There was doom and gloom among comedy lovers when it was announced that BBC3 would in future be online only. But on the basis of Frankie Boyle’s Election Autopsy, that no longer looks quite such a grisly fate. Boyle is seemingly too hot for the telly to handle these days, and has been ghettoised – first with his Referendum Autopsy last autumn, now with this review of the general election – to iPlayer purgatory. Or should that be paradise? Election Autopsy is a good show, in ways that might have been harder to achieve had Boyle not been cyber-sidelined.
By that, I mean that Boyle, a comedian, is actually – whisper it – expressing a political preference on a BBC comedy show. And he’s not doing so under his breath: the whole show is delivered unapologetically from the point of view that the Tories are sociopathic. Maybe Boyle’s getting away with it because, while anti-Tory, he’s not actually pro-anyone. (He says he doesn’t vote.) In fact, he acknowledges a slight preference, grudgingly, for the Labour party – for whom guests Sara Pascoe and Katherine Ryan don’t disguise their sympathy – and the SNP. Incidentally, on how many networked TV comedy shows would 100% of the guests be female?
I don’t care about Boyle’s party affiliation – nor do I agree with the logic that has led him not to vote. But I do like it when comedy is delivered from a coherent, persuasive set of convictions about the world. And in Boyle’s programmes, you get that not only in his jokes, but also played straight, in a sequence where he justifies his abstention policy. “I don’t think we live in a democracy. We’ve got an unelected second chamber, an unelected head of state…” You don’t get comedians accounting for themselves on Mock the Week. Nor in most terrestrial TV comedy would you get the rapper Akala denouncing structural racism, in a terrifically articulate guest slot that’s blazed across social media, and justifiably so.
But some may complain that this isn’t comedy. I don’t see it that way. I don’t require that my comedy strive only to make me laugh, and nothing else. A charge is generated when comedy and seriousness mix, when funny people admit that not everything is always funny. Comedy that cares is more compelling than, ahem, satire that ridicules everybody equally. And Boyle’s on good form in Election Autopsy; pinning his colours to the mast hasn’t made his comedy any less cynical, or effective. His piss-take of George Galloway’s Cantona-eque concession speech (“The hyena can bounce on the lion’s grave, but it can never be a lion …”) brilliantly combines dopeyness and disdain.
It’s interesting to wonder what Boyle on the election would have looked like on proper telly, or indeed, had he broadcast before rather than safely after the exit poll. Would he have been allowed to state his case? Would the BBC have had to broadcast a rightwing equivalent? (Or has Top Gear already got that covered?) In the absence of such a show, his Election Autopsy remains bracing viewing. Small compensation for the election result, of course, but it is nice to be reminded that neither the Tories, nor the BBC’s timorousness, are yet to suppress all pockets of bilious, bloody-minded resistance.
Three to see
Sheeps
The ex-Footlights sketch team bring to London their high-concept Edinburgh 2014 smash in which they rework the same sketch in myriad styles.
• Soho theatre, London, until 30 May. Box office: 020-7478 0100
Leeds Comedy Festival
Nick Helm, Gein’s Family Giftshop and Robin Ince’s “(Almost) Farewell” standup performance are among the delights in store at this week-long comedy fest.
• The Wardrobe and nearby venues, Leeds, 23-29 May. Box office: 0113-383 8800
Ruby Wax
A mindfulness workshop meets an autobiographical standup show: Ruby Wax’s odd but passionate comedy/therapy crossover continues its tour.
• Pavilion theatre, Worthing, Friday 22 May. Box office: 01903 206206
