What is comedy’s role in a general election? Over the last few weeks, a raft of telly events have been announced to tie in with the vote. We’re promised an election sitcom, Ballot Monkeys, by the writers of Drop the Dead Donkey. Set on the campaign buses of (what Channel 4 defines as) the main parties – Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, plus that of Ukip – it will be filmed only a week before transmission, to maximise the cuttingness of its edge.
Elsewhere on the wee screen, we’ve got election editions of The Last Leg, Jack Dee’s Election Helpdesk, Charlie Brooker’s Election Wipe, and – safely post-election and on iPlayer only – Frankie Boyle’s Election Autopsy. There is also Newzoids, the so-called new Spitting Image, that started on 15 April on ITV. Out in the real world, there’s Al Murray on the stump in the guise of his Pub Landlord, representing his own FUKP party in South Thanet.
That’s an impressive range of activity: comedy is clearly one of the major ways in which the UK wants to engage with the upcoming vote. And yet, there’s little in this roster of election comedy to suggest that comedians will be expressing any actual opinions – about how our money is spent, how society is organised, whether to vote and who to vote for. Funny though they may be, these look like even-handed formats in which the presiding philosophy of modern British satire – a plague on all their houses – will be more or less consistently observed.
That strikes me as odd, or a missed opportunity – not least in an age when comedians (Russell Brand and Eddie Izzard, Beppe Grillo in Italy, Jón Gnarr in Iceland) are increasingly becoming influential political figures. OK, so current affairs coverage has to be politically impartial. But there’s something dispiriting about noncommittal political comedy, which seems to endorse the drab idea – articulated in a recent Telegraph piece on current satire - that “ideology is dead” (eh?!) and that the only thing worth joking about is personalities.
The Telegraph may wish us to believe otherwise, but ideology is very much alive: the Tory version of it has been ruining lives for five years. Given what’s at stake, it feels a bit lame to stand on the sidelines poking equal-opportunities fun at everyone. I’m sure there will be outspoken comics on the airwaves this electoral season. Jeremy Hardy popped up on the Jack Dee show this week, proving that being funny is compatible with expressing political (and maybe even party political) convictions. Josie Long does just that in her live shows. Maybe Ukip-bashing musical comics Jonny and the Baptists are doing so on their Rock the Vote tour, which I hope to see over the coming weeks.
I’d love to see it done on telly, too – in the foreground, rather than buried amid the non-ideological giggles. What price a comedy version of the leaders’ debate, with seven comics representing the parties or movements they believe in? What about comic party-political broadcasts, in which comedians lobby for a cause they support or persuade us of their dreams of a better world – and be funny too? What would Lib Dem comedy look like? (Insert obvious joke here.) I’d rather see ardent Tory comedy than more chucklesome neutrality. Making non-partisan jokes at everyone’s expense is fine, but there’s plenty of it about. Comedy’s not meant to sit on the fence, and withholding political opinions is a weird way to participate in an election.
Three to see
Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) Phoenix FundraiserTheatre powerhouse BAC’s contribution to comedy is massive – we may not have had the likes of Stewart Lee, Jackson’s Way, and Detectorists star Toby Jones without it. Now it’s payback time, as comics assemble to raise money for the venue after its recent fire.• At the Southbank Centre, London on 18 April. Box office: 0844-875 0073.
Doc Brown
Ricky Gervais’s sidekick on the Comic Relief single Equality Street and distinguished rapper-comedian, the man known to his family as Ben Smith hits the road.
• At Epsom Playhouse on 17 April; then touring.
Death of a Comedian
A new play by Owen McCafferty, directed by Soho theatre head honcho Steve Marmion, and acclaimed on its Belfast debut, addresses “the highs and lows of the comedy world”.
• At Soho theatre, London until 16 May. Box office: 020-7478 0100.
