“The David Bowie of standup,” comedian Nish Kumar recently called Josie Long – because she reinvents her act with every new show. Or almost every show, it turns out. Something Better, her first solo set since 2014, treads familiar ground for Long, as it traces the emotional experience of being leftwing in a rightwing age. The show makes a decent fist of being comical, and positive, about Brexit and the tribulations of the Labour party. It’s not Long’s fault she’s had to cover this territory before, nor that the intensifying gloom of British politics seems finally to be overwhelming her once-boundless optimism.
The plan, says Long, had been to create an upbeat set to counter the grim trajectory of our post-2010 politics. And then the EU referendum happened, the result of which glowers over her show. It made her realise, she says, that she lives in a lefty bubble. The jokes about not excluding leave voters from her work – all those “nice mums and dads”, as she calls them through gritted teeth, who’ve sabotaged Britain – seem to come from a place of real soul-searching. And they’re often funny: “I know I’ve got a broad demographic; some of you may be Green party voters.”
It’s a more personal set than Bridget Christie’s Because You Demanded It, standup’s strongest statement on Brexit. Christie focused on the politics; Long weaves the EU vote into her wider narrative of bruised confidence as, aged 34, she sees life refuse to pan out as expected. She wishes she could be 26 in perpetuity: an innocent age before men at barbecues routinely warned her about falling off a fertility cliff. Home ownership in her beloved but fast-changing London seems more distant than ever. She’s newly single; she’s discovered the joy of necklaces.
But Brexit dominates. The show’s spine is an anecdote about an encounter on a train in the days following the referendum. Long is a ball of misanthropic fury, quick to judge the fellow passenger with the “Brexity air”. But the stranger – and the routine – is here to subvert Long’s stereotypes. Among all this, there’s a droll line about the EU vote teaching (some) Tories what it’s like to be leftwing: correct but on the losing side, subject to the opinion of the obviously wrong-headed. A later routine riffs on how Brexit made Long’s dreams come true – Cameron’s disgrace, a female PM – but not remotely in the way she’d wanted. (She’s conspicuously silent on the accusation that Jeremy Corbyn, whom she supports, let down the remain cause.)
As all that implies, Long’s humour here is of the gallows variety. Yes, she ends with a clarion call to keep the faith, stay activist, not wallow in despair. Important things to say, but not terribly cheering – for the first time, one senses Long needs the inspiration as much as we do. In Something Better she tries to fire up her optimism, with only partial success. It’s studded with excellent moments, but the overall effect is as plaintive as it is funny.
- At Soho theatre, London, until 15 October. Box office: 020-7478 0100.
