Taboo. Kate Copstick. Copyright: ABsoLuTeLy Productions
Taboo

Taboo

  • Radio factual
  • BBC Radio 4
  • 2021
  • 1 episode

Comedy critic Kate Copstick and guests discuss taboo in comedy. Also features Desiree Burch, Scott Capurro, Tanyalee Davis, Jordan Gray, Roger Mahony and more.

Press clippings

Taboo: Comedy hasn't lost its edge yet

Is comedy threatened as people get increasingly sensitive to having their feelings hurt? No offence, but Robin Ince is not convinced.

Robin Ince, The Big Issue, 31st July 2021

Have claims of the death of comedy been exaggerated?

On Radio 4's Taboo, Kate Copstick invited comedians to debate the impact of cancel culture - and even considered changing her mind.

Charlotte Runcie, The Telegraph, 14th July 2021

Copstick: Comedy's doomed because we have to be woke

"I fear a deepening quicksand of prescription in which the art and craft of comedy is arguably sinking."

Chortle, 11th July 2021

Taboo review

The critic may have a horse in this race. Not only to protect the transgressive force of comedy which she holds so dear, but she, too, has been threatened with 'cancellation' after she was accused of being a 'rape apologist' a few years ago for unsympathetic comments about date-rape of an apocryphal teenager who 'dolls herself up, covers herself in make-up, goes out [and] gets shit-faced'. But she and her contributors throw up many interesting questions about the nature of comedy, the flirtations with offence that can give comedy its bite, the need for taboos for that line to exist, the unfair burden of representation on the shoulders of some comedians, and so much more,.

Steve Bennett, Chortle, 11th July 2021

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