Was Henry Naylor’s agent right when he warned the writer and comic, at the height of the “war on terror”, that “Afghanistan is not funny”? To a certain brand of comedian, that kind of remark is always going to sound like a challenge. The darker the reality, after all, the greater the potential for gut-wrenching gallows humour. That’s part of what Naylor was after back in 2003, when he wrote the Edinburgh fringe play Finding Bin Laden – whose creation he now revisits, in a solo show about his own relationship with Afghanistan, two decades on.
As both an autobiographical chronicle of Naylor’s career in satire and a reflection on our responsibilities to Afghanistan, the show – which ran at last year’s fringe and now arrives at the Arcola theatre in east London – raises interesting questions. Not the least of them concerns the BBC’s supposed policy of “taste and decency” (words Naylor practically spits out here) when it comes to reporting on – and joking about – war. Naylor, who wrote for Spitting Image, is on the verge of his big break as a satirist back in 2001, his newsy comedy show about to run on the radio when two planes hit the World Trade Center in New York. Standards guidelines kick in immediately. Naylor’s comedy is deemed no longer appropriate.
