FEATURES: COMEDIAN AND CAMPAIGNER ON HUMOUR AND HER FAMOUS FATHER
IF EVER there was an aptly-named comedy show for the times we have been living through, Grace Campbell’s
Why I’m Never Going in to Politics is probably it.
The rising young stand-up’s timing on this – as the public was becoming increasingly disillusioned with mainstream politics and politicians – was spot-on and the show was a big hit at the Edinburgh Fringe last summer. Of course, the world has changed a few times since then; in fact, events appear to be overtaking us so rapidly – Coronavirus wasn’t even on the horizon when Campbell and I spoke over the phone a few weeks ago – that tweaking the script is pretty much a given. But Campbell, the daughter of journalist and broadcaster Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former press secretary, is unfazed. “I try not to pressure myself to have a lot of different stuff in the show every time,” she says. “But I do always like to put in things as they happen.” That will certainly keep her on her toes at the moment.
“I actually think people want comedy to give them some sort of relief or a different perspective,” says Campbell. “Whether or not it’s an escape, maybe comedy can offer another way of looking at things. I meet more and more people who are saying they don’t read the news anymore, they don’t want to be reminded of all the bad stuff that’s going on. I feel that we need to know what is going on but at the same time we want to protect ourselves and perhaps comedy is a way of seeing the broader picture.” And, given the current circumstances, we would all do with some light relief and a little escapism.
Campbell had an unusual upbringing, raised in the midst of 1990s New Labour movement and the
Blair government. Both her parents were heavily involved – her father Alistair as Tony Blair’s director of communications and her mother Fiona Millar as a special adviser to the Prime Minister and head of Cherie Blair’s office. On the one hand, she says, it was an interesting experience; on the other it could prove challenging at times.
“It was really interesting,” she says. “I was born and then about two weeks later my dad started working for Tony Blair, so by the time I came in to consciousness my dad was this really big figure. I looked up to him and I admired him and what he was doing. When I was a teenager I tried to learn more about New Labour and what it was about and started to form my own opinions which was an interesting exercise in itself, working out what you think – and that, inevitably, led to some disputes within my family. We are all okay now, though.”
One of her memories of that time includes meeting Vladimir Putin’s wife and daughters when they were on a state visit to the UK. “We all went up on the London Eye together and Mrs Putin was saying she wanted to take her two daughters to buy shoes,” says Campbell. “She was asking Cherie Blair where the best place to go shoe shopping would be and I butted in and said ‘Clarks’. So I gave the Putins some very sound fashion advice.”
Growing up within those elevated political circles and seeing her parents’ experience was quite an education. “I think I knew that I was going to be political but I never wanted to be an actual politician,” she says. “I saw the negative side of it because you can never really win. You are always going to be criticised by people.” She is however fully engaged in political activism and has long been challenging the patriarchy through her involvement with feminist collective The Pink Protest.
The organisation is a community of activists committed to engaging in action and supporting each other. Founded by Campbell along with journalist Scarlett Curtis (daughter of Richard), writer Honey Ross (daughter of Jonathan) and artist and illustrator Alice Skinner, the Pink Protest has spearheaded a number of successful campaigns including the #FreePeriods movement calling on the Government to put an end to British period poverty. The ambition is to encourage grassroots activism and ‘create a global movement or young people who want to change the world’.
“You can make things happen without being in mainstream politics,” says Campbell. “And there are so many amazing young activists. Pink Protest came from an idea that young people are very political but they don’t have a bridge between activism and politics. Between us we had all these contacts and we wanted to bridge that gap, to create a space for young people to come together.”
Does she feel that mainstream politics is no longer relevant and coming towards the end of its useful life? “I don’t think it has necessarily had its day,” she says. “We have to engage with it and vote and everything, but I do think that things have to change. The voting system for example – I think 16-year-olds should definitely get the vote; and the party system isn’t working very well.”
On the question of the future of the Labour Party, Campbell is a little less certain – and doesn’t appear to be terribly optimistic about how they might fare in the coming months and years. “I honestly don’t know,” says Campbell. “I wish I had an answer to that but I don’t and it is pretty bleak and distressing to be honest. I think if we have another leader who is just a continuation of Jeremy Corbyn that would be disastrous. They seem to be adamant they won’t go anywhere near New Labour ideology even though New Labour won three elections – it just doesn’t make sense to me.”
Ballots for the Labour leadership contest will close on April 2 and the result will be announced on April 4. Perhaps understandably in the current circumstances, this has become less of a news story and given how rapidly the situation is changing in relation to the coronavirus outbreak, there could be a delay in the announcement. And even the television debates in which all three candidates – Keir Starmer, Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long Bailey – were due to participate may not now take place.
Uncertain times such as these require a little levity and no-nonsense positivity which Campbell appears to have in plentiful supply. She is keeping herself busy – developing a comedy drama entitled Promises about a family where the mother is a politician, launching an all-female comedy night called The Disgraceful Club and continuing the podcast Football, Feminism, and Everything In Between, that she hosts with her dad. “It is fun working with him,” she says. “It has been tricky sometimes for sure – I think working with a family member is not the most straightforward thing – but spending time together has been great and we have met lots of really cool people.”
I think people want comedy to give them some sort of relief or a different perspective. Whether or not it’s an escape, maybe comedy can offer another way of looking at things.
Grace Campbell, comedian and activist.