Edinburgh Fringe comedy review by Steve Bennett

Fin Taylor found his mojo last year with the passionate and provocative rant challenging the white middle-class audience to confront questions of racism they would probably rather sweep under the carpet.

Well, he’s not going to change tack now – and the follow-up is just as fiercely iconoclastic, as he sets his sights on liberals’ social complacency, and the takedown is delivered with just as much fire in his belly.

If there’s a slightly lower return on investment, it’s because for whatever you read about ‘snowflakes’, it is less affronting for anyone to have their political views questioned than their racial ones, given how sensitive the latter is.

But here he argues with conviction about the inefficiency of political correctness in fixing any problem. It’s rather just a sap to white, middle-class guilt that can be more a  hindrance than a help, he argues. 

People want a moral superiority to feel good about themselves, which Taylor is keen to kick away, Smugness is his main enemy, particularly those Bernie Sanders supporters who virtue-signalled that they were far too left-wing to bring themselves to vote for Hillary. How’d that work out?

For all his niggling at left-wing values, he is one of them. He even lives in Stoke Newington, the chichiest enclave of artsy North London where a rat is never more than 6ft away from a left-wing comedian. The vehemence is driven by his feelings of liberal inadequacy. That and being dumped, which further pits him against the world.

Wherever it comes from, his swagger is phenomenal. The opening line burns Bill Hicks, which is a ballsy move. But Taylor has the same power of conviction, able to take his audience into dubious territory.

He hopes the irony is clear. ‘If you don’t laugh, it’s hate speech,’ he says at one point, pushing the contentious angle.

The outrageous points of view give an added edge to good jokes. It’s not just dodgy opinion being given the hard sell by a pounding pace and unflagging energy, the writing is sharp too, creating a show that keeps Taylor on top of both his game, and the zeitgeist.

Review date: 14 Aug 2017
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett