Ed Aczel's Foreign Policy

Thank God for Ed Aczel. His latest bout of airless anti-comedy begins with Barry McGuire’s 'Eve of Destruction', but he’s quick to reassure us that the world isn’t really ending. It just feels that way.

Everyone needs to see Aczel at least once in their life, because you’re already living through one of his routines. It’s like wonderful torture. Deep in the bunker of The Hive (which manages to be both freezing and sweaty at the same time) he interrogates his audience about trivia and geopolitics – Joe McCarthy as a pub bore. 

The theme is supposed to be the sexy world of international diplomacy, but he’s soon back to his old fixations of supermarket loyalty cards, combi boilers and classical philosophers. It’s the kind of small talk they would pump into Guantanamo Bay, and when you laugh you know he’s broken your spirit.

Aczel gives off a defeated air, eyes closed and deliberately sabotaging his own rhythm. Other comics would overplay this and make it seem like they were on the brink of a meltdown, but Aczel is content to drag you down to his level of boredom. The effect is that he can simultaneously have the audience in hysterics and threaten that the show will never end. The ream of paper from which he reads the act becomes a joke in itself.

If there was a wider message—which there isn’t, but if there was—it’s that the end isn’t nigh. Life is already one long crunching catastrophe, so you might as well laugh.