Geoff Norcott gets comedy right
Geoff Norcott has made quite a name for himself over the last few years as one of a breed as rare as hen’s teeth – a right wing comedian. It has to be said that he is now not alone as a member of that small band of brothers. Andrew Doyle, Leo Kearse and Simon Evans are three other names that come to mind, but there’s still a lingering suspicion that they are merely tolerated by the comedy gatekeepers, rather than embraced.
Norcott is a south London cheeky chappy working class Tory, and styles himself as the voice of common sense. He is not actually particularly right wing, and his act is more about exposing the hypocrisies of the left and all its wokery, rather than being particularly pro-Tory. He’s not afraid to criticise the Conservative party or conservatism, but he won’t indulge in the character assassination and the utterly perverted cruelty favoured by the likes of the unfunniest supposed comedian on the circuit, Nish Kumar.
I’m not going to claim I “discovered” Geoff Norcott, but I do remember the first time I heard him and said to my left wing LBC producer that we must get him on. “But why?” came the response. “He’s right wing. How can he be funny?” “Well, I’m right wing. I can be funny,” I replied. He raised an eyebrow. We duly invited him on and then a few weeks later he was on the BBC Question Time panel and was the star of the show. Since then, he has been invited back three or four times.
In 2018, I went to see him perform at the Edinburgh Fringe. He was in the same room that I did my show in a year later. He was brilliant and I left with aching cheekbones. The funniest part was when he had told a mild joke about Jeremy Corbyn, which provoked a middle aged lady to stage a walk out, dragging her husband with her. Norcott thought this was hilarious and wondered out loud what kind of show she had been expecting.
Norcott’s skill is to deploy right wingery without lapsing into the kind of pseudo-racist stuff which the Left clearly expects from him. He delights in explaining how he came from a Labour background and how the Left not only let down him and his class, but why he and people like him drifted to the right. His book Where Did I Go Right? How the Left Lost Me is one Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry would do well to read, as they clearly have no understanding of why their party has lost people like Norcott.
Norcott’s podcast What Most People Think is 89 episodes old. It’s a mix of him spending 45 minutes musing and ruminating on the events of the week, sometimes with a guest, sometimes not. It involves a copious amount of swearing, and if you can’t cope with that, it’s best to give it a swerve. But if you enjoy some good robust chat which is both thought provoking and amusing, then you’ll enjoy this podcast.
Last Thursday, Norcott was on the Politics Live panel with fellow comedian and podcast interviewer Matt Forde. It was unusual for the show to have two comedians on at the same time but they provide a good yin to the other’s yang. And that’s what happens in the podcast too. Their mutual respect shone through and demonstrated that people from opposite viewpoints can get along. I’ve had Matt Forde on my own All Talk podcast, and I’ve appeared on his Political Party podcast – hardly incestuous at all – so I know what a dream guest Matt Forde is. In the immortal words of Sir Cliff Richard you just wind him up and let him go. His riff on Scottish independence was the best defence of the union I have ever heard.
However good and entertaining Geoff Norcott is on this podcast and on TV, that will never match his live performances. If he’s in a town near you on tour, go and see him. It will be the best £20 you’ll spend this year.