Review – This is not normal, but it is funny
“I’m just reading you the news,” said Matt Chorley repeatedly throughout his political stand-up show This is Not Normal. Of course, yet another bafflingly stupid thing a politician has said in his time covering British politics. That’s the funny thing, in recent years politics is so mad and politicians so self-parodying that political comedy almost writes itself.
Almost being the key word here, because it takes a certain type of talent and personality to pull off what Chorley is attempting to do. I’m happy to report he does so with success, charming his audience and getting them laughing, participating and even singing.
I attended the show alone. I had attempted to get a friend to accompany me, but he said no because “political comedy is shit”. He has a point. I find politically focused stand-up comedy almost invariably tedious. Generally, it’s performed by unfunny comics who seem to prefer to inspire applause rather than laughter. Luckily, that isn’t what Chorley’s show is all about.
This is a comedic lecture from a well-informed journalist who has been covering politics for The Times for 14 years. Anyone familiar with the Red Box newsletter, as a majority of the audience were, knows Chorley’s cutting takedowns and ability to find comedy in despair. Last night I saw him bring it to life on stage.
He tells stories illustrated with photos and graphics, including photos of him with various politicians from Tony Blair to David Cameron. He manages to construct a narrative of British politics becoming gradually madder and stupider over the course of his 14 years of covering it (is it actually Matt Chorley’s fault?) as a series of events and poor decisions leads to the destabilisation of both political parties and the very system itself.
In the first half he takes us from Blair’s third election victory and David Cameron’s victory in the Tory leadership race (arguably the source of many of our issues), through to the expenses scandal, the AV referendum and a good few minutes on Paul Nutall’s bizarre and unintentionally hilarious tenure as Ukip leader.
His mockery of Paul Nutall was a highlight, which illustrates well what the show is all about. Essentially, he retells some of the most bafflingly stupid things Nutall said while Ukip leader in a very amusing way, peppered with his own observations. It’s very much the way he tells them. Like Nutall’s response to the furore over his fake CV, “It’s not as if I’ve been caught in a paedophile ring,” Chorley points out the curious choice of the word “caught”. Caught!? This show is all about Chorley riffing on the absurdities of politics and politicians in a brilliant way.
The second takes us through the messy referendum and up to the present mess we find ourselves in. He brutally cuts his way through Chris Grayling, Andrew Bridgen, Mark Francois, Jeremy Corbyn, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Oh, and he is brutal by the way. The show is full of hilariously vicious lines, many of them reserved for May.
Chorley did not buy into the short-lived May mania. He pointed out at the time that she wasn’t up to much. Chorley reserves special disdain for the received wisdom that she was admirably stoical, repeating the word over and over to get his point across before saying it only applies to her if it means “being shit at something but keep[ing] doing it anyway”. Ouch. As for our current PM Boris Johnson, the very fact he is in high office is tragically ridiculous to Chorley. Going from Theresa May to Boris Johnson is replacing “a robot with a low skilled worker”. Double ouch.
Very few politicians are spared his witty disdain, with the general theme “this is not normal” translating into an overarching point that British politics has hit a low point, with much of our current ruling class being low grade and trying to remind us that “politics doesn’t have to be this bad” and we shouldn’t become numb to it. He makes his point well and hammers it home.
Matt Chorley knows his audience of largely middle aged and middle-class Times readers and he works them well. Despite this being a new venture for him, he’s a natural onstage who manages to get audience buy-in from the get-go and sustain it throughout. There is something charmingly amateurish about him strolling around the stage essentially going through a slide show. I thought to myself that delivered by someone else the whole show just would not work.
It works because of Matt Chorley, who comes across as personable and likeable to the extent he can even pull off a good number of dad jokes. Now, dad jokes are often the best jokes for getting a laugh, but it’s how you tell them and it needs the right kind of person with a certain cheeky chappy charm that he possesses. He was able to get repeated laughs after an audience member told him his name was “Randy” at the beginning of the show. This earned several call backs, including when we were presented with a picture of Matt in his pyjamas. “Are you randy now sir?” Cringeworthy in the wrong hands, but he brings his audience with him throughout.
What we got from this show was a journalist offering an insider’s knowledge and experience of the descent of British politics into instability and mediocrity told with humour and charm. There was plenty packed into the two hours (including an interval) which moved along nicely and climaxed in his song “this is not normal” (adapted from “we didn’t start the fire”) with the audience joining in.