Fringe festivals are full of comedians. We all know that if you poke your head into pretty much any pub on the street, you’ll find a comedian hiding out in the back-room, or in the loft, racing through their set. The name of the game is getting people to see your show. So, naming it ‘Eat a Queer Foetus 4 Jesus’, makes perfect sense. The shock factor is often a good way of filling seats (and making it free doesn’t hurt either.) Sadly, on this occasion, the plan did not manifest itself for Richard Coughlan, who played his set to a handful of punters. Despite this, he deserves applause, for he carried on undeterred, and delivered his set with remarkable energy and enthusiasm to an audience who gave him very little back.
The show itself is essentially in the form of a long rant, which covers all the right-wing lunacy of the day. UKIP, the BNP and the EDL all feature, as does a passionate critique of the current inflammatory perceptions of immigration and terrorism. All well and good, and delivered with exactly the right kind of panache and fire. Yet it seems somehow a bit too... easy. As Coughlan said himself, it’s no longer hard to write satire, for today the characters who espouse political extremism have become so ridiculous that one only has to quote them accurately to get a laugh. The glory days of left-wing comedy departed the same day as Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street. Coughlan came far more into his own when he delivered a personal story of humiliation and self-destruction far funnier than his take on contemporary politics. (I won’t give it away, but it involves an abortion, a religious epiphany, and an aubergine.)
It was a shame that this golden nugget of comedy came towards the end of the show. Had it come before, the audience might have been warmed up enough to give it the laugh it deserved, or even given him more to work with during all the politics-bashing. Or, better still, he could move from the political to the personal. Richard Coughlan has been doing stand-up for eleven years – he must have some stories to tell. I, for one, would like to hear them.
