Comedy is the best response to 2016

2016: an absolute nuclear clusterfuck in the embers of a skip fire, what with the normalisation of actual fascists and a celebrity death toll – including a dead gorilla – mirroring the state of the town at the end of Carrie. Then there was the 20 volumes it took to chronicle Tony Blair's folly in Iraq. And Zayn Malik’s autobiography. 

The Celebrity Death Toll meets Sgt Pepper 

It seems like barely a week went by this year without at least one 'oh shit, not really?' moment of genuine sorrow. The Great Celebrity Cull of 2009 is a mere pretender in comparison to 2016 and couldn't have prepared us for the number of honest-to-God legends not seeing in the New Year this time round.

While we suspect a number of self-proclaimed mourning David Bowie fans hadn’t ever actually made it to the end of Labyrinth, or those who say they have 'grown up with Prince’s music' and then be all 'something something nehnehneheh Purple Raiiin!' the losses of our most talented artists were so relentless that even the most sincere tributes by the autumn lacked any sense of shock, by which time it was announced Leonard Cohen had died too.

However, we have no need for words when we look back at the toll because in an evening’s idle Photoshopping a magazine editor, Chris Barker, knocked together the perfect roll call in a recreation of the Sgt Pepper cover using our dearly departed. In Barker's rendering, Mrs Merton stands next to Muhammed Ali, Hilda Ogden looks down at Pete Burns and – just for a real punch in the guts – at David Bowie’s feet is a photo of Jo Cox, the MP senselessly murdered in the summer during the build-up to the EU referendum. Just behind her is the word BREXIT spelled out in flowers. Ouch. And yet, there’s such a loving wit about it you kind of have to laugh. He’s even worked in the proper Toblerone, before all this nonsense with half the triangles gone. Note perfect.

[NB: there’s been some issues around copyright and reproducing the image, so we won’t, but at the time of writing it’s still up on his Twitter feed – @christhebarker – along with a handy key. And don't miss his insightful blog about the perils of going viral.]

The Chilcot Report is Read in a Shed

In all the video-in-The Ring level horror, it's almost easy to forget The Chilcot Report was actually published this year. Or it would have been easy to forget, had it not been for a heroic and collective response by comedians – a sharp and poignant reminder to politicians that your bad deeds might not only find you out, they might also channel themselves into a public performance of great artistic merit at the Edinburgh Fringe.

And so it was that for 12 solid days non-stop, a selection of performers, passers by – and on one occasion a local MP who brought baked goods – read aloud the recently published report into the UK's role in the Iraq war. A vital and curiously life-affirming project, and my personal highlight of the Fringe, it's still quite saddening that Tony Blair was only ever called to account by six people at a time reading in a shed. Next to a bus. But called to account he was, and that's the power of comedy and perhaps embodies that having something to say is the purpose of the Fringe.

Whatever Brexit means

Frankie Boyle observed that the Tory leadership election in the wake of Brexit was 'sort of like an X Factor for choosing the Antichrist'. It fell to new PM Theresa May to define exactly what Brexit means. Of all the uncounted shitstorms breaking loose as a divided Britain starts the convoluted task of leaving the EU, one consequence that's flown under the radar is how a poor portmanteau like Brexit appears to have become an actual word.

In terms of the Leave campaign, we could almost bring Spitting Image back just to let Boris Johnson play his own puppet. On Twitter, the whole fetid mess of comment and opinion on offer was perhaps best represented when an UKIP parody account was set in Trumpton, until it was deemed offensive rather than accurate of the very near future.

This year has been like Inception for right-wing idealogues as Nigel Farage now self-stylishly splatters himself between the UK and an American Trump. He really is the human incarnation of shitting during a fart – it sounds hilarious until it actually affects you, in which case it's nauseating, uncomfortable and makes you want to have a long, scalding wash with the shower head as far up your arsehole as his has ascended up President-elect Trump's rump.

At least in comedy we had Bridget Christie. She rewrote her Fringe show entirely to make sense of Brexit, and the howl of pain and rage which triumphed from The Stand's basement was another highlight of August.

Trump and Toblerone

Which brings us to Trump. Not content with shafting the UK and then blagging the taxi fare home, the Year That Hope Forgot has of course seen elected as leader of the free world a man whose previous contribution to history was making Alan Sugar the likeable face of an execrable reality format. The jokes come thick and fast, and we can look forward to them continuing at least until he figures out how to press the big red button.

There’s reams more to be written on this, but what’s given me hope as all this unfolds is what its author described as the shortest essay of all time. When Trump came over to Scotland in June to chat shit about Brexit affecting golf handicaps, Janey Godley took time out from her Fringe preparations to protest with a placard made of old lino, reading simply: TRUMP IS A CUNT. Because there are times when less really is more. And the thing is, even if you don’t agree with her, or don’t like her language, that’s why we’re here. That’s the best kind of comedy, the stuff that looks the darkness and terror of human nature right in the eye and calls it a cunt to its face.

It’s been a bastard of a year, but as long as there are people prepared to do that, and can laugh about it, we might just be alright, you know. So, in a nutshell: fuck you, 2016. Just to prove the point I’ll leave you with a little harsher-in-hindsight crack from Jon Ronson back in that innocent Before Time, when we hadn’t even begun to fear for our Toblerones. Writing on the first day of 2016, Ronson tweeted: "I swear. On this day next year you'll be saying to me, 'Jesus, Jon, you were right. Nothing bad happened in 2016.'"

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Bridget Christie: Because You Demanded It, Citizens Theatre, 18 Mar, 8pm, £14/16
Janey Godley: There's Only One Godley, Oran Mor, 24 & 25 Mar, 7.30pm, £11/13
Jon Ronson's Psychopath Night, Citizens Theatre, 16 Mar, 8pm, £15/16 & Old Fruitmarket, 22 Mar 7.30pm, £17.50
All part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival