I’m back on the road until August with my five-star standup show, Snowflake Tornado, mouthing confirmation-bias to packed rooms of masked elitists. Over six nights at the Oxford Playhouse, I saw the familiar and friendly staff and crowds return, though the historic Eagle and Child pub sadly appears to have closed. It was here in 1933, apparently, that JRR Tolkien thought up the terrifying fissure the Crack of Doom after hearing a becubicled CS Lewis battle the afterburn of an especially potent Old Peculiar. But I am waiting for an inquiry by the very experienced civil servant Sue Gray to decide if this story is true. Dominic Cummings claims to have recorded evidence of the incident, but sceptics suggest it may just be a tape of him squelching his hand under his own armpit. That’s why you have Sue Gray looking at all the details. Let Sue Gray do her job.
Sadly, the two-year pandemic hiatus has rendered my 20-minute routine on what I imagined the new woke Bond film would be like irrelevant, but a section summarising Boris Johnson’s dismal career of flaccid dishonesty now makes a satisfying conclusion to the show for the performatively disgusted crowd, hopefully until the tour ends in August. Thus I am probably the only champagne socialist who wants the party-blind PM to stay. But the prudent thing is to wait for Sue Gray to report. Sue Gray is a very senior civil servant. Sue Gray is very well able to conduct this investigation.
