In the Midst of Crackers, We Find Cracks

As a casual fan of televised panel shows such as QI and Have I Got News for You, I have been familiar with Reginald D Hunter’s outspoken and marginally philosophical humour for quite some time. His new show, In the Midst of Crackers, has received mixed reviews so I was eager to go and see it for myself.

The night was started with half an hour from Hunter’s supporting act, Pete Johansson from Canada. Although the first half of his set was reasonably funny, it was a little unimaginative  with a string of jokes about Canada and bears (because no Canadian comedian has done that before!) The audience responded well to his intentional mispronunciation of British place names and his light-hearted insults about our idiosyncrasies. It was humorous, although hardly sidesplitting. The other half of Johansson’s set seemed to be in rather bad taste, and the smatterings of forced laughter at his jokes about abortion and racial stereotypes suggested that I wasn’t the only one to feel this way. One particular throwaway comment about how much he hates it when ‘poor people’ have babies was unnecessarily cruel. There was definitely relief when we reached the interval, but unfortunately it turned out that Johansson’s mixed-bagged act had merely set a precedent for the rest of the evening.

Hunter’s set was incredibly engaging; the man has a great stage presence, mixing enthusiasm with a personal, almost conversational address. The tone was unapologetically confessional, as Hunter began with a discussion of his frequent use of the ‘n-word,’ which had sparked controversy at his performance for the PFA Player of the Year Awards earlier this year. Hunter used this introduction to open a discourse on racism and his experiences with white ‘crackers,’ which was both funny and thought-provoking.

The performance then moved on to anecdotes of Hunter’s sexual and romantic history. Some of these were a little self-indulgent – a long retelling of his father’s ‘birds and bees’ talk was met with awkward silence by most of the audience – but the majority were a success. Surprisingly, Hunter didn’t fall back into vulgarity here, keeping the performance honest and reflective. Hunter’s accounts of his own actions in the past were sincere, and presented without a call for the audience either to commend him or to condemn him. I felt that Hunter achieved the balance that most comedians bypass, by finding the perfect median between saying something funny and saying something worthwhile. The heavy subject matter managed to augment the humour, and avoided being reminiscent of a soapbox.

The problems came towards the end of the act, where Hunter’s so called humour turned uncomfortably sexist. Hunter started the segment with an assurance that he was not misogynistic, but here’s a tip: if you have to say, “I’m not sexist, but…”, then you probably are. Knowing that comedy is often intended to be controversial and impolite, I tried to turn a blind eye to the objectifying comments about the female audience members and his reduction of women who were described as neurotics with a victim-complex, but the tolerance was completely eradicated when Hunter ended the night with a rape joke. In the set up to this joke, he even mentioned that a woman had ended a ten-year-long friendship with him because of it. Surely that should have been indication enough that the joke was inappropriate?

As Hunter left the stage the applause was accompanied by winces from the audience, who undoubtedly feeling the same way I had, that Hunter’s act had been initially entertaining and thought-provoking, but was irredeemably sullied by the final few jokes. From the sea of flyers left behind by the audience, which were advertising Hunter’s DVD, I can’t imagine that many people wanted to re-live the experience.