Josie Long: The Future Is Another Place, Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh
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Your support makes all the difference.Last year Josie Long mixed whimsy with political awakening.
This year the excitable cherub-faced clown is fully committed to the latter theme.
John Lennon used to talk about getting political messages across with "milk and honey" and Long knows that leveraging socialism and activism into a comedy show requires a similarly sweet lubricant. So a series of dogma safety valves are established; a self-deprecating bleeding-heart whine ("They hate libraries? Why? They want to sell the forests?!") and a list of simple pleasures (running down hills and swimming outdoors) to underline the idea that she doesn't want to be talking politics, but feels duty bound.
She's doing so because a near-death experience shook her world view enough to research her response to "the apocalypse of injustice" and her previous knee-jerk reaction to the Tories. "My friend said to me before the last election that if the Tories won it would be good because there would be lots of anger and good art; but I would rather have schools and hospitals." Long has other, more sophisticated points to make, many of which she knows the audience might want to scrutinise later. This line is an example of direct action to bridge the gap between causes and comedy and she completes the jump intact.
Until 28 August (0131 556 6550)
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