The UK Guardian is currently your go-to place for bat guano insanity regarding Hotcoldwetdry, which features Holly Burn, who is a comedian, writer and actor (and surely takes lots of fossil fueled trips)
John Oliver can make global warming funny, but climate comedy is still hard
The problem when it comes to making comedy about climate change is that it’s about the world falling into an open sewer, and it’s too impersonalComedy = tragedy plus time. That’s the equation to make ha ha’s happen. You may not know it, but all us lot in the comedy production line just hang out riffing maths formulas and that’s how we come up with the gold. Simples. (Winky face.)
So I’m not that great at math(s) – NB I do like to keep in with the Yanks. But I can still do the sums when it comes to melting all the ice caps away with our long baths; destroying Mr P Bear’s ice house with our TripAdvising globe trots; and finishing off the fossil fuels by blowdrying our hair to bits. Once we’ve done all that it’ll be too late. There’ll be no time left for the punchline: set up and then just tragedy. The laughter will be stranded and left for dead, marooned like one of those polar bears balancing on a singular floating block of ice. (snip)
US actor and comedian Mel Brooks said: “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die†(and he charged £500 a ticket for his show in the West End recently so he must be right?). The problem when it comes to making comedy about climate change is that it’s the world falling into the open sewer. It’s this mammoth problem too big for any of us to get our heads round, too impersonal to understand and too far removed for any of us to grapple tangibly with. Most of us feel we are not yet living directly with the consequences of climate change. Human peeps are a selfish lot bothered with the here and now and if we can’t see it it ain’t happening and we don’t care.
If you’re in the U.K., make sure to check Holly and her poor grammar as she tours the nation in what will surely be a fossil fueled vehicle, as well as on TV, which uses vast amounts of power.
