when the [[Caption Competition]] at the end of the episode pictured the queen sitting in the driver's side of some kind of black vehicle, which Paul interpreted as the city having to take on more part-time drivers during the Christmas season: ''[posh accent]'' "I'm not going south of the river this time of night. You must be jokin'."
** Another example was when it was revealed that Prince Philip owned a black cab, which was a particularly good fit as he is known for making gaffes about other countries' peoples.
{{quote|
* The character of Charlie Slater in ''[[Eastenders]]'' was a black-cab driver, but in his ten-year stint on the show, he averted the trope; he was generally good-natured and was portrayed as apolitical.
* One of the characters from the vox pops on ''[[A Bit of Fry and Laurie]]'' is [[Stephen Fry]] (who drives a cab in real life, but not as a job) as a stereotypical long-winded cab driver: "If you've got a jar of marmalade in a cupboard, right? And you take the marmalade out of the cupboard, right? You've still got the marmalade. It's not in the cupboard, but you've got the marmalade. You've got to put the marmalade somewhere else haven't you? Course you have, stands to reason. There's the cupboard; no marmalade. But you've still got the marmalade. It's the same with sex and violence on television. You can take sex and violence off television, but where are you going to put them?"
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== Radio ==
* A round on ''[[
** And in the [[Mockumentary]] ''In Search of Mornington Crescent'', when Barry gets a taxi to physically travel the moves of a typical game:
{{quote|
'''Barry''': What about them?
'''Taxi Driver''': [[Subverted Trope|They get a rotten deal, don't they?]] Me and my fellow cab drivers are having a whip-round to hold a party and cheer them up. Salt of the earth, aslyum seekers...
'''Barry''': [[Double Subversion|Just a minute! You're not a real taxi driver at all]]!
'''Taxi Driver''': ''(sinister East European accent)'' How very observant of you, Mr Cryer.
'''Barry''': [[Not My Driver|Help! Help! I'm being abducted!]] En route to Elephant and Castle! }}
* On ''[[The Now Show]]'', [[Mitch Benn]] parodied the news that the WOMD dossier was partly based on the testimony of a Baghdad taxi driver by imagining him as a driver of a black cab:
{{quote|
Well, I 'ad im,
In the back of my cab the other day. }}
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* [[Ron White]] reports in one routine that, with a Scottish separatist as a driver, one can see all of London in about 10 minutes.
{{quote|
* [[Peter Kay]] recounts that he was once paid to do stand-up for the annual gathering of the cab driver's union, and he started off by making the audience turn their chairs around so they were facing away from him, and then opening with: "Been busy? What time are you on till?" (The two questions he claims it is physically impossible for a passenger to avoid saying to a cabbie).
* [[Jasper Carrott]], while talking about unexpected people he found running the London Marathon:
{{quote|
== Real Life ==
* In his ''[[
* In his comic book based on real events ''The Quest For The Big Woof'', black British comedian [[Lenny Henry]] describes how his (white) wife went past the Notting Hill Festival in a cab, and the driver started going on about how "darkies" should go back where they came from if they wanted to have festivals. Furious, Dawn French (a British comedian of considerable note herself) told him who her husband was, and he replied "Lenny Henry? Really? You couldn't get me a ticket, could you, love?"
* Probably subverted by [[Stephen Fry]], if only because of the fact that he isn't a real cabbie.
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[[Category:Stock British Characters]]
[[Category:British Media Tropes]]
[[Category:Driver
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