COMEDY

POLITICS 109ignorance in the minds of the audience by reinforcing it throughintolerant laughter. Turning laughter on bigotry is, however, the mostpositive thing that comedy can do; it should tell the truth, reveal thingsfor what they are, delivering people from the constraints of prejudicialideologies, to become ‘a radical mode of social communication’(Garner Jr, 1999:133). In this credo, entertainment is secondary to theredemptive and revelatory function of the ‘true’ joke. ‘We work throughlaughter, not for it’, he says,It’s not the jokes. It’s not the jokes. It’s what lies behind ‘em. It’sthe attitude. A real comedian—that’s a daring man. He dares tosee what his listeners shy away from, fear to express. And what hesees is a sort of truth, about people, about their situation, aboutwhat hurts or terrifies them, about what’s hard, above all, aboutwhat they want. A joke releases the tension, says the unsayable,any joke pretty well. But a true joke, a comedian’s joke, has to domore than release tension, it has to liberate the will and thedesire, it has to change the situation.(Griffiths, 1979:20, original emphasis)Comedy retrieves a suppressed truth, but not in purely Freudian termsas a means of keeping larger repressions in their proper place, but as arevolutionary force that liberates people from their fear, interrogatesrepression, and converts it into positive political energy. ‘Most comicsfeed prejudice and fear and blinkered vision’, he says, ‘but the best ones,the best ones…illuminate them, make them clearer to see, easier to dealwith’ (Griffiths, 1979:23).Waters’s philosophy contrasts strongly with that of Bert Challoner, atalent spotter for the clubs and the man who represents the way on to thecircuit. His advice advocates conformity to the style: ‘Don’t try to bedeep. Keep it simple. I’m not looking for philosophers, I’m looking forcomics’ (Griffiths, 1979:33). The abdication of responsibility impliedby Challoner’s view that ‘we’re not missionaries, we’re suppliers oflaughter’, or the logic of the argument that jokes are ‘only’ jokes, is theconsumerist fallacy that Griffiths wishes to condemn in this play(Griffiths, 1979:33). Waters sees a direct relationship between racisthumour and the logic of fascism. Recalling a visit to a Germanconcentration camp while in the army entertainment corps ENSA,Waters finds a horrific correspondence between jokes and the brutalityof anti-Semitism. ‘In this hell-place’, he says, he saw ‘a special block,“Der Straf-bloc”, “Punishment Block”. It took a minute to register, I