Do we really want applause-hungry politicians taking over the Fringe?

The Herald Scotland

3 days ago

Political rivals certainly hate these performance pieces. We've heard Scottish Secretary Ian Murray blast the SNP ministers who have been 'grandstanding' at the Fringe, the likes of emboldened John Swinney who chose the occasion to megaphone the word 'genocide' into the ears of his supporters. And doesn't Rachel Reeves' Fringe statement about Jeremy Corbyn – suggesting he's panto villain evil – also reveal so much about yet another politician who comes over all gallus when behind the cover of a proscenium arch?
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But hang on; isn't it fortunate that our elected reps have chosen to appear in Edinburgh's halls, tents, churches and basement venues? Isn't it great we can actually glimpse the true reality, which is that of the desperate showbiz performer in lurking? Wasn't it terrific fun when Alex Salmond appeared with his own show, a piece of entertainment so successful (in his own mind), and such was his popularity, he claimed that tickets were going for £500 on the black market. Unfortunately for the late First Minister, the critics didn't agree. 'The show is lazy, controlled and unrevealing,' said one, and typical of so many.
They didn't agree either with Jeremy Corbyn's assessment of his own shows, a man who milked the applause of acolytes like a six-year-old appearing as Mary/Joseph/The Donkey for the very first time.
Of course, there have always been politicians who've loved the entertainment spotlight, hence the great quotation that politics was showbiz for the ugly, endorsed by Gyles Brandreth, who was once an MP. (This isn't a line you can use these days, even if some of our elected officials would, to quote my granny, 'have a hard time finding a lumber in a Canadian forest.')
But it seems the desire for so many to grasp at the chance to show-off, the opportunity to hear someone laugh with them, rather than at them, is on the increase. And it doesn't take long for the politicians fed up choking on criticism and desperate to get out of the job they've been paid handsomely to do to take off to the jungle to choke on kangaroo anus; think Dugdale, Farage and Hancock.
Yet at least we get to note those who can't wait to vacate the debating chambers and take to the stage, those such as Tony Blair who didn't grow up desperate to save the world. No, he wanted to be a rock star. He wanted to be Mick Jagger. And that genetic predisposition didn't go away. But nowadays the chance for other politicians with the performance gene to do so much more than look after their constituents and toe the party line is so much greater. Politics has become so much more about performance, about offering up bite size punch lines.
And the presentation of government strategy has changed. It's about podcasting. It's about building a massive social media presence. It's about the likes of Nigel Farage foaming at the mouth excitedly on receiving likes on Tik Tok. It's about taking to the stage to sell your new book full of the revelations you should have declared when you were working as a supposedly honest and forthright MSP/MP.
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Comedy is about getting to a punchline, and that's so much of what politics is now. And while politicians embrace light entertainment television, they love live theatre all the more because the scope for revelation is so much wider, the applause much louder. But the fear is this love affair with the live audience will only get worse. John Profumo left politics in dark ignominy, but the only stage he climbed onto was that of Toynbee Hall in East London, which he often swept. In modern times a politician who exits under a cloud is now likely to appear excitedly on stage at a book festival.
What politicians should remember is they already have the chance to already air their views. It's called parliament. It shouldn't be in a hall in a cobbled side street or the Gilded Balloon. And this increasing move to appear on stage mirrors, sadly, the increasing superficiality of modern life, where boring people try their hardest not to appear to be. And we have to ask: is Anas Sarwar or Russell Findlay only an email offer away from a cameo at Perth Theatre panto this year?
Of course, this grumble about shallow vaingloriousness and desperation for applause doesn't apply to journalists. The only reason I have ever appeared on radio, television documentaries, or as Buttons in the Glasgow Pavilion panto in 2009, was to get the message across, which the public so desperately needed to hear. What was that message? Sorry, can't hear you. The sound of imagined applause is still ringing in my ears.