Tired targets in comedian’s latest children’s escapade Acid, yes – but this is comedy with humanity
Extensively translated, with past sales in the millions and regularly leading the best-selling list for children’s books, comedian turned writer David Walliams is currently doing pretty well. This present title, set in 1983, tells the story of an increasingly confused, former spitfire pilot and his ever-admiring, 12-year-old grandson Jack.
His grandfather is finally moved to a villainous care home after some domestic near-disasters. But Jack, who has no other friends, is determined to rescue him. With the old man living in the past and convinced he is escaping from Colditz the gallant two break out, followed by every other inmate. The awkward question of what then to do with grandpa is avoided by an ending that stretches even the most willing suspension of disbelief to breaking point.
Walliams has taken care with his RAF wartime history, adding a glossary at the end explaining the various famous names invoked by the old man. His use of dated flying slang is also spot on, often ridiculed after the war but now more kindly seen as one way for those involved to distance themselves from the uncertainties of their daily survival. The ancient war films that the couple enjoy on television together are again nicely evoked.
However, too often, like his literary hero Roald Dahl, Walliams goes for old and tired sitting targets. Profusely backed up by Tony Ross’s exuberant line illustrations, overweight and ugliness are mocked while self-absorbed parents and autocratic school teachers are written off. Dahl normally gets away with his excesses through the unpredictable and occasional brilliance of his language. Walliams can tell a story clearly but not memorably. And this lack of verbal devilry over 460 pages finally takes its toll. Although written with obvious good intentions and with plenty of publisher’s hype to help it along, this book that sets out so determinedly to be amusing is in truth not very funny at all.
Descriptions of bums, bed-pans, a care home that was once a former “lunatic asylum” a pupil writing ‘Gaz Woz ‘Ere’ with a black marker pen on a priceless Turner masterpiece or the vandalising of the Imperial War Museum might once in themselves have raised something of a juvenile laugh when humour in children’s books was in short supply. But things have moved on fast in the last years. Order for £11.69 (free p&p) from the Independent Bookshop: 08430 600 030 “Why is it always comedy that brings out the worst in people?” implores Frankie Boyle, tone of seething exasperation bleeding through. It’s a double-edged comment. On one level, he’s clearly frustrated with those who feel a need to take offence at his more controversial jokes when there are far greater evils in the world going unchallenged. On the other, you get the feeling he revels in it; that he himself is that “worst”, the most willing to blurt out the unsayable, and the unlikely giggle he occasionally lapses into despite himself suggests he knows he’s walking a tightrope on the edge of acceptable taste.
But we’re all here to see that great tightrope act. For anyone willing to engage with Boyle’s work as something beyond a succession of sharply turned gags on pet subjects like institutional child abuse and the precisely balanced blend of cancer and sexual assault he wishes upon anyone brave enough to heckle, there’s huge intelligence at work. Always masterful with a punchline, in the past Boyle’s shows have disappointed slightly, in that they’ve gone for a rapid series of transgressive laughs without building to an overall point.
For this new tour, named with simple beauty Hurt Like You’ve Never Been Loved, the point has arrived, and very welcome it is. Those familiar with the Glaswegian comedian’s recent newspaper columns will be aware he speaks with a (perhaps unexpected) degree of compassion for the disadvantaged and comparable levels of naked disgust for those he sees as being corrupt or hypocritical. Boyle punches hard, but he punches up.
There feels like a high level of truth over artifice when he appears to allow himself anger; partly showing his disgust at abuses of power, and partly because he seems to view people as so docile that they’d rather get worked up over what some guy in a purple suit says in his comedy show.
The show is only an hour long, but it’s dense with purposeful provocation and firstrate comedy whose laughter is sharpened by that sense of transgression Boyle does so well. He weaves in a joke about #piggate, naturally, and manages to tie it to the Raoul Moat saga. Or there’s a self-confessed “dark” segment which he warns us of in advance, where he elaborates his thoughts on elite power in Britain. His delivery is dispassionate and dry, but the timing and lack of fear is first rate. These are enlivened here and there by a credible accent or a grinning double-take to match Eric Morecambe.
As the show climaxes, a sense of personal honesty creeps in to match the emotional truth; about his youthful alcoholism and his enduring love for Bill Hicks. Headlines detailing Boyle’s supposed bad taste may not agree, but his comedy bears the same sense of essential humanity as Hicks’, and his brutality is an era-defining mirror held up, rather than a blunt weapon. Or, as he correctly puts it: “I’m a professional comedian; there is a point.”
The show is only an hour long, but it’s dense with purposeful provocation
On tour till 11 December (frankieboyle.com)