Who in modern British stand-up is worth watching?

Who is actually funny?

Definitely not Jack Whitehall, James Acaster or Joe Lycett; three soy-boy mediocrities who, back in the nineties, would get a couple of appearances on Friday Night comedy with Tommy Tiernan and disappear.

Is Ricky Gervais’ stand-up funny? I watched Apocalypse and found it a bit obvious. ‘Must bait the wokoids’, this will generate headlines’.

I’ve seen Stewart Lee live (once may years ago) and although it’s combative and right -on, it’s at least his own style.

The trouble is he’s spawned a legion of fanboys who want to be the next Stewart Lee and they’re not smart enough to pull it off. It’s that or comedy-by-box-ticking. Female and black comedians who get gigs on panel shows and have a sycophantic audience of liberal students clapping like seals. They can’t form a career doing comedy nights at clubs because the general public would heckle them and make them cry.
(see Kumar, Nish)

Most of the newer comedians on Netflix are just trading on their innate sexual or racial characteristics. It’s boring, so boring that Amy Schumer’s entire repertoire has been satirised by the meme of her uttering ‘my vagina’, then receiving adulation from grey-faced NPCs;

‘Comedy Unleashed’ is a reaction to woke but I haven’t found many of the acts very funny, as they try too hard to be anti-PC. they aren’t like Bernard Manning or Mike Reid who just wrote and performed the material they wanted to, regardless of how PC it is. It’s a deliberate attempt to be controversial and edgy. They gave their audiences – largely working class – the respect that paying punters deserve.
Comedians are usually quite dismissive when an audience reacts with an ‘ooohh’ at a mildly controversial idea that the comedian then has to explain to them.

The only stand-up act i’ve found funny in the past ten years is Mickey Flanagan. His material and delivery are quite unique in this day and age. Never tries to be a shock jock and frequently mocks the pretentions of the liberal middle-class, the very people who make up the bulk of comedians on the BBC and Channel 4 for the past twenty years. He seems to have gone quiet recently which is a shame. He and Sean Lock were the only worthwhile comedians on TV for large stretches of the 2010s.

The rest are posh women, including the men.

unherd

Nominated by Cuntamus Prime.