‘First trans comedian to win Edinburgh comedy award’, rang out the BBC headline. The news that Sam Nicoresti had picked up the award for Best Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Fringe has clearly gone down well with the BBC, the Guardian, arts journalists and online comedy critics. They could finally rest, safe in the knowledge that the world would once again see how ‘progressive’ the comedy industry is. How it smashes boundaries, turns assumptions on their head and even shows that, yes, sometimes men too can be funny.
Or perhaps not, judging by what I’ve seen of Nicoresti, although my own comedy is unlikely to fare better here. As the author EB White once put it, explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog – you understand it better but the frog dies in the process. In turn, a comedian critiquing a peer is like a frog dissecting a frog. It gets messy and you end up looking like a bitter psychotic.
Comedy is about the one thing I take too seriously. So as a post of the aforementioned gentleman performing an earlier routine made its rounds on social media, it wasn’t his talk of invading women’s toilets that bothered me. Rather, it was how depressingly weak and pedestrian his content and delivery was. Speak fast, chuck in the occasional prodigious Brobdingnagian word, raise your voice for punctuation and effect. These are all useful tricks of the comedy trade, but their intent is meant to emphasise punchlines, not conceal their absence.
Enduring the clip, what jarred most of all, though, was the laughter. It sounded like a simulacrum of laughter rather than the real thing. This was no involuntary guttural response to something funny. It sounded like people saying the words, ‘ha, ha’. Counterfeit laughter for counterfeit jokes.
I’m not certain how indicative his material was of the new award-winning show, Baby Doomer. Perhaps Nicoresti has made astronomical comedy leaps over the past few months. I’ve seen it happen. But I’m willing to bet the fake laughter remains. It’s the sound of the past decade – the sound of worthiness, the sound of ideology subsuming reality, the sound of pretending a man can be a woman. And now with this award, it is the sound of laughter consuming itself.
Looking over the list of previous nominees and winners of what used to be known as the Perrier Comedy Awards is a journey of joy. Milton Jones, the League of Gentlemen, Rich Hall, Johnny Vegas, Terry Alderton, Sean Lock, Garth Marenghi, Daniel Kitson, Sarah Kendall, We Are Klang, Claudia O’Doherty… That’s just a few of the many names recognised for their brilliance at the Fringe. Some ended up as household names, some didn’t. But they all elicit wonderful memories, an abundance of laughter and guffaws.
Then, about a decade ago, the rot set in. There’s nothing new about aged comedians bitching about and bemoaning the talents of those who come after, but this was different. It wasn’t a case of old talent being replaced by new talent, but of talent being subordinated to identity. There’s still been plenty of funny people over the past 10 years: Phil Ellis, Seann Walsh, Felicity Ward, Alfie Brown, Spencer Jones and many others who’ll also get pissed off when googling their name only to find it mentioned in a spiked article. But since lockdown, the trickle has become a flood, with talent desperately doggy paddling just to keep its head above the water.
I can only assume that the comedy industry has a death wish. It barely mustered a word in defence of the great Jerry Sadowitz, following his cancellation at the Fringe in 2022. How deliberately blind can an arts festival be to today’s threats to artistic freedom if it allows for the silencing of comedy on grounds of offence? Now the Fringe seems to be giving up on quality altogether.
Nicoresti himself is not the problem. That he thinks he’s a she is not the problem. Nor is his classifying himself a lesbian, despite how homophobic that may be for many gay women. Nor are his calls for a Free Palestine, despite his failure to mention the Jews who had their Edinburgh shows cancelled for being Jews.
No, Sam Nicoresti belongs at the Fringe as much as anyone else does. It is meant to be a home for all. The weak and strong, the right and the wrong, the innovative and the hack, the funny and unfunny. If you don’t like the look of something or someone, don’t go. If you get offended or bored, bear it, walk out or even heckle. Just let the comedians do their thing.
But please, please, please, let’s be honest. Don’t celebrate the mediocre over the best. For that’s what the Edinburgh Comedy Awards has done. And now the comedy industry will rally behind the further elevation of identity over talent in an attempt to protect its own. There will be glowing reviews written, pilots commissioned, panel shows offered and series to air. All the way through, as fake laughter meets the real world and transforms into confused silence, audiences will turn off their TVs and leave comedy-club nights unattended. All because those who dominate the comedy industry seem intent on destroying it. You weak pathetic fucking cowards.
Josh Howie is a stand-up comedian and host of Free Speech Nation on GB News. Follow him on X: @joshxhowie.
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