Simon Brodkin’s cutting comedy finds love in the dark

British standup comedian Simon Brodkin strides across the stage of his previous show Screwed Up and begins an anecdote. His audience settles in for the yarn. He was walking down the street of his toney London neighbourhood Hampstead Garden Suburb in northwestern London when three Black men walked past. "And it’s a true story!”

The surprise, stop-short punchline about soft racial segregation draws a roar of laughter from his audience.

Brodkin, who is touring Australia with his new show Unleashed this month, is accustomed to being at the ramparts, using his trademark barbed humour to fight the good fight against racism and other social evils. His weapon is his razor-edge humour, much of it from comical personas such as a British soccer bogan.

But in a phone interview with Brodkin in London on the eve of his Australian visit, TJI asks him: Among the so-called "outsiders", the downtrodden of Western society, as a Jew, does he now feel he’s the "outsider among the outsiders"? Have we been dropped into a sin-bin of our very own?

“Undoubtedly there’s been a change since October 7^th that every Jew around the world feels. I think we probably do feel like that [like outsiders] at the moment. Definitely. But every minority probably feels a slight step away from the mainstream.”

The comic in him takes over. “Let’s have a competition – [which group] feels the most like an outsider.”

Serious again, he adds: “Nothing has made Jews feel more Jewish than the hate that comes their way.”

And the comic again: “If antisemites really wanted to win, they should start loving us … They don’t realise they’re playing a long-term terrible game. The more they hate us, the more we’re like, ‘Yeah, we’re Jewish. Go f**k yourselves!’ ”