ICONS OF COMEDY – JON STEWART

Andy Dawson on the political comedian du jour, now du jours, they are a-changin'...

Here in Britain, we’re entering an era of political turmoil. We’ve got a government who are less than six months into their spell in office and already huge numbers of people are taking to the streets to protest against their policies.

In times gone by, this would have led to a huge growth in political comedy – in the mid 1980s it was hard to find an alternative stand-up who didn’t bleat on about Thatcher for most of their set. But it’s all very different in 2010.

Earlier in the week, Rory Bremner, probably the most notable satirist around, announced he wouldn’t be doing any new shows because the members of the ConDem coalition are too dull to be able to impersonate. So where does that leave us?

It leaves us in a vacuum and looking longingly towards the USA’s premier political laugh-bringer, bullshit-detector and pomposity pistol, Mr Jon Stewart, that’s where. He’s the man whose Daily Show on Comedy Central is liberal America’s one-stop shop for finding out what they should think and who they should campaign against.

But it’s a bit more complex than that. Stewart gets some major heavyweight guests on The Daily Show – including some bloke called Barack Obama, some other bloke called Bill Clinton and some other bloke called Tony Blair. It all adds up to make The Daily Show near-unmissable viewing and it’s a crying shame that we have no equivalent over here in the UK.

Stewart’s greatest stunt to date came a few weeks ago when he fronted the Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington DC, an event more than slightly similar to the Restoring Honor Rally held previously by rabble-rousing right-wing nutjob Glen Beck.

Approximately 215,00 people attended Stewart’s rally, proving that it isn’t just the freaks who come out in their droves when the call goes out. And nobody got kettled. Jon Stewart – we salute you and pray that you’ll spawn a UK cousin sometime very soon.