The Observer
Focus 25.08.19 39about antidepressants, having OCD
( Tom Rosenthal, Catherine Bohart ,
Ed Night ), anxiety, suffering trauma
or going to therapy abounded on
the fringe. Nick Helm told us that
taking sertraline meant he didn’t
want to have sex any more. Jonny
Pelham delivered a show about
“being fucked as a kid” , but fi nd-
ing himself “surprisingly upbeat”
now. Joz Norris performed his entire
set as Mr Fruit Salad because he
couldn’t bear to connect with the
audience. Consciously or not, I won-
dered if this was why the sketch
geniuses of Goodbear , the Delightful
Sausage , Demi Lardner and Tom
Walker stood out so much. All
them made plainly joyful, stupidly
fun shows.Privilege
This was the year every other come-
dian stuck it to white, middle-class
men who have been running the
show, dictating tastes and keep-
ing comedy power unevenly distrib-
uted. Sophie Duker , London Hughes ,
Sarah Keyworth , Rosie Jones , Zoë
Coombs Marr , Jayde Adams , Brister ,
Susie Riddell ... if there was a gag
to be had at the expense of the pale
and male, there were myriad ways to
do it. Boris Johnson was the punch-
line to every thing. Class has always
been the faultline on which Britain
has run, but comedians this year
went to lengths to examine all the
assembl ed parts and make audi-
ences laugh at what it means to have
privilege. In print, this can only read
as earnest stuff. But if comedy is the
best way to sneak in “the issues”,
then checking one’s privilege was
one of the most deftly done themes
this year. Just ask Ivo Graham , the
most likeable posh comedian on the
circuit, who joked about his “Eton-
themed advent calendar, where all
the doors are opened for me by my
dad’s contacts ”.Identity
Pondering on gender, sexuality,
disability, masculinity and femi-
ninity is par for the comedy course,
but this year’s fringe indicated
how radically some performers
have been thinking about the “big
stuff” that defi nes them. Fostekew
did a fantastic job dismantling
how womanhood is defi ned in her
show Hench. In an unassuming and
entirely charming way, Keyworth
talked about being a happy les-
bian, wanting to act like “a big boy”.
Michael Odewale , Harriott and
Duker, Janine Harouni and Nigel
Ng all delivered small nuggets of
personal history that fl ipped ideas
around blackness, being an Arab
Catholic and a Malaysian immi-
grant. Ahir Shah thought so hard, he
felt compelled to make up an anec-
dote to hammer his point about
white liberal PC culture gone mad:
in his set, a white female Guardian
journalist wanted to interview him
about why he felt it acceptable to use
the word Paki on stage – something
that never happened but quite cer-
tainly riffed on a column I wrote on
the subject.LEFT
Sarah Keyworth
sneaks in an
examination of
what it means to
have privilege.ABOVE
Ed Night is
bleakly funny
about the climate
crisis destroying
his future.
Photograph by
David Levene/the
ObserverLEFT
Sophie Duker
fl ipped ideas
around
blackness and
privilege.LEFT
The nominees for
the best comedy
show line up
at the Gilded
Balloon.
Photograph by
Euan Cherry/PAreviews and scores online, which
affects the scheduling of what
the panel then sees. Between
the 10 judges (several from the
TV industry, three public panel
winners and a couple of jour-
nalists) that list gets whittled
further: we saw an aver-
age of 70 shows each. Then
come more reviews, more scores
and panel meeting after panel meet-
ing. It’s brutal stuff. The meetings
are long, the coffee is weak and your
stomach sinks every time something
you love stops just short of making
it to the next round of arguing.
And yet, watching this much com-
edy, be it political, absurdist, sketch
or standup but expressly written
within the past year, gives you an
incredible measure of the country- the left-leaning middle class of it,
anyway. As a cultural barometer, it’s
a real ride.
So what did I learn from 61 hours
of standup in 12 days? Here are my
top fi ve observations ...
Parenthood
Millennial parenting, it seems, is
occupied with the ugly truth – and
there was plenty of it in Edinburgh.
Jessica Fostekew spilt her guts on
the horror show of labour and her
violent toddler. Jen Brister was con-
sumed with angst about raising
twin boy brats “riddled with privi-
lege”. Spencer Jones admitted that
his three-year-old daughter, “a cross
between Iggy Pop and Mowgli”,
was the most alpha presence in
his home, and Ivo Graham wor-
ried that he was exactly the same
as before his daughter’s birth and
so perhaps not up to the job. Josie
Long performed a tender-hearted
hour on being a new mum, but also
revealed it had made her transfer
all her anxiety on to the future of
the planet. Even if the kids were all
right, the parents weren’t remotely
pretending to be: mums and dads
had never made it clearer that this
is a generation with its fi ngers
permanently crossed.Climate change
I lost count of the number of times
Greta Thunberg was namechecked
on stage this year. Both as a hero-
ine and saviour, no other person
came close to inspiring so much awe
from the comics. Which would sug-
gest that this material wasn’t very
funny. But then Jordan Brookes ,
the eventual winner of the award,
did an entirely brilliant show about
“nothing” – because the end is nigh.
Brister raged at Toby Young for, well,
being Toby Young and mocking
Thunberg, while Josie Long may as
well have dedicated her show to the
16 -year-old. Darren Harriott , a black
standup from the Black Country,
joked that even he was worried into
action this year, despite the fact that
the environment was supposed to be
a white, middle-class concern. Black
people, he shrugged, were simply
trying to survive. At 23, Ed Night- for me, the most obvious omis-
sion from our nominated shortlist –
delivered a show so bleakly funny on
the lack of future prospects for his
generation that you felt winded.
Mental health
Talking about your mental health
on stage has become as normal as
breathing. What came fi rst, the sad
or the clown? Who knows, but chatthe performers to the brink of col-
lapse. Nothing new there, then.
There were 757 eligible com-
edy shows competing for the main
and newcomer prize this year. Any
standup big enough to have had
their own TV series was discounted,
as was anyone already selling out
major venues. And that still left an
awful lot of funny stuff. Numerous
conspiracy theories abound: sto-
ries of cash stuffed in brown enve-
lopes or late-night lobbying in bars.
Which would, to be fair, be far more
exciting than the reality.
A total of 16 scouts, invaluable
comedy nerds, are sent to see
every thing. They submit their
LEFT
Sarah Keyw
sneaks in an
examination
what it mea
have privilereviews
affects
the pan
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And yet, w
edy be it pothe performers to the brink of col-
lapse. Nothing new there, then.
There were 757 eligible com-
edy shows competing for the main
and newcomer prize this year. Any
standup big enough to have had
their own TV series was discounted,
as was anyone already selling out
major venues And that still left an Watching this much
comedy, be it
political, absurdist,
sketch or standup,
gives an incredible
measure of Britain