Prophet and Comic

The Telegraph and the Tories have got in a right old nationalist, reactionary grump over comedians the last couple of weeks. The comedians approved by the BBC are all left-wingers, intent on bringing down the government, we are told, through the use of gags about Government ministers, Boris Johnson and observational comedy about amusing misunderstandings in common life.

And this at a time when most comics aren't even working.

This contrasts with a whole history of grown-up attitudes to comedy. Court Jesters were often allowed a leniency to say what nobody else could. Will Sommers, for instance, who lifted the heart of Henry VIII. Admittedly he pushed over the line once, by calling Ann Boleyn a ribald and Princess Elizabeth (later Bloody Queen Elizabeth) a bastard. But fair to say, once Henry had decided not to kill Sommers. Instead he killed Ann, and had Elizabeth declared a bastard. Think it's fair to say we all know who the bastard really was.

But the point was - Henry was a secure king. In his early days, a relatively capable one - albeit bolstered by the money his dad had made. So he could relax around a jester.

But now the excitement over the lefties. How dare Nish Kumar make jokes about the handling of Covid? Why doesn't Susan Calman stick to nice songs about wellies, like Billy Connolly did? Why can't Zoe Lyons stop? What do all the comics hate the Tories?

I mean, one theory would point out that comedians are intelligent people. So that may be it. But. The more sensible point would be that their job is to make fun of the life we live out.  It's the rules. Comedians are the modern-day prophets - pointing out, from mostly a relatively privileged place, what is wrong with those in power.

The most powerful bit of satire I remember - which still hits home after decades - is the Peter Cook monologue of the judge's summing-up at the Thorpe trial. If we have any younger readers, I should explain that Jeremy Thorpe - then Liberal leader - was to any normal view of events guilty of the attempted murder of a former lover. The case made national news, due to its mixture of power, dead dogs, and the biting of pillows. The judge in the case probably saved Thorpe from a guilty verdict through a biased take on affairs to protect a member of the Establishment. But that sketch has everything - someone privileged to be heard, through his own public school and Cambridge education, taking to task the privilege and entitlement of the country's ruling classes. It is a brilliant sketch

Which of course achieved nothing. Thorpe couldn't be retried, the dog was dead, and the Liberal party was still a joke. And, for the last ten years, the government deciding what that life is like has been a Tory one. So of course they get most of the jokes. And after ten years of what the Government is complaining is biased buffoonery, they're still the Government. The comics have achieved less, in actually changing the system, than Marcus Rashford. And let's face it, if we're comparing comics to prophets, Jeremiah didn't achieve that much either.

But the current crop of comics are still better than the alternatives. Frankly, we don't need Jim Davidson's career resurrected. We don't need racism for laughs. Though obviously these days he'd have to be careful with jokes about ethnic minority workers on public transport. We don't need Lee Hurst on telly. It's not that he's pro-Brexit and has terrible taste in shirts. It's that he isn't funny. The high spot of his career was feeling up sportspeople with Rory McGrath To have power, comedy has to pick on the powerful. And the powerful are the Government and the Establishment they're busy taking over. But if some Tory-supporting comedian is actually funny, I might laugh. The European Union deserves satire (Private Eye has at least one cartoon, and often quite a section, in it every week). I wouldn't expect people to be laughing at accents and hairstyles these days - it's not just that it's not funny, it's cruel.

And the silly -season focus has been on comic-bashing and nationalist tub-thumping. Keeping migrants off our beaches (using the term "illegal immigrants" of course). Singing patriotic Victoriana at Last Night of the Proms. Getting upset because Extinction Rebellion means Telegraph readers get their daily delivery of surrealism delivered an hour later than normal. (Though, given the views are generally from 1834, why does an extra hour matter?) As Janet Daley might say from the safety of her withdrawing room: get into the office, eat Pret and die for England, you cowards! Not that this applies to the people reading paper versions of the Telegraph. They've not been to the office since Michael Gove was a shiny-faced schoolboy.

It's just as well nothing else is going on in the world. If, say, we were gripped by a pandemic of a deadly disease, the far Right was rising, and unelected bureaucrats are selling Government contracts to their mates... If we had just left the Union that has given our Continent peace and our economy resilience... If our Government was responding to a self-inflicted, massive shock to our trading relationships by building car parks and failing to deliver IT systems - surely they'd want us to be hearing about that? 

Wouldn't they?

That is a matter entirely for you.

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