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Tuesday 11th October 2016

5061/17981

Tonight we went to see Al Murray at the Royal Albert Hall. I have a lot of history and affection for the Pub Landlord character and have seen him in pretty much all of his incarnations over the years, from filler act at Edinburgh to give Harry Hill’s pub band the chance to change costumes to the Nuremberg-like rally of the O2 (where ironically enough it was me who had the Hitler Moustache). I have seen him be greeted by audiences that understand the irony of what he’s doing and audiences who seem to be taking him at face value (joining in with the joke or unable to discern the satire - who knows? Without climbing into their minds and working out how they think). I loved the audacity and real-world satire of him standing against Nigel Farage, whilst wondering if Nigel Farage might actually have slightly modelled himself on the Landlord in order to get people to like him by association (Right wing politicians are like comedians in many ways and again he wouldn’t be the first leader to choose to resemble a famous comedian).

It’s a complex act and throws up all kinds of interesting discussions about the nature of comedy, whether it reflects or informs, whether satire can ever change anything, whether it’s possible to ascertain how someone else is enjoying something, whether a comedian has a responsibility to consider the idiots who won’t get it (and all comedians have that problem). But at its essence it’s a great act that mocks Britishness, whilst celebrating our essentially uselessness, our pompous arrogance versus the awful reality that many of fail to see.

And with Brexit the whole thing has an incredible new lease of life. The Landlord has what he wants and has no idea what to do with it and must be quietly pissing himself about the fact he’s made the worst mistake of his life, while having to look bullishly proud of having won. And thus represents 52% of us. So whether you were Leave or Remain the Landlord show is now a weird catharsis, where we can laugh and howl at the potentially glorious or ruinous state of affairs we find ourselves in. This is his best show for a very long time and it’s partly because it confronts the part of the audience who take the Landlord seemingly at face value.

So there are some seemingly unironic cheers (or are the people joining in with the joke?) even when the point being made on stage is that we’ve shot ourselves in the foot, Al proves the British aren’t sheep by getting the entire audience to hit themselves in the head, which they all willingly and laughingly do. He makes an eloquent argument about sovereignty working both ways and thus withdrawing from the EU lessening our country’s influence over others, which partly gets idiotic cheers from people who have just heard the word sovereignty and perhaps don’t realise they are being mocked. And then he does an amazing monologue about how Turkey is empty and everyone is on their way here to steal the jobs of our  Romanians, who stole the jobs of our Poles. For now everyone is laughing, either at the irony of the fact that obviously not everyone from those countries has come here, or because they think Al is having a go at the immigrants that have swamped us and is speaking the truth. Who knows? But then the routine continues through every wave of immigrants that has ever come to these islands and the stupid Landlord figure is erudite and smart and it becomes clear that the whole history of the UK is based on immigration. The cheers ironic or not die down, the laughter comes in waves, the silences are more amazing - are we impressed by his knowledge, confused by the sudden history lesson, or being forced to confront a truth that may have eluded us? And as much as I think it's impossible to work out what people are actually thinking from their reaction, if I had to take a guess I'd say some of them were suddenly thinking, "Hey, is he taking the piss out of us? Does he not agree with us after all?" There was a certain amount of disgruntlement in the silence, I intuited/imagined.

If Al’s audience really is real life versions of the character, then doesn’t that actually give him a much more valuable platform than for libtard comedians like me who are telling people who already agree with them that they shouldn’t be racist and we’re a nation of immigrants?

It’s one of the best and most fascinating routines I’ve ever seen and it’s partly due to the reaction. My wife compared Al to a high energy Stewart Lee (different in style, but as pedantic and ferocious and smart), though it’s unlikely many comedy critics would ever put him in the same bracket or view Al with such reverence. Because of his audience? Because he is also happy to go for laughs? Because they are not sure if he means it or not? (again not such a problem with the critically acclaimed comedians who make us feel uncomfortable about ourselves).

Whether Al has always just reflected what it means to be British or whether he’s somehow influenced Britain or politics to be more like him (which seems unlikely), I don’t think I have seen anything that so neatly skewers the essential contradiction at the heart of our country. We think we’re the greatest, but we’re fundamentally useless and stupid. If we want isolation it’s so we can look backwards to a past that never actually existed, instead of moving forward with the rest of the world. This show gave me a real feeling of how the rest of the world must view us. Acting as if we’re this amazing place where everyone would want to be, but just confounding the world with our self-defeating decisions and our refusal to cooperate. And the fact that we think that that is worth celebrating and laughing about. 

I don’t know if a comedian can change any minds, or whether comedy shapes or is shaped by public perception or whether he or she will just make us laugh at ourselves and the stupid things we get ourselves into. But this was a night that was happy to entertain with silliness and songs and didn’t wear it’s intellect on its sleeve, but packed some powerful punches. And the Pub Landlord rolls onwards and looks unlikely to become an irrelevance any time soon.

We got a cab home and as we were getting out the Asian driver asked us what we had been to see at the Albert Hall. I told him it was Al Murray and that the act was a lot more interesting post-Brexit. "I voted Brexit!" he gleefully shouted. So one person at least, the assumption that you'd be a Vote Leaver if you were going to see Murray clearly permeated. I'd already given him a tip, luckily for him and he drove off smiling into the night. It's a strange country.


Don't forget - AIOTM show 2 is recording on Sunday

RHLSTP with Chris Addison and Kerry Godliman in next Monday.



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