'Make Em Laugh' - Labour's new (almost) side-splitting comedy show

By Pam DoorOur Alternative Comedy Correspondent

united labourYou start off by pretending
You're a dancer with grace
You wiggle 'till they're
Giggling all over the place
And then you get a great big custard pie in the face
Make 'em laugh
Make 'em laugh
Make 'em laugh

The show is based on the BBC TV series 'The Good Old Days' (1953 - 83), exactly the period when Labour moved from Socialism to being unelectable in England - before becoming Tory-Lite.

The show opens with the Kezia Dugdale Dancers high kicking socialist policies into the long grass, while the Labour Lords Combo renders a raucous version of 'The Stripper' on fiddle, whitewash board, trumpet and lyre.

Anas Sarwar, acting as Master of Ceremonies then made his entry with a hilarious reworking of the WWII propaganda song "Salmond has only got one ball".

lab launchThe extravaganza is imaginatively staged for its opening in the new Emirates Arena, Glasgow, where up to 7,000 spectators can be housed in the main Arena.

They, however, were watching something else, as the Labour show took place in the 75 sq m mind & body studio.

In line with SPL and U-KOK traditions, however, the audience is being reported as including all Labour Party members in Scotlandshire - whether they are there or not and a full house of 8,231 will, therefore be recorded at each performance.

The show is being enthusiastically tweeted as "standing room only" by Magrit Curran, their booking agent.

Richard Baker MSP is wonderful in his role of "Mr Memory". Turning the traditional role on its head, Baker challenges the audience to ask him any question, and he will give an answer. Hysterically, it is always the wrong answer, so when he asks the questioner "Am I right, sir?", the audience participates in the joke by heckling, shouting insults and throwing things at him. My. How we laughed!

Johann Lamont made a valiant attempt at juggling with universal benefits, explaining that they were "really too hot to handle", but the lack of balls in Scottish Labour made juggling a bit difficult, despite the range of tossers available among her MSPs and MPs.

The great anticipation, however, was undoubtedly to see the return of the man who single-handedly had saved British Music Hall from financial ruin by "buying it for the nation", or more accurately "borrowing to buy it for the benefit of the nation", or even more accurately " borrowing to buy it for the benefit of the crooked bastards who let it go bust in the first place".

Making his entrance in his trademark outfit of Kilt, Sporran, Tam O'Shanter and twisted walking stick, while hurling mobile phones from his capacious sporran, Gordon Brown (Caledonia's Minstrel of Mirth) launched into a new version of the Harry Lauder classic Ta Ta, My Bonnie Maggie Darling in tribute to his lost love.

He then embarked on a reworked Lauder monologue, "I yield to no one in my pride in being Scottish. I was born in Scotlandshire. I was brought up in Scotlandshire, went to school in Scotlandshire. I live in Scotlandshire. My children were born in Scotlandshire. My sons are at school in Scotlandshire. My sons are growing up in Scotlandshire."

Somehow Hugh McDiarmid's thoughts on Harry Lauder came to mind -

The reason why the Harry Lauder type of thing is so popular in England is because it corresponds to the average Englishman's ignorant notion of what the Scot is — or because it gives him a feeling of superiority which he is glad to indulge on any grounds, justified or otherwise. 'Lauderism' has made thousands of Scotsmen so disgusted with their national characteristics that they have gone to the opposite extreme and become, or tried to become, as English as possible; 'Lauderism' is, of course, only the extreme form of those qualities of canniness, pawkiness and religiosity, which have been foisted upon the Scottish people by insidious English propaganda, as a means of destroying Scottish national pride, and of robbing Scots of their true attributes which are the opposite of these mentioned. It is high time the Scots were becoming alive to the ulterior effect of this propaganda by ridicule.

 (Bloody show off! I went to school too, you know, and mine was 'Approved' - Ed)

In true Lauder fashion, the monologue rambled along the highways and byways of Britishness, while we eagerly waited for the punchline. He went on to list what he described as the benefits of remaining part of the union, including UK pensions, UK national insurance contributions, the UK funding of health care and the UK minimum wage.

All these were rich sources for the humour the old trouper would have wrung from them in his heyday, since all are worse than other countries or under threat, but he delivered them so deadpan that the audience were driven to think that he might actually be serious.

When the act finished, there was a little polite applause to relieve the embarrassed silence but, in truth, this was a man out of touch with the times. A sad end to a brilliant career.

Fortunately, the finale raised the audience spirits (or perhaps spirits had raised the audience) as we all joined in the traditional music hall community singing, so popular when Labour was a party with beliefs.

Enthusiastically we sang "Adam was a Scotchman", "The Saftest of the Family", "The British Bulldog's Watching at The Door", "Bella the Belle o' Dunoon" (specially for Annabel Goldie), The Portobello Lass (to Kez Dugdale's embarassment) and "The People's Flag" as the Union Jack was proudly waved.

 


 Related Articles

BBC Politics : Scottish independence: Former PM Gordon Brown wants a 'union for social justice'

International Journal of Scottish Literature : Hugh MacDiarmid, Harry Lauder and Scottish Popular Culture


Comments

Due to the huge number of complaints, comments are no longer banned on BBC Scotlandshire News pages.

Comments or no comments, it's still OUR job to tell YOU what to think - NOT the other way around.







 
Our Other Biased Articles

complaint

What is all this Rubbish?

Click HERE to find out.