. This essay, on the debate about BBC comedy being too leftwing, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on protests, persuasion and coercion.) It was published on 6 September 2020, under the headline “Our culture has lost its appetite for risk and making people feel uncomfortable”. “A real comedian – that’s a daring man,” Eddie Waters, an old standup turned evening class tutor, tells a group of would-be comics in Trevor Griffiths’s brilliant, mordant […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Politics • Tags: bbc, bernard manning, chris gethard, clapter, comedians, culture wars, geoff norcott, have i got news for you, nish kumar, racism, simon critchley, tim davie, trevor griffiths, wokeness