Josie Long's indignance is white-hot. When it comes to the powers that be, she can’t help but catastrophise about her country’s dismal-looking future. The British stand-up comedian is anti-monarchy, anti-landlords, anti-surveillance, anti-conservative, anti-London, anti-culture war and anti-The Crown. "Noooooooooo, not The Crown," the audience pleaded in the dimly lit cloakroom of the Town Hall. “I said what I said when I said it,” Long declared with tongue-in-cheek.
Not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, Long has always been unashamedly polemic in her comedy, using the stage as her podium to finger-wag and hold the upper echelons of society to account – as she should. It has been a rough couple of years in ol’ Albion, and it is always refreshing to hear from someone who uses humour as a vehicle to raise important issues, from the cost of living to climate change and human rights.
In the past few years, the triple Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee has surfed rolling waves of change which has led to her show Re-Enchantment. She’s turned 40, had two children (she’s the first one to have done this, did you know), and after the “orangutan with peanut butter for teeth” (Boris Johnson) won the UK election in 2019, she moved from London to Glasgow. The icing on the cake? She’s been diagnosed with ADHD. “I thought ADHD made me unique,” she claimed, “but it turns out every comedian has it.”
Re-Enchantment took a while to kick into gear, and her stories of looking like a mafioso in lockdown – albeit a tad funny – felt past its use-by date. But it was when Long began to speak of politics and moving from her “haunted shoebox” flat in London to Glasgow that the coals started burning. A “self-coined socialist” (she can’t be arsed with all the reading that comes with communism), Long is considered to be the “bougie” one amongst her brothers in arms where, with a flat white and biscotti in tow, she sets out to right the worldly wrongs.
In what felt like the same breath, the comedian lampooned right-wing politicians and woke-bashers, while whimsically describing domestic life from outdoor playgrounds to pesky indoor beetles. Swinging her mic back and forth nonchalantly, she assured us she wants her shows to be “good vibes only” and is even practising Buddhist compassion for her orangutang-looking enemies. But this is a comedian who can’t resist a spiel – or lacing her mantras with sarcasm.
After her hour-long set, you almost feel like flicking your fists up, heading for the barricades and painting the town red. But while this may sound like more of a putsch in a pub backroom than a comedy show, you’d be sorely mistaken. Long deftly compounds the political with the personal with her neat turn of phrase and musings on life and newfound motherhood.
Whether it’s through her infectious enthusiasm, intimate rapport with her audience or the quips dotted slickly throughout the show, the comedian reminds us that even in the darkest of days, there’s always something enchantable to be found.
