“Jerry Sadowitz is a nasty piece of work. His venomous tirade is relentless, consisting of unabashed racism, homophobia, misogyny, antisemitism, xenophobia, and every other kind of prejudice known to humankind. If it exists, he hates it. The man is a …
Russell Brand’s latest addiction
The Opera House, the Winter Gardens, Blackpool: here, in this magnificent theatre, a metaphor as good as any for decline, Russell Brand meditates on the stage, which I think is another metaphor for decline: not of buildings, but of a …
Ricky Gervais doesn’t punch down
The curse of the literal-minded strikes again. This time it’s Ricky Gervais’s new stand-up special SuperNature which has sent the congenitally humourless into conniptions. Predictably, Pink News led the charge with a report that disapprovingly quotes the most offending lines. …
Why can’t the Left take a joke?
Chris Rock was in London last week with his new show, observing — not inaccurately — that many people are very afraid of offending others these days. Presumably some comedians are even more afraid now, having seeing Will Smith slap …
Louis CK won’t be cancelled
Recall the early days of #MeToo: the excitement, the promise, the sense of a tectonic shift reshaping the culture from the roots. There was a time, in the movement’s first fecund months, when powerful men were falling like dominos. It …
Welcome to the age of hoaxes
In February 2019, an indignant opinion piece appeared in the Independent by one Liam Evans, a self-proclaimed “comedy aficionado” who believed that comedians ought to be subject to criminal investigation for “problematic jokes”. The piece was derided by some as …
Why the trolls are winning
In February 2019, an indignant opinion piece appeared in the Independent by one Liam Evans, a self-proclaimed “comedy aficionado” who believed that comedians ought to be subject to criminal investigation for “problematic jokes”. The piece was derided by some as …
Why comedians stopped being funny
The most exciting stand-up comedy show I’ve ever seen was Bill Hicks in a student union in the autumn of 1992. Being a comedy naïf probably helped. I had seen Hicks’ sensational Channel 4 special Relentless earlier that year but …
Inside the surreal Dutch lockdown
Amsterdam
Sitting respectfully in our ‘pews’, we put our hands together… and clap. This is not a service but a comedy night. And Amsterdam’s newest ‘church’ is really a theatre for debate and cultural centre in disguise. Incensed by the …