Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

At one point in this intellectually and emotionally probing show, Alfie Brown mounts an eloquently persuasive defence of comedy as a mature artform, a capable and valid way of tackling the most difficult topics in life and society, 

Just because a joke is the endpoint does not immediately mean the subject itself is taken frivolously, he argues – and that like any artist with relevance, its best practitioners will take risks and sometimes fail.

And, yes, of course he is saying all this because he got cancelled.

It doesn’t make his point any less valid, even if the people who most need to hear this never will.

To recap: early last year, Brown had a run-in with a Jeremy Corbyn supporter over antisemitism in the Labour party, prompting a  Twitter storm and the unearthing of a years-old routine in which he used the n-word. A lot. 

Tour dates tumbled like dominos and the career he’d built up was on the rocks. Still is, if an 11.30pm slot in the Caves is the best he can muster for his Edinburgh Fringe run, he dryly notes.

For a comic who’s always been thoughtful and inward-looking, unafraid to put his imperfect behaviour under the microscope of stand-up, the whole, personally devastating incident provides plenty of raw material for self-scrutiny.

Open Hearted Human Enquiry is not a full grovelling apology, pleading for his place back at comedy’s high table, though he regrets and wholeheartedly apologises for what he said. (Does he only regret it because he got caught? Hell yeah, as he amusingly and honestly confesses.)

Then is this show a massive, defiant ‘fuck you’ to the PC Stasi who won’t let you say anything any more? Of course not, Brown’s too bright for the morally questionable approach that requires not one iota’s reflection on what he’s done. But at the show’s heart is the hope of redemption, that anyone should be allowed to express remorse, to grow and learn, without being ostracised. 

The problem, he concludes, is that he tells ‘woke jokes, in a non-woke way’ – a commercially suicidal formula guaranteed to anger both sides of the culture divide for entirely different reasons. 

Using the n-word was supposed to be ironic, highlighting hypocrisy, though he fully accepts that he was wrong. But how can he be an ‘unapologetic comedian’ after he apologised? 

In one sense, Brown stays true to his knowingly arrogant persona and doubles down. The hour is bookended with material about killing a child, emphasising his point about context and separating the subject of a joke from its target.

Yet all the turmoil of this racism storm was just the half of a gruelling 18 months or so for the comedian, blighted by grief and more ups and downs in his ever-turbulent, well-documented relationship with fellow comedian Jessie Cave, mother of his four children. He mulls what sort of dad he is, as he considers his relationship with his own father.

If anyone can navigate these choppy waters, it’s Brown, tackling all the nuances of every complex situation head-on yet still producing laughs, if not always neatly packaged ones.

He felt, not without justification, that the sold-out audience weren’t entirely with him tonight, that a deep, lucid introspection wasn’t what they were expecting from a late-night comedy gig — though their perceived indifference and Brown’s slightly tetchy reaction to it added extra layers of comic texture to a show already piled high with them.

Sure, Open Hearted Human Enquiry is not a LOL-fest, but there are plenty of moments of more straightforward humour, such as the description of a nightmarish family holiday to Centre Parcs or a visceral hatred of the word ‘babychino’.

His thoughtful delivery is compelling, but on these more clearly entertaining sidebars, he show he’s also inherited a bit of his mum, Jan Raven’s, gift for mimicry, with more-than-decent Russell Brand and Alan Carr impressions.  

Brown packs a lot into this show, which stands as an impressive and thoughtful hour of comedy way beyond any notions of a self-serving mea culpa. 

If the cancel mob – empowered by understandable cowardice from some quarters of the comedy industry – do silence him, we will have lost not a bigot who throws around the n-word for kicks, but one of the most thoughtfully challenging comedians of his generation, and the circuit will be a blander place.

Review date: 21 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Just The Tonic at The Caves