Political Challenges in the Millennial Era

Abstract

This chapter identifies political comedians as highly effective in forming coherent responses to political challenges. While this was arguably also true of Alternative Comedy in the 1970s and 1980s, there is now a younger generation of comedians who have no direct experience of those earlier political contexts. Continuity and change in left-leaning radical approaches to politics are explored through comedians’ responses to three key issues: Brexit, evolving debates around political correctness, and opposition to neoliberalism. It is argued that political comedians are particularly effective in imagining radical political alternatives.