How did the idea of doing comedy about the climate crisis come about for you?
I've written 10 or 11 hours of stand-up in my life. The last one was about accommodating my fear of death. I wrote a show about grieving the end of a relationship. I wrote four shows about parenting. So I've always written about the things which are on my mind, and that's not a deliberate process. Inescapably, the thing I'm worried about in the background comes out. So it wasn't a decision to write about the climate, it was just the thing I ended up writing about. I did a show in 2022 in Edinburgh, which was a sort of work in progress. At the beginning of that month, I was doing about six minutes on being scared of the climate crisis and, at the end of that month, I was doing mostly half an hour on it. I was thinking: next year's show is about the climate.
Obviously, a lot of us who are progressive-minded are very worried about the climate. So the idea of doing a few jokes about it, I think, makes sense. But to focus a whole show around it, I think that's quite bold and quite different.
Well, great question. Also very flattering, love that. Why do a whole show about it rather than just some stuff about it? And I suppose the answer is that I feel like, to get people on board so that you can talk about the climate, you've got to do a certain amount of explaining first. And if you're going to do that explaining, then you're dealing with an audience to whom you've explained, and you might as well get the most out of that hour that you've got with them as you can.
I suppose also, to be honest, it coincided with a period whereby I was a bit bored of doing comedy. I know that if I go and do a 20-minute set in Swindon tonight and there's nothing in it about the climate, I'll come off – even if I have a banger gig – I'll drive home, and I'll think: “what's the point?”. I've been doing comedy for 20 years and street performing for 10 years before that, so the novelty of what it's like to do really well and have everyone crease up has worn off. I'm not like “hey, guys, I'm smashing every gig”. It's not like that. But I have ADHD and I think the way I see it now is that the novelty of comedy was starting to wane. The difference from one night to another was starting to wane.
But now, doing stand-up about the climate, it's always f***ing difficult. So that's a novelty. It's difficult in a new way. I've discovered a whole new way I can die on my arse. It's a really invigorating challenge. When I have a good gig doing climate, people come up and thank me in a different sort of a way – and that's still novel. I feel like I've done something useful for me, and I've maybe done something useful for them.
Stuart Goldsmith has written an entire stand-up comedy show about the climate crisis
(Credit: Matt Crockett)
I guess one of the challenges, which you kind of alluded to earlier, is in order to tell a joke, you often have to set people up education-wise on a concept. That must be so tricky to do, to know that before you can get to the punchline you have to kind of get people up to speed on a concept they may not have heard of.
100%. I was talking to my wife about this within the last hour. We saw the incredible Paul Foot do his show Dissolve last night. He's got a wonderful joke, which I won't spoil, about the fact that right-wing conservative Christians in America don't believe in climate change. I'm not suggesting I can improve one of the brilliant comedy genius Paul Foot's jokes, but If I were to have written that joke, my version would be something like: “Conservative, right-wing Christians don't believe in climate change. They love fossil fuel, but they don't believe in dinosaurs.” But, to understand where I'm going with that joke, you'd need to know that fossil fuels are made from, among other things, dinosaurs. Now, a lot of people do know that, but I don't think enough people know that to be able to make the logical leap to see what I'm getting at with the joke fast enough that they laugh at the right time with everyone else in the room.
You've got to know something to understand it. And it’s like a lot of good art. I don't know anything about opera. Probably if I learned about opera, I'd appreciate opera. So you are existing in a sort of a realm of ambiguity where you have to lead them by the hand. The challenge is for me that I need to know so much about it, so I can decide which bits will have the most immediate or mass media appeal. I wrote Spoilers, the last show, in clubs on Friday nights in front of people who did not want to hear about the climate and, as a result, the show is robust as f*** – because it had to be. And now, if I do that show to people who understand about sustainability, it soars because the stuff's “club funny”.
I think you can be robust, and also have finesse. So I hope what I'm learning now with the creation of the newer stuff is that I've learned how to be silly about it. I've learned how to be myself about it, and I've learned how to not accidentally vibrate with fear whilst describing something awful in a way that isn't funny. You do need to select the subjects which are relatable enough and learn how to find a funny way of communicating the science for the subjects which are a little more complicated.
I try to put myself and my very nascent understanding of the climate, and my unwillingness to be part of the conversation, I try to talk to myself in the audience. People are unwilling. They're f***ing busy. They've got other s*** going on in their lives. They feel hopeless. They feel like climate is complicated and terrifying and a long way away. So I have to meet them there and I have to speak what they're thinking to build that kind of bridge with them.
The interesting thing in that respect is how much you worry about just preaching to the converted. So, for example, I saw Nish Kumar's last tour show in Hackney and it was like a church. You come out of it having had an amazing time and had all of your beliefs reaffirmed in a very funny way, but he's presumably not performing to loads of people who disagree with him?
I think there is a real value to preaching to the converted. There is a real value to speaking to Lefty people who are feeling battered and dismayed. There is a value to preaching to the choir. People preach to choirs. Preaching is a thing, and choirs are a thing. I don't think preachers go out and say “I've got some stuff to tell you about the good word of the Lord, can the choir stop listening now because I know you've heard this?” People do preach to the choir, so that has a value. But I'm preaching to the agnostic. I'm saying: “Guys, surely we need to think about this a bit more?”
Also, there's an element to which I am preaching to the sustainability departments of big organisations. My mission statement has become: get the right joke about the right subject in front of the right person who's making a budgetary decision and get them to make the right decision. That is born of recognising that I'm not famous. I don't have reach. I can't contact a million followers on something. I can probably make people who are a bit on the fence a bit less on the fence. Maybe that's pathetic, but maybe that's the best I can do. My part of the mission is: meet everyone where they are and bump them one stage further along. Those things aren't going to save the world, but maybe if we all start moving slightly more in the right direction then that will be a good thing.
I've recorded an episode of Live at the Apollo that's going out in January, and I’m very excited about it. I don't know what they'll decide to use in the edit, but there's a bit that I hope they use, which is about climate activism. The framing of that bit is me going: “Look, I'm not in Just Stop Oil. I'm on the mailing list. I keep abreast of what they're doing. I admire their passion. I'd drive one of them home if they got de-arrested. I'd take them home.” So the underlying narrative of it is that I'm not one of these Just Stop Oil guys, but they've got one or two good points, haven't they? That's me trying to meet the audience where the audience is.
Stuart Goldsmith hopes to bring climate comedy to a wide audience
(Credit: Matt Crockett)
Live at the Apollo actually is interesting, because it kind of plays into something I wanted to ask about the arts actually being able to say something to people. Live at the Apollo is a great example, because if you're doing climate stand-up on the BBC at primetime, that’s a big deal.
It certainly has a large reach. Also, it frames you, doesn't it? It says this is an acceptable thing. This might. This clip might be worth your while, and so that can multiply the amount of eyes that get on it, for sure.
If other comics asked me, what I would normally say is that the gig itself wasn't the most fun I've ever had on stage. I was very in my head and following the script and making sure I did imply this and didn't imply that. I came off thinking that was good enough and I'm professionally pleased with that, but I wasn't thrilled. And then, a week later, I thought: “I got multiple rounds of applause talking about the climate to 4,000 people in London.” I'd be a bell-end if I didn't regard that as a huge win.
Do you find that you have to be more rigorous when you're doing comedy about the climate, because the reaction could be so bad if it's not quite right? Comedians can be quite fast and loose with the truth of anecdotes and things like that, but if you're doing comedy about the climate, you can't be fast and loose, because you'll have a thousand deniers on your arse the minute the clip goes out?
For sure, I worry about that. I'm 20 years into comedy of not being all that rigorous, and I have ADHD and I've got a shocking memory. It's something I think about when I'm writing jokes. It's annoying because comedy writing for me is full of tripwires for things that will allow my brain to stop. One of my rules, prior to climate change stuff, was “no research ever”. Because if you're writing a joke, you go “what would fit this punchline?” and you Google it, you're f***ed because you're going to be on Google for 10 minutes because it's all designed in labs to steal your attention. So you have to write “check later” in brackets and get on with it. I can’t really do that with climate.
Is there any piece of art, in any medium, that you find particularly inspiring in regards to the climate?
Obviously the climate stripes – the blue and red visualisation. And there's loads of different versions of those stripes. There's the biodiversity loss stripes and stuff like that. Those are fascinating. There are plenty of other jokes that I like, but I have to stay away from other comics doing climate stuff. I do find it hard if someone nails a subject to think of anything else about that subject.
Are there any climate songs? Grace Petrie's got some great activism songs – The Losing Side is a really good one, I think. I see lots of good cartoons. There's a classic one of dinosaurs looking at a comet going “but what about the economy”. Those are useful, little funny ideas.
And what would then be your piece of advice to anyone who wants to make art about the climate crisis in a way that actually gets through to people?
My advice would be to not be scared to confront it. The point of the show is don't be scared to find out more about the climate crisis. It can be so frightening and you can feel really isolated and you can feel completely loopy because people aren't talking about it. Certainly, if you're an artist, even if you think “I don't know enough about this”, find out about it. Everything contributes. Every plastic cup you don't use helps in some infinitesimal way. Everything ripples.
Dr Sandra Steingraber, an American climate activist and biologist, said: “It's up to us all now to play the ‘save the world symphony’. You do not have to play a solo, but you are required to work out what instrument you play, and play it to the best of your ability.” I draw enormous comfort from that when I think about: what are my responsibilities, what are my obligations? I think we have an obligation to hope, and that obligation can be overwhelming. It's very easy to think “well, if I can't think of anything to do, then I'll just give up, and I'll think about something else”. But actually, what you have to do is work out what instrument you're playing, and play it to the best of your ability. Obviously, all I've got is a kazoo, but I'm really going for it.
Find out more about Stuart Goldsmith's climate comedy on his website and Instagram page.
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