The Guardian | 30.04.22 | SATURDAY | 57which he joked about trans women’s
genitals and described himself as
“ Team Terf ” (an acronym for trans-
exclusionary radical feminist).
Acaster says he’s happy for his clip
to be co-opted into the culture wars
because his meaning or intent hasn’t
been warped : “I was very careful with
every routine [in Cold Lasagne] so
I couldn’t be quoted out of context
with it – that what I thought, at least
at the time, was very clear.”
We’re speaking the week after a
joke made by Jimmy Carr about
the Holocaust reignited the debate
about cancel culture stifl ing comedy.
D o t h e p a i r w o r r y a b o u t b e i n g
“cancelled” for a joke – or at least
held accountable for anything
inadvertently problematic they say?
Widdicombe says his material is so
anodyne – and, currently, child-centric- that the threat of cancellation is not a
concern: “ Unless someone doing fi ve
minutes on baby monitors is going to
come back and bite them on the arse,
I think I’m on pretty safe ground .”
Acaster thinks being a comedian
means the threat of off ending people
is always present, but it doesn’t mean
standups are under attack. “Anyone
could say anything that doesn’t come
off well – the thing is not rabidly
defending yourself at all costs. You can
be wrong. I think it’s healthier for you
to refl ect on it and go : ‘Yeah, my bad,
I shouldn’t have said that,’ rather than
go : ‘Everyone’s trying to silence me.’ ”
“It’s not like there’s been
casualties,” continues Acaster. “I’ve
not seen any comic say something on
stage, get called out for it, apologise,
and then that’s it for them. It’s just
not as dramatic as it sounds.”
Much of the most heated debate in
this area takes place on social media - a place Acaster and Widdicombe
have retreated from in recent years.
In fact, Acaster got so bored with
answering questions about how and
why he left Twitter that he has written
a book about it. James Acaster’s Guide
to Quitting Social Media is out in
August, and is a “completely fi ctitious”
memoir about “how I get everything
social media used to give me in the
real world: how I start arguments
with strangers, how I stalk my
ex-girlfriends, and how I get pictures
of everyone’s babies. It’s the stupidest
thing I’ve ever written.”
“And there’s some really tough
competition,” quips Widdicombe.
In a nice way.
Series four of Hypothetical starts
Wednesday 18 May, 10pm, Dave.
No arm done
James Acaster,
left, and Josh
Widdicombe
exasperated observationalist,
Acaster as a technically sophisticated
oddball – but their paths would cross
again professionally in 2013, when
Widdicombe landed an XFM show. He
invited Acaster on as a regular guest to
tell mind-boggling but completely true
stories from his life, known as Classic
Scrapes – a segment the latter later
adapted into a best selling book.
The radio show would also turn out
to be a harbinger of developments to
come. Like many XFM shows of the
time, it also went out as a podcast, then
a relatively niche medium. In recent
years, the pair have both returned to
the form with staggering success:
Acaster’s dream-meal interview
‘Comedy is
supposed to
make you happy.
Sometimes you
lose sight of that’
podcast Off Menu , which he presents
with Ed Gamble, and Widdicombe’s
Parenting Hell (co-hosted by Rob
Beckett ) jostl e for the top spot on the
charts. “Rival, I think is the word,” says
Widdicombe. “Rival podcasts.”
M o r e r e c e n t l y , t h e p a i r h a v e b e e n
getting back to their day jobs: actually
performing comedy live on stage.
Widdicombe is currently traversing
the country with his pandemic-
delayed tour Bit Much ... (“I think this
tour started when Theresa May was
prime minister – that’s not due to
popular demand.”) Acaster had always
planned to take a year-long break from
stand up after the fi nal performances
of Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999 ,
a truly incredible hour of comedy
that took in a mental health crisis on
the set of Celebrity Bake Off a n d h i s
ex beginning a relationship with Mr
Bean. The year turned into two, and he
is only now – “tentatively” – beginning
to book in live shows again.
In a weird way, though, it doesn’t
seem as if Acaster has been away at all.
That’s largely because a clip from
Cold Lasagne – in which he mocks
“challenging” stand ups who make
jokes about transgender people
(“ Because, you know, who’s been long
overdue a challenge? The trans
community”) – has gone viral on social
media multiple times over the past
year, most recently in response to
Dave Chappelle’s controversial
Netfl ix special The Closer , during