Finding hope for humanity at Hay
Also: the tiresome return of Brexit, and a cultural workout
ByComedy
Westminster: Stop watching The Thick of It
SW1’s chronic TV addiction is twisting its sense of reality
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Donald Trump, illiteracy, and an effigy of Judas Iscariot
How should we celebrate Easter at this time of crisis?
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Saturday Night Live is doomed in the UK
Britain has lost the ability to appreciate this kind of comedy
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Rob Reiner knew how to listen to people
Films like When Harry Met Sally and This is Spinal Tap resisted hardness or cynicism
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The secret world of joke writers
I can make you funny – but at whose cost?
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Alan Partridge’s late style
Can a national joke survive when it’s also trying to become a national treasure?
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Jimmy Kimmel and the decline of the American comedian
His return to air was like watching a forced confession
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Jimmy Kimmel won’t be the last to be silenced
The Charlie Kirk crackdown is here, and the right-wing assault on free speech in America is underway
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Remembering the stage titan Giles Havergal, my cousin
Also this week: bashing pans for Palestine and parties at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
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Mitchell and Webb’s second look
With their new Channel 4 sketch show, the duo are on a mission to save the comedy double-act.
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Lord Byron’s sex education
This summer, take the epic satire Don Juan to the beach.
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Good Hang with Amy Poehler is breezy, funny and light
The comedian’s series was conceived in opposition to wellness and therapy-adjacent shows that promise to make us “better” people.
Bridget Jones’s hollow feminism
The novels portrayed the working woman of the Nineties as a hot mess. By laughing at her, we laughed at…
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The unadulterated pleasures of Rivals
This Disney+ take on Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles is very funny and deeply satisfying. And what a multiplicity of backsides!
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A modest proposal for the regulation of comedy
A Criminal Levity Act would place the dangerous realm of humour safely within the scope of anti-terrorism laws.
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Josie Long Q&A: “I wish Keir Starmer had a functioning spine”
The stand-up comedian on Joanna Newsom, expressionism, and the dream of being a forest ranger.
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Ricky Gervais is turning into David Brent
The comedian is condemned for being a culture warrior. The truth is much sadder.
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How Friends changed the way we laugh
The show shaped a global sense of humour with Matthew Perry’s Chandler, who turned sarcasm into the default mode of…
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The tedious world of anti-woke comedy
From Jimmy Carr to Ricky Gervais, “edgy” comics are making jokes about 9/11 and Michael Jackson in an attempt to…
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