Bróccán Tyzack-Carlin says progressives should stop playing the nice guy

Anger can be funny. Loads of the best comedy routines are angry ones. Pear cider made from 100 per cent pear. A torch with the power of a million candles. Garlic bread. Keir Starmer’s war crimes. 

The last one is one of mine and hasn’t yet hit the heights of cultural ubiquity as the first three, but I reckon it should! 

Comedy as a medium is tailor-made for outrage. It’s nice to watch someone tit about onstage getting wound up about something daft. Lovely stuff, to be honest. But I think there’s more room in comedy for sincere anger - especially on the left. 

There’s a lot of righteous anger in the world at the horrific injustices, and the subsequent apathy of those in power, we’re made to witness. But often when it comes to comedy, the punches seem to be pulled in response. I love a TikTok saying a politician who’s implicated in grievous crimes looks like a haunted sock-puppet or a gangly melon (or something) as much as the next person, but sometimes it doesn’t scratch the itch.

Sometimes it’s nice to get 60 pissed-off people in a back room of a pub and let the looniest lefty comedians you know go fucking hell for leather (see: ‘push boundaries’; ‘say the unsayable’; ‘tow the line’) against the people actually worthy of some colourful language. There are countless nights where comedians are ‘unleashed’ and ‘uncensored’ and use the opportunity to take turns making jibes about the trans community and asylum seekers. 

We need more chances for socially progressive people to be absolutely livid and tell some jokes about war criminals and bigots to people who agree with them wholeheartedly.

‘But Bróccán, isn’t that just an echo chamber?’ Yeah, and it’s ​ace! Give me a lovely echo chamber any day of the week where there’s a base understanding in the room that all people are deserving of dignity and we can call the people who disagree with that wankers. 

Progressive artists seem to labour under an expectation of politeness. Their reputation as the self designated ‘good guys’ means that crossing into language or territory that seems provocative is called out immediately as hypocrisy. ‘The so-called tolerant left eye-rolling emoji’ is a comment found under any article or social media post highlighting an artist who has had the audacity to express anger publicly at a shit thing. In the music world, this can often crop up alongside a terrorism investigation. 

But fuck that. In a social, cultural and political climate when hate is weaponised so directly and seeps so liberally from the mouth of the leader of the free world, every other Netflix special, and initially sound-seeming blokes I meet in pubs who then let me know their views on immigration - we shouldn’t be afraid to be as direct in our opposition to that hate. In fact, we should foster cultural and comedic spaces where that is possible without fear of tuts/rolled eyes/folded arms from weird centrist dads. Go home and listen to Rory Stewart! I hate you! 

I’m not suggesting there aren’t angry successful left wing comedians. There are loads. And loads of great ones at that. But there should be more. And there should be spaces for them to develop and perform material true to their convictions. That’s what Sami Abu Wardeh and I tried to create with our night Everything Is F**ked. We wanted to build a night that was responsive to the state of the world, and encouraged acts to try out material they may have considered a bit too contentious elsewhere. 

Having the space to try out material that is daft and silly, but built with an anger, allowed me to write my new show. Releasing the material written for those nights into the wider world, away from the safety of the Socialist cellars and backrooms of pubs, does run the risk of polarising audiences. 

An audience member came up to me recently and told me they’d enjoyed the show but that I’d ‘not be getting onto Live At The Apollo any time soon saying that’. In fairness, neither is anyone else now (RIP) so might as well keep screaming about Wes Streeting being a prick and hoping it makes someone in the audience feel a bit better about the world being on fire.

• Bróccán Tyzack-Carlin: Good News! It's Been Destroyed is on  at Pleasance Courtyard  at 23:00

Published: 19 Aug 2026