We went to see Micky Flanagan last night at the 02. As far as big arenas go, I don’t mind the 02. However, time waits for no man and I do find it all rather exhausting going up to ‘the big smoke’ these days.

Still, it didn’t tire me enough to not enjoy a gig that was simply, good fun comedy. Flanagan has a great knack of being laddishly funny without getting involved in all the media twaddle about culture wars, cancel culture, or anything other nonsense invented to make the masses turn on each other.

Nostalgia and Delicate Subjects

He indulges in nostalgia and comparisons with modern living in a way that is funny rather than bitter. Technology and the speed of societal changes alarm Flanagan like they do all middle-aged folks but he is not one to long for a better time that never existed. He doesn’t think everything was better once, because it wasn’t. It was just different once, and Flanagan makes that funny.

Flanagan can also make delicate subjects funny without being spiteful. His gag about a transexual swimmer with a bollock hanging out of his costume was a good example. He imagines a scene featuring the transsexual winning the race by an hour. “He’s already in the cafe having a coffee, the poor girls are all still swimming”. There was none of that, “Trans?” What the fuck is that about eh?” low hanging fruit, feel to it. Flanagan is no bully boy comic.

Rimming and Camber Sands

‘Rimming’ was another subject that had the audience in hysterics. “When I was a lad you had to buy a woman a house and a car just to get a blow job…what happened since? How did we get to arse licking? “Would you like to lick my ring piece love?” “Sorry darling, I didn’t catch that…what did you say?”

I can’t remember too much more. Trips to the Camber Sands interrupted by the cunt family (“here we go, here come the cunts, devil dogs and one tooth between them). How the cost of living crisis has really affected him (“my chauffeur won’t stop going on about it…had to buy him an air fryer to shut him up”) and why every kitchen appliance beeps if you leave it open for three seconds. 

Overall, everything about Flanagan is good fun, from the Chas ‘n’ Dave type music in the build up, to the opening lines about Covid. He doesn’t (despite little digs at Boris Johnson and The Royals) over indulge in politics or culture. Any punching is done upwards rather than down. Personally, I don’t see a joke about “getting straight on the Ladbrokes App” when he found out a swimmer in a woman’s race was a bloke, is offensive. I think a transexual person would laugh at that.

Punching up Not Down

Obviously, life isn’t the gospel according to what Bob Lethaby finds funny, but having a laugh at a societal issue many of us are still trying to fully understand, is harmless (in my opinion of course). I couldn’t give two hoots what someone wants to be, it makes no difference to my life. If a transsexual became PM and told me I had to become one or lose my state pension, I might start moaning. Otherwise I have long since made a choice to allow people to be whatever they want to be. None of my business.

However, and you may think differently (which is fine) laughing at a situation that sometimes lurches towards preposterous whilst it evolves, doesn’t make me Jim Davidson. The difference between laughing at Flanagan and someone like Davidson, is that Flanagan isn’t a bully boy and is very funny. Jim Davidson is a nasty, unfunny shitbag, who punches down on easy targets.

Looking around the audience, I saw 20,000 people with a bit of wine and beer in them, out for a bit of fun. Flanagan has made himself very wealthy by giving people a good old belly laugh during tough times. Fair play to him, it was infectious to see so many people cackling. 

Better than getting rich by selling shit PPE to the NHS and hiding your gains in Panama.