‘It felt like a scene from The Handmaid’s Tale’: US comics on the dangers of political satire | Edinburgh festival 2025

In April, comic Jena Friedman had a wierd encounter in Vancouver airport. She had simply carried out a Ted discuss the way forward for comedy and was heading residence to the US, when somebody she thought labored for airport safety quizzed her about her go to.Considering he was probing for visa infringements, “I simply stated I used to be doing comedy. Then he requested: ‘What do you joke about?’ Stupidly, I flippantly flirted with him, and was like: ‘The whole lot aside from airport safety!’ He didn’t react in any respect. Then I realised he was US border management. He requested once more: ‘What do you joke about?’”Friedman is a veteran of The Day by day Present and The Late Present, and her standup comedy usually options excoriating routines on the expense of the political institution. “I simply froze as a result of I’m a political comic and I didn’t know what to say. Then he stated: ‘Do you joke about politicians?’”She made it residence, however the incident caught along with her. Friedman lives in LA, and the latest actions of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement “detaining anybody and everybody who seems a sure method” put her on excessive alert. “It was such a fast, on its face benign, interplay,” she says. “But it surely did really feel like a scene out of The Handmaid’s Story. I’m a blonde, white lady who seems like a Republican’s spouse and I’ve an American passport. However what if I had stated ‘Sure?’ Don’t we wish to dwell in a rustic the place we are able to joke about politicians, the place we are able to joke about something?”‘Don’t we wish to dwell in a rustic the place we are able to joke about politicians?’ … Jena Friedman. {Photograph}: Peacock/Heidi Gutman/Getty ImagesFriedman included that second into her new standup present, Motherf*cker, which she’s performing on the Edinburgh fringe. The present is a change of tempo. She’s typically resisted getting private on stage, resenting the concept ladies need to be relatable to reach comedy, however this time it felt unavoidable, as she explores the life-changing expertise of changing into a guardian whereas her personal mom was dying. “It’s about grief, but it surely’s additionally political,” she says. “The vibe in sure circles does really feel like we’re grieving. So there’s one thing about my present that’s connecting to the bigger second.”Friedman is amongst a crop of US comedians with roots in topical comedy showing at this 12 months’s fringe. One other stalwart of US political comedy, Michelle Wolf, is again, too, whereas standup and former Saturday Night time Reside author Sam Jay is making her competition debut.Wolf earned her stripes on The Day by day Present and Late Night time with Seth Myers, and gained notoriety along with her 2018 set on the White Home Correspondents’ Dinner, during which she roasted Trump and his collaborators. As of late, she lives in Barcelona, though returns to the US usually for comedy work. She’s but to come across border hassle however, with studies of individuals with inexperienced playing cards and residents being detained, she says: “I’m maintaining a tally of it.”Comedians Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres have each stated that the state of US politics has pressured them overseas – O’Donnell to Eire and DeGeneres to England. O’Donnell has written a present on simply that, which she carried out for the primary week of the perimeter. Wolf is joyful along with her transfer to Barcelona, and feels her comedy has benefited from different cultural views, however returns to the US as a result of “the audiences are nice” and there’s loads of work. Whereas different US comedians have additionally mentioned the concept of shifting to Europe, she thinks it gained’t occur till there’s “an impetus to go, one thing I don’t assume is much off, like: you may’t discuss this any extra, you may’t discuss that any extra”.Final month, satirist Stephen Colbert introduced that community CBS had cancelled The Late Present after 33 years. Many thought the timing, three days on from Colbert criticising CBS guardian firm Paramount for settling a lawsuit with Donald Trump, was suspect. Fellow late-night talkshow host Jon Stewart criticised the transfer on his podcast and pointed to wider worry throughout the business.: “There are a whole lot of issues that can by no means be made, that you’ll by no means learn about, that will probably be killed within the mattress earlier than they ever had an opportunity due to this chilling impact.”Friedman’s glad to see Colbert and Stewart talking out in opposition to Trump and his administration – and agrees there’s a “chill”. “The business has already been much less supportive of political comedy than they had been beneath Biden and Obama. Nevertheless, “seeing essentially the most outstanding comedians taking [Trump] to activity, like Matt [Stone] and Trey [Parker] from South Park, Colbert and Stewart, that provides me hope”.Michelle Wolf’s standup explores society by the ‘lens of being a mother’. {Photograph}: Stephen Keable/AlamyMeanwhile, Michelle Wolf’s standup merges the private and political and her podcast, Wolf’s Thought Field, tackles present affairs. Her new present, which she’s performing whereas eight months pregnant on the fringe, explores life and society “by the lens of being a mother now”. There are punchlines on societal pressures for working moms, residence delivery, momfluencers, gender inequalities and extra. “We’re in an period now the place persons are speaking about motherhood realistically and that’s very refreshing,” she says.Nonetheless, political comedy isn’t absent. “I really feel like I’ve to handle the entire America and Trump factor … folks count on me to say one thing about it.” She plans to tailor topical jokes to the day’s information however, “I don’t like making it a big a part of my set, as a result of it bores me. There’s at all times one thing loopy taking place, but it surely’s exhausting to provide you with artistic angles aside from: are you able to consider this?”It’s been 9 years since she first began writing jokes about Trump and, in that point, her life has reworked – she met her associate, moved overseas, and is about to have her second little one. Her major feeling now’s: “How are we nonetheless speaking about him? How are we nonetheless in the identical spot?”Jay displays that gradual construct in her present, We the Folks, during which she explores the state of America – wanting again to the “unconfident whites” who based the nation. She describes the present as “a enjoyable, dangerous little trip” as she tries to get to the foundation of why the US feels so divided, and what we are able to do to raised perceive each other. “It’s this broader dialog I’ve been having about America and race,” Jay says.The entire world feels unsettled proper now and there’s an incapacity to contemplate different views, Jay says. “How did we get right here as Individuals? In fact, I believe race performs a big half in it. And the way did these race relations get to the best way they’re? Not simply blaming white folks, however exploring the kind of white folks we’re coping with, why they is likely to be the best way they’re, their roots in England.”Trump got here up a lot throughout Jay’s time on SNL and seems in her fringe present as a “braggadocious” idiot, unable to maintain state secrets and techniques, but neatly interesting to the frustrations of America’s poor white communities. However the circumstances that created and elevated Trump are extra fascinating to Jay: “He’s the symptom of this, not the trigger. This can be a results of years and years of us doing it incorrect … it’s been constructing for a very long time and for lots of various causes.”Friedman agrees: “I began working on the Day by day Present in 2012, I used to be at Letterman earlier than that, so I began taking a look at politics every day since 2010, and this can be a very long time coming.” This additionally implies that, amongst US audiences, not everybody needs political comedy. “They’re at all times searching for escapism. Within the first time period, there was particular Trump fatigue,” Friedman says. “As a political comedian, I’ve at all times finished higher within the UK than the US. It’s the UK audiences who’re like: what the hell’s occurring over there?” says Friedman.The temper in US comedy is, Jay says, “the temper in America … chaos. There’s no method to sustain. Persons are additionally very desensitised. Shit simply retains taking place in additional excessive ways in which persons are shedding a metric for it.”All three agree that comedy might help share differing worldviews. “Even when it’s folks we disagree with, the signal of a wholesome democracy is when folks can safely be on stage saying no matter we would like, ideally in good religion,” Friedman says. “I assist all comedians, I assist freedom of expression and I wish to see extra of it. I wish to see folks extra open to folks they disagree with. Each time I do political comedy, the aim is to not preach to the choir, it’s to get folks to see issues barely in another way.”Jay has stated that comedy generally is a instrument for empathy. “I have a look at it as a dialog. It may well serve a goal of precise understanding, understanding that we’re all people making an attempt to determine a factor that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense – current. Everyone is grappling with this stuff in their very own method.”What does the long run maintain for US comedians? “It’s too quickly to inform,” says Friedman. “However I believe everyone exercising the US first modification in a method that’s humorous and disarming is admittedly necessary proper now.”Jay says: “As soon as I’m on stage, I’m gonna say what I’m gonna say. If I can’t come again consequently, I’ll simply need to have my girlfriend come meet me in Scotland.” Jena Friedman: Motherf*cker is at Hive 1 at Monkey Barrel Comedy till 24 August. Michelle Wolf is at numerous venues till 17 August. Sam Jay: We the Folks is at Pleasance Courtyard till 24 August