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Jeremy Hardy has been doing stand up for twenty five years - and what scares me is that I've been listening to him (and occasionally seeing him) for twenty four. Give or take. This is the first time I've seen him live, and the Carbuncle was full, with a distinctly Radio 4 audience. Indeed he talks about outreach to younger people - it's called grooming - which is why he's done festivals such as Glastonbury.
Most of his act though is political, and definitely left of centre. Whilst he clearly has little time for New Labour - there's a lovely bit about Jesus not being the one to call it the New Testament and not trying to repeal the fourth commandment - he clearly has even less time for the Tories. There was also a nice bit about how unlikely it was that Iran would bomb Israel as they don't recognise them - although that's strange because the country's the same shape as Palestine so you'd think it'd be easy to recognise... And then there was the optimism that actually there aren't more terrorists - and that 7/7 was local home grown terrorists (although not organic because they use fertiliser...)
There is observational stuff though - and his rant about Dragon's Den - dragons don't have dens, lions have dens (dragon have lairs). As he pointed out, that's the Radio 4 part. It struck me - after seeing various comedies talk with the audience and even heckle or try to get off with the audience (Scott Capurro) - how much of a monologue this was, and there wasn't much eye contact. He's almost shy.
All in all a very thought provoking evening, with the best part of 150 minutes of stand up. Good stuff.
Most of his act though is political, and definitely left of centre. Whilst he clearly has little time for New Labour - there's a lovely bit about Jesus not being the one to call it the New Testament and not trying to repeal the fourth commandment - he clearly has even less time for the Tories. There was also a nice bit about how unlikely it was that Iran would bomb Israel as they don't recognise them - although that's strange because the country's the same shape as Palestine so you'd think it'd be easy to recognise... And then there was the optimism that actually there aren't more terrorists - and that 7/7 was local home grown terrorists (although not organic because they use fertiliser...)
There is observational stuff though - and his rant about Dragon's Den - dragons don't have dens, lions have dens (dragon have lairs). As he pointed out, that's the Radio 4 part. It struck me - after seeing various comedies talk with the audience and even heckle or try to get off with the audience (Scott Capurro) - how much of a monologue this was, and there wasn't much eye contact. He's almost shy.
All in all a very thought provoking evening, with the best part of 150 minutes of stand up. Good stuff.
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