The Observer - 04.08.2019

Section:OBS 2N PaGe:23 Edition Date:190804 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/8/2019 17:20 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

• The Observer
  News 04.08.19 23

Laugh ... or abstain? How comics

are straddling the political divide

While some performers

are tackling the subject

head-on, others think

this is a year for the

f r i nge to forget Brex it

“How many of you here voted Leave?”

wondered the Scottish comedian

Mark Nelson of the crowd watch-

ing his new Edinburgh fringe show,

Brexit Wounds. It is dangerous terri-

tory and only one man in the audi-

ence tentatively raised a hand. “So,

are you happy now?” Nelson asked

caustically.

This year’s month-long festival is

set to play out against a fast-chang-

ing political back drop in Westminster

and Holyrood, and many of th e top-

ical stand up acts that dominate the

fringe will struggle to keep up.

Alongside Nelson, who professes

bewilderment about how “the worst

qualified man ever” has suddenly

become prime minister , the award-

winning political comic Matt Forde

has brought up his show, Brexit,

Pursued by a Bear , while for the fi rst

time the radio broadcaster Iain Dale

seem unsure what the best response

to current affairs should be. Some feel

that making Brexit party leader Nigel

Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory

MP, and Boris Johnson into fi gures

of fun has backfi red.

For Kieran Hodgson , who will be

bringing his series of acclaimed one-

man shows to the fringe, includ-

ing one about the roots of Brexit in

1970s politics , it is a potentially peril-

ous path. “I am not sure how effective

it is. It seems as if the recent history of

comics making joke after joke about

Farage may actually have helped him

to get across the idea that the whole of

the British establishment was against

him,” said Hodgson.

Other young performers at the

festival have deliberately made the

choice to “stay silly”, in spite of their

political feelings. “We don’t want to

audiences to have to rock back and

forth worrying about what is hap-

pening,” said Marina Bye , who co-

stars with her sister Maddy in the

Underbelly sketch show they have

written together, The Siblinging.

“We have our opinions, of course,

and we don’t want to seem as if we

don’t care, but we see ourselves as

offering a little bit of an escape and

ease. At least, that is what we have

deliberately set out to do.”

And the Bye sisters have reason

to understand how powerful com-

edy can be when used as a tool for

changing perceptions. Their mother

is Ruby Wax, whose television inter-

views with Imelda Marcos and Sarah

Ferguson did much to shape the

image of these controversial public

fi gures in the 1990s.

“We might well wonder why we’re

going to a comedy festival while all

this is happening in the world,” said

elder sister Maddy. “But there are

already a lot of Trump shows and

Brexit musicals, and we have made a

conscious decision not to write about

it. Although it ’s true that whenever

there is a party, or we go for drinks at

someone’s house, everyone ends up

talking about politics now. ”

Another child of a famous parent

who is taking a stand against politi-

cal content is fringe debutante Grace

Campbell , whose father, Alastair , was

Tony Blair’s communications advis er.

She is performing her show Why I’m

Never Going into Politics throughout

the month, in which she explains that

growing up with a dad inside No 10

has given her a basinful of it.

Early this summer the Private Eye

editor Ian Hislop, a regular panellist

on the BBC satirical quiz show Have I

Got News for You , pushed back at the

suggestion the programme was to

blame for Johnson’s rise because it

had welcomed him as a guest. “You

voted for him!” Hislop said to the stu-

dio audience. Last week Hislop proved

his satirical muscles are still fl exing in

a column in the New Statesman that

called on Britain’s comedians to be

more optimistic about prospects for

mirth in a Johnson era, aping the

prime minister’s own bouncy anti-

doom rhetoric.

“Hislop is great because he doesn’t

accept received ideas and he hates a

consensus,” said Hodgson. “But a lot

of my audience will be Remainers,

and I still want them to question or

develop their ideas. Or at least to see

everything is always muddy.” He sus-

pects he is too “desperate to be liked”

to write an overtly political show. “ I

want it to be a happy place for people.

Also, I take a long time to write, and to

be topical you would have to change

your show on an afternoon’s notice.”

And if that sole Brexit er in Nelson’s

audience was anything to go by, the

truth is deceptive. Caricatured by the

comic during the show as a hypocrite

who had just returned from sunbath-

ing at his second home in Spain, the

Leave voter protested afterwards that

his was in fact a “farmer’s tan”.

From left: Ronni

Ancona and

Lewis MacLeod

as Melania and

Donald Trump;

solo acts Grace

Campbell and

Kieran Hodgson;

and broadcaster

Iain Dale.

Boris Johnson’s only got till

Halloween,

To work out what the hell Brexit

actually means.

Th e far right’s gaining ground from

Spain to Hungary,

Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s

1933.

Melinda Hughes

I have no idea what’s going on with

Brexit. I had to go back to Africa to

see what a stable government looks

like.

Daliso Chaponda

I am happy, but sometimes I

hear a voice heckling me from

the back of the room telling

me that Boris Johnson is prime

minister and the world is not a good

place. Th at heckle comes from

my soul.

Suzi Ruff ell

If I was playing football and a

member of our team broke his legs,

I wouldn’t say, “Let’s play him up at

the front”. Boris is literally the worst

qualifi ed person for the role.

Mark Nelson

Their Bo-jokes

Vanessa Thorpe

Arts and Media Correspondent

will be hosting a succession of eve-

nings with guests including Nicola

Sturgeon, the Scottish fi rst minis-

ter, the Liberal leader Jo Swinson and

Sadiq Khan, mayor of London.

The speaker of the Commons, John

Bercow, is to appear in a show called

Speaking Out ; Al Murray’s pub land-

lord will be parodying the nostalgic

urge to recreate an imagined coun-

try of the past; while the stand up

Phil Nichol is promising to give in to

despair in his show Too Much.

Leading impressionists Ronni

Ancona and Lewis Mac Leod have

opted to tackle Melania and Donald

Trump in their new show, Just

Checking In, but inside many of the

pop-up venues that fan out around

the city’s Royal Mile during the fes-

tival the strain of reacting quickly to

Britain’s divisive leadership contest is

almost audible.

At a gala opening for the Assembly

group of venues, the fringe impresa-

rio William Burdett -Coutts spoke of

the need for the offi cial arts festival

and the fringe to project an image of

Britain as a welcoming place in the

face of anti-immigrant feeling. “At a

time like this, that  is a particularly

important message,” he said.

But should an arts festival really

have a political position? Even

leftwing performers in Edinburgh

Funny faces in Edinburgh

РЕЛИЗ

ПОДГОТОВИЛА

ГРУППА

"What's News"

VK.COM/WSNWS

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS