Is Jeremy Corbyn too nice for satire?

When Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour party last Saturday, did Britain’s satirists rub their hands with glee, or wring them in despair? On the one hand, Corbyn requires a tricky gear change from political comics, in that he simply doesn’t fit modern satire’s default “they’re all the same, they’re all unprincipled careerists” paradigm. Even his worst enemies would probably acknowledge he is decent and a man of principle – qualities that don’t tend to be considered gifts to comedy. And yet I’m sure cartoonists and comics are delighted by Corbyn’s arrival on the scene. He is a completely new figure to joke about, and that same high-mindedness – as we’ve already seen – opens up fruitful new realms of satiric possibility.

So what is satire’s approach going to be? Like the approach to Corbyn more generally, it’s not yet settled. Witness the Sun’s contradictory front pages last Monday and Tuesday: the first berated Corbyn for compromising on his republicanism; the second attacked him for acting on his republicanism. In that light, the treatment meted out to the new Labour leader on last week’s Dead Ringers on BBC Radio 4 was a bit rich. In the first Corbyn sketch, he was mocked for having “muddled and contradictory opinions”. In the second, he was teased for having an out-of-date dress sense. Truly, the new dawn of satire is upon us.

Sandwiched between those gags, another Dead Ringers line of attack looks like the one most likely to endure. The joke in question was that Corbyn’s first move on being elected leader would be to expel himself from the party, for being so self-seeking as to pursue the leadership in the first place. It’s a decent joke, about Corbyn’s perceived piety and the impracticality of pure egalitarianism. It implies a man blinded to common sense, not to mention his own absurdity, by the earnestness of his commitment to the democratic socialist cause.

In that, the joke recalls this summer’s fleeting media phenomenon, the @corbynjokes Twitter feed, which traded on the perception of Corbyn as a humourless leftybot answering classic gag set-ups with socialist jargon.

— @corbynjokes (@corbynjokes) September 16, 2015

Why did the chicken cross the road? I'll be sure to ask the Prime-Minister at the next PMQs

Probably this will remain a default Corbyn characterisation – that he’s a joyless socialist calculating machine who’s swallowed a copy of Das Kapital. That’s a lefty caricature bordering on cliche, and there’s probably less mileage in it than in the comedy of a man doomed to have to keep compromising on his lofty ideals. You can wring some humour, but not much, from a staunch republican refusing to sing God Save the Queen. But a staunch republican reluctantly persuaded to sing God Save the Queen? That’s far funnier. Albeit, for fellow republicans like me, more depressing too.

One correspondent on Chortle, who is also promoting a Corbyn-themed comedy gig in Brighton to coincide with this month’s Labour conference in the city, speculated that the “Jez we can” phenomenon might revitalise UK satire, because Tory-bashing jokes are too easy, too familiar and totally ineffective. I doubt that’ll be the case. The best satire derives from moral outrage of the kind it’d be hard to muster against Corbyn. And the best satire kicks against the strong, not the weak – given the volume and virulence of the establishment attacks being directed at him, Corbyn clearly falls (in satire terms at least) into the latter category. It’s revealing that one of the most popular cartoon images of the Labour leader so far doesn’t depict him with Y-fronts over his trousers or a mad, staring eye, but as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Venerable, wise, unflappable, soon to be destroyed by the forces of darkness, but whose spirit will live on. Satire will find worse to throw at Corbyn, but – for him, at any rate – that’s a pretty encouraging start.

Three to see

Sam Simmons

The winner of both the Barry award at the Melbourne comedy festival and the Edinburgh comedy award (a rare double-whammy), Simmons’s Spaghetti for Breakfast by the belligerent Aussie absurdist Simmons takes up residency in Soho.

• At Soho theatre, London, from 22 September to 10 October. Box office: 020-7478 0100.

Funny Women final

The final round of the competition that has helped propel the likes of Katherine Ryan, Bridget Christie and Sara Pascoe to prominence. This year’s gala features 10 up-and-coming female comics and is hosted by Ricky Gervais’s Derek co-star, standup Kerry Godliman.

• At Kings Place, London, on 23 September. Box office: 020-7520 1490.
  

Josh Widdicombe

The Last Leg star is on the first leg of another UK tour, showcasing his distinctive brand of trivial observational comedy, as matters of very low importance engender high-pitched vexation from the Devon standup.

• At Oakengates, Telford, on 23 September. Box office: 01952 382 382. At Cheltenham Town Hall on 24 September. Box office: 0844-576 2210. Then touring until 20 December.