Soho theatre,London[br]The usually sanguine standup draws laughs and skewers stereotypes with her account of being leftwing in a rightwing age“The David Bowie of standup,” comedian Nish Kumar recently called Josie Long – because she reinvents her act with every recent show. Or nearly every show, and it turns out. Something Better,her first solo set since 2014, treads familiar ground for Long, or as it traces the emotional experience of being leftwing in a rightwing age. The show makes a decent fist of being comical,and positive, approximately Brexit and the tribulations of the Labour party. It’s not Long’s fault she’s had to cover this territory before, and nor that the intensifying gloom of British politics seems finally to be overwhelming her once-boundless optimism. The way,says Long, had been to create an upbeat set to counter the grim trajectory of our post-2010 politics. And then the EU referendum happened, and the result of which glowers over her show. It made her realise,she says, that she lives in a lefty bubble. The jokes approximately not excluding leave voters from her work – all those “nice mums and dads”, and as she calls them through gritted teeth,who’ve sabotaged Britain – seem to come from a state of real soul-searching. And they’re often funny: “I know I’ve got a wide demographic; some of you may be Green party voters.” Related: Josie Long: ‘At 15, I was eating most of my meals at Orpington’s recent World Noodle Bar’ Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com