Relentless flow of funny observations
Jeremy Hardy, Borough Theatre, Abergavenny ★★★★I
JEREMY Hardy has been described as one of the most famous faces on radio. The Perrier Award-winning broadcaster also has a three-decade career as a stand-up comedian behind him. While television is generally regarded as an essential for the perpetuation of a successful life as an entertainer, Hardy has exploited a niche that appeals to a reassuringly large fan base of people who, it is probably fair to say, could name the cast of the Archers but no winners of Britain’s Got Talent.
Satire - and by extension topical comedy in general, is the hardest thing to get right. It depends not only on rapierlike reactions to breaking news and events but also on keeping a finger well and truly on the pulse of your audience. This is where Hardy’s well-defined demographic becomes an asset. The audience at Abergavenny’s labyrinthine Borough Theatre knew what to expect - and got it. Hardy tore into the totems of the right wing of the Great British Divide with relish, sparing no one from a barbed and superbly well-aimed onslaught, proving himself a wickedly accurate caricaturist.
Growing old and facing the consequences struck a chord as he bemoaned the fact that he was rapidly approaching the phase of his life where a man would appear twice a year to show him some owls. His observation that there are these people who “arrive suddenly, cannot speak our language and expect everything done for them” was aimed at babies and led into a splendid dissection of the trials of parenthood. Along with the predictable targets of Trump, May, Johnson and Farage, Hardy’s acerbity was particularly sharp when aimed at the Israel/Palestine conflict - the subject of his 2003 film, Jeremy Hardy v the Israeli Army. While there may be nothing original about the targets for Hardy’s wit, there was a uniqueness and an intelligence which constantly surprised and pleased his fans. Overall it was Hardy’s relentless flow of genuinely funny observation, delivered in what appeared to be an unbroken stream of consciousness, that impressed. He seamlessly moved from subject to subject and hit the targets every time. ■