I didn’t come out until this year: I’d been nervous of bringing my authentic self to work, afraid that I would be ostracised, so I hid who I really was. But when I finally declared that, yes, I am a Tory stand-up — or, as I prefer, a stand-up who happens to be a Tory — everyone told me that they’d known all along.
I’d always wanted to talk about politics on stage, but never quite knew how — my shtick has always been self-deprecation (though I’m not very good at it) and it’s hard for Conservatives to be self-deprecating when they have an 80-seat majority. It became a whole bunch easier after July of last year; and easier still after I ran for Cornwall council in May. I spent three months knocking on doors, and received fewer votes than Reform’s paper candidate; my wife calculated that I got one vote for every hour I spent on the campaign trail.
I knew why I wanted to go political: I used to seethe when I heard comics reciting their Left-wing claptrap. I’m using the word in its proper sense: a clap trap, in 18th-century theatre, was the name given to “the rant and rhimes that dramatick writers include to please the actors: a trap to catch a clap”.
Gags and inconvenient facts
I remember watching Stewart Lee perform his routine about the 1964 election in Smethwick and spotting at least three factual errors or omissions, all of which destroyed his central argument. It was the only time I have ever come near to heckling another act. At the time, I think I felt it would have been ridiculous to fact-check a light entertainment turn like Lee; I now realise this was just cowardice.
The trouble is, as Lee put it himself, “most people, sadly, like to see their own opinions bounced back at them”. Tories in the audience tend to keep quiet, like me; being a Conservative is not part of our identity in the same way that Left-wing politics are to Left-wing audiences. (A heckler once asked me if I was “proud” of being a Tory. This still seems to me an absurd question: I’m not proud of believing in a smaller state, any more than I’m proud of believing that the best route to Cornwall is the A303.) I remember being at a gig once and the comic asked someone on the front row if he had ever voted Conservative. He thought for a moment and said that he had considered it. I knew, as the comedian did not, that the man he was talking to was one of Theresa May’s SpAds.
There used to be a political comedy night in London, but its advertising made it clear that it was for socialists, liberals and lefties — somewhat inevitably, it folded after the MC turned out to be a sex pest — and you would leave disappointed if you wanted to hear jokes based on the philosophy shared by the majority of people in the country.
I was worried about identifying myself as a Conservative act and alienating the audience as much as Lee had alienated me. I’d had enough difficulty from merely looking like a Conservative: my worst-ever death on stage came after I had to follow an MC doing two minutes’ hate of Boris Johnson: having untidy blond hair, a rumpled suit and my accent was enough to put the audience off me from the start. And if they ever found out I actually shared (some of) his beliefs…
Honesty is the best policy
I occasionally took part in Comedy Manifesto, a panel show run by the comedian and activist Kate Smurthwaite, and stopped after losing by the widest ever margin because she had deducted a million points from me for being a Tory. Occasionally you’d meet another comedian who had Conservative leanings — it would come out in coded messages halfway through a car-share to a gig in Lancaster— but we would swear each other to secrecy, and never mention it again save only to catch each other’s eye at the back of the room when another comic channelled Lee’s politics along with his style.
On the other hand (I thought) there are always opportunities in the failed-comic-to-Right-wing-grifter pipeline. Less so in this country, admittedly, although it’s a big thing in America. In other countries too — best exemplified by President Zelensky. (His Sluha narodu party is a free-market liberal party. You just assume he’s a centrist because you like him.) I called one of the few “out” Conservatives I knew from comedy, Tom Greaves — who was working for Tory politicians at the same time as gigging on the London circuit. His advice was to be completely unapologetic about being a Tory. “If the crowd smells weakness, they’ll resent you. If you’re upfront, they’ll respect you.” I took his advice, and started mentioning that I was a Conservative in sets. I did not lose the audience, as I feared I might. (I lost the other comics — one Liverpudlian MC came on after me and just made noises in Scouse.)
My only regret is that I am too late to be the only Right-wing comic on the circuit. On Friday, I wasn’t even the only Right-wing comic on the bill: the original and best “only Right-wing comedian” Simon Evans was headlining.
I’d never gigged with him before — promoters generally don’t put us on the same bill, any more than they’d have two musical comedians or (until very recently) two women. But the audience didn’t even notice — at least after Simon came into the green room, saw me, stared beadily and removed his jacket before going on stage. Two acts wearing tweed would have been too much.
