Those who think ‘woke’ to be a dirty word believe there’s a huge, untapped market for offensive comedy that’s been stifled by the politically correct elite. But for all the publicity garnered by Jerry Sadowitz’s cancellation at the Edinburgh Fringe, the Eventim Apollo was barely a third full for what was billed as his biggest gig yet.
Nor was Hammersmith’s mega-theatre ideal for the performance, with the distance from punter to stage diluting the impact of his skilled close-up magic and, more crucially, dissipating the feeling of claustrophobic danger from his psychopathic rage.
Yet in his seventh decade the aggression of Sadowitz’s embittered fury burns as intensely as it ever did. He repeats the p-slur against Rishi Sunak that landed him in such trouble in Edinburgh as part of a spittle-flecked, furiously fast-paced onslaught against all the mendacious cunts at the heart of the Establishment.
Then we’re barely three minutes in before he does a Madelaine McCann joke. The missing toddler has become the go-to reference point for any self-defining edgelord comic, but Sadowitz did this shtick first and fiercest. Elsewhere the set is peppered with the worst of humanity – Jimmy Savile (whom the comic nailed as a wrongun long before his depravity was revealed to the world), Fred West, black cab rapist John Worboys – plus the vilest words for the mentally and physically disabled.
It’s not comfortable but any passion is appealing, even when it comes from the darkest recesses of a blackened misanthropic soul, and you’re likely to laugh despite yourself. Sadowitz speaks to a visceral animal instinct that society has superseded. He is a man broken by life, for whom all civilities have broken down, loathing himself and scrappily lashing out at anything and anyone.
He loves a conspiracy theory, from insisting that the coronavirus pandemic which holed his already shaky career ‘doesn’t exist’ to the fact there are shadowy cabals controlling the world and enabled by the evil BBC. This sort of stuff is usually the preserve of the disillusioned, the paranoid or the mentally unwell and it’s impossible to tell how sincere Sadowitz is being, or, indeed, whether the audience cheers at his extreme positions are to be taken at face value.
For his blunt comedy is both unsubtle yet complex. While most hard-edged stand-ups make their irony clear, Sadowitz has so many layers of truth and detachment even he probably doesn’t know what he believes or doesn’t any more. Context might be everything, but even that is fuzzily defined here – even though his cheerleading for Vladimir Putin is very clearly tongue-in-cheek.
Sadowitz’s defence has always been that he’s an equal opportunities offender, and here he seems to be projecting a stronger sense than usual that nothing he says is meant to be taken too seriously. His starting point is that we’re all as inherently worthless and shitty as each other, which renders the concepts of punching up or punching down meaningless.
Even so, wading through the racist, sexist, homophobic, abelist psychological sewerage of his mind for 90 minutes can be wearing, and there are notable lulls, broken when he defibrillates the gig into life with a superbly savage line.
Perhaps aware of the risks of monotony, Sadowitz takes a few diversions into the likes of recalling the chocolate bars and Heinz canned sponge desserts of his youth… even though no one is going to be mistaking him for Peter Kay any time soon. To clear the air – kind of – he ends with a blast of magic, before he returns with the embittered doggrel of Rabbi Burns, his alter-ego that draws on both his Jewish and Scottish roots.
Of course what he says is indefensible and no one, including venue staff, should hear it unless they want to. But given the context of his formidable performance, nihilistic persona, savage gag-writing skills and, crucially, four decades worth of reputation for caustic, even toxic, comedy, he doesn’t seem worthy of any ban.
• Jerry Sadowitz: Not For Anyone has a handful of dates yet to run this year. Jerry Sadowitz tour dates.
