Read this Telegraph article. It'll make you angry. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterwhittle/100006804/edinburgh-festival-to-feature-smug-lefty-tory-bashing-again-yawn/
Words fail
Why angry? Seems like a lot of stuff we've heard before. And also a misreading of modern comedy, unless your view of modern comedy comes from listening to The News Quiz on Radio 4.
(Plus the guy writing it looks a bit of a tit. Like a poor man's Zoolander)
I read it, and I'm livid!
He spelled fundamentalism as "fundementalism".
Standards, f**kers, standards!
He does look a bit American Pyscho. And he uses the phrase "who they?".
Don't really understand what his gripe is. There are less stand-ups with an overtly political edge now than at any other time in the last 30 years. It's fair to criticise some of the blandness, uniformity and predictable political humour which gets broadcast under the banner of comedy, but that doesn't stem from a left-wing (or right-wing) agenda.
The man obviously doesn't actually go out and watch live stand-up. Nor, I suspect, does he watch much broadcast comedy.
And it's a complete misnomer about comics who could command 15 million viewers and not consider themselves an "artist". No comedian could thesedays regularly command 15 million viewers. Not even if you had the likes of Hancock, Morecambe & Wise or Frankie Howerd around. And why is considering oneself an "artist" (which I imagine very few stand-ups would refer to themselves as) inherently left-wing?
It would be disappointing not to read an article like that in the Torygraph.
Strangely the article felt like it was written by an 80s student who wore tweed jackets and attended Federation of Conservative Student meetings while his contemporaries were all out raving.
I liked this reply in the comments:
"OK, to get my credentials out of the way - I'm a middle-class, Telegraph reading, Conservative voter.
Right then, this article is ten times more cliched and outdated than any of the acts it seeks to ridicule. It is, quite simply, an embarrassment. If you're going to carry on the pretence of journalism, at least do some bl00dy research and if, having done some, it means your originally intended slewed article won't stand up (pun noted) then write another one. Jeez."
This article also partly assumes that there are no politically right-wing modern comedians. There are plenty - not necessarily openly - but there are plenty in their personal politics. Why the assumption that "alternative" comics are by definition left-leaning socialists?
Quote: Lee Henman @ August 19 2009, 3:19 PM BSTIt'll make you angry.
Ooooh! I'm so angry!!
I'm quite angry that Lee Henman is reading the Telegraph website and then telling us to read it as well.
What the article should have been about is the laziness of old fashioned comics retreading the same tired ground, whichever branch of failed socio-political posturing they subscribe too.
A right wing journalist slags off lefty comdeians, whatever next? The Socialist Worker slagging off Jim Davidson? These cutting edge journos are so zeitgeisty!
Thatcher!!!!!
Maybe political material is making a comeback but there aren't that many overtly political comics of any political persuasion. Marks Steele and Thomas have been doing their stuff for years but they are few and far between nowadays, even Alexei Sayle now pretends his angry communist routine in the 80s was just a character like Borat.
Quote: Lee Henman @ August 19 2009, 3:19 PM BSTIt'll make you angry.
Ooooh! I'm so angry!!
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ August 19 2009, 3:55 PM BSTThatcher!!!!!
Ooooh! I'm angry again!!
I just find it amazing that ignorant f**kers like that guy are actually employed as journalists. He clearly knows nothing about his subject and yet there he is, still being paid, still reaching thousands of people.
Anyway, I'm clearly in the minority so I'll hush up.
Quote: Lee Henman @ August 19 2009, 4:18 PM BSTI just find it amazing that ignorant f**kers like that guy are actually employed .
You're going to love the TV industry.
Quote: Lee Henman @ August 19 2009, 4:18 PM BSTI just find it amazing that ignorant f**kers like that guy are actually employed as journalists. He clearly knows nothing about his subject and yet there he is, still being paid, still reaching thousands of people.
To be fair, that was a blog entry, not a newspaper article.
Quote: Lee Henman @ August 19 2009, 4:18 PM BSTI just find it amazing that ignorant f**kers like that guy are actually employed as journalists. He clearly knows nothing about his subject and yet there he is, still being paid, still reaching thousands of people.
That is the reason he's employed on Fleet Street, he is not there to enquire, question or inform people just add to the sum of his readers' ignorance and prejudice. Mind you he's probably got a few good golliwog jokes to impress Boris Johnson and Carol Thatcher in the Telegraph social club.