‘Give me a cheer if you’ve ever experienced remorse!” So begins Alfie Brown’s new show, and if you’ve got any cheerful cheers to cheer, get them out of the way now. Cheer will henceforth be in modest supply. Open Hearted Human Enquiry is about Brown’s 2023 “cancellation” (apply or delete scare quotes according to taste), after old footage was excavated of him using the N-word on stage while seeking to make a progressive point about racism. Brown is a comic who makes “woke jokes”, he says, “in a non-woke way”. The blowback has had a significant negative impact, emotionally and professionally. This show is his reckoning with the experience.
Is it a mea culpa? Partly. Is Brown donning a hairshirt? He is not. He is, for good or ill, the most bloody-minded of comics, incapable of merely saying the thing that might smooth his way back into favour. He offers a heartfelt “sorry” here, but also meditates on what that sorry signifies. He clearly regrets the ill-judged routine but also accuses others of bad faith in their reaction to it.
