Comedian whose jokes had a radical socialist edge

Many people are capable of being very funny, and many can express their political beliefs coherently, said The Guardian. Jeremy Hardy, who was died aged 57, had the “astonishing ability to do both at the same time”. A lifelong socialist, he frequently railed against Tory policies, both in his stand-up and on Radio 4 panel shows, yet he was never the ranting “firebrand”, said The Independent. Clad in a cardigan, he came across like an “amiable sociology lecturer”; it was this contrast between the material and its delivery that gave his comedy such a sharp edge. And though admired for his perfectly crafted one-liners, he was also capable of flights of glorious silliness: on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, he delighted audiences with his off-key singing – and reduced them to fits with his rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah in the style of George Formby.

Born in Hampshire in 1961, Jeremy James Hardy was the youngest of five children. His father, Don, worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough, and oversaw the launch of the Prospero satellite in 1971. Hardy loved comedy from a young age – he claimed to have got into the local grammar school only because his interviewer shared his love of Monty Python – but his parents were also political: he said his mother had turned him into a socialist. On graduating from Southampton University, where he read modern history and politics, he moved to London, where he wrote jokes for Radio 4 and established himself on the comedy circuit. In 1988, he won the Perrier award at the Edinburgh Festival. His spoof lecture series, Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation, delighted and infuriated Radio 4 listeners from 1993; two years later, he joined The News Quiz’s panel.

There seemed to be a political message even in his most gentle jokes, said The Times: “My daughter wanted a new pair of trainers. I told her: ‘You’re 11, make your own!’” But he also poked fun at the Islington circles in which he moved. Of middle-class parents, he said: “They give their kids names like ‘Hosepipe’ and ‘Ottawa’, and say ‘their problem is they’re so bright, that’s why they get such low marks at school, because they’re bored’.” And he did more than score cheap points: he was an active campaigner against injustice (and an old friend of Jeremy Corbyn). When he was given a column in The Guardian, some were surprised by how serious it was. “Perhaps I should have been more ironic,” he wrote, in his last column, “but then you might have thought I didn’t mean it, and I did.”