19 January 2012 (Comedy Feature)

Words: Will Lynch

Frankie Boyle is arguably the most misunderstood comedian in the world.

Work!Consume!Die!, is a hugely relevant, scathing critique of our vapid, debased culture that is both morally and financially bankrupt. Utterly hilarious and ferociously intelligent, Boyle is a ranting prophet who, fuelled by an insatiable desire for justice, wants to make sense of an insane world. He has launched a one man Jihad against apathy and indifference and in the process has managed to outshine most of what is published today.

If he is shocking, a charge frequently levelled at Boyle, it is because he is trying to jolt people out of their catatonic state due to being hypnotised by that flickering box of light in their living rooms, taking refuge in a world of comforting illusion as war, poverty and injustice are increasingly tolerated. The theatre of the narcissistic, absurd, celebrity culture is fair game for Boyle's often vicious barbs because as he is at pains to point out, it is manifestly not real. It is a mass hallucination that serves to distract people from what is real and meaningful - "the flickering of shadows on the wall of the cave" as Plato wrote, where people mistake illusion for reality.

The peerless intellectual Chris Hedges, who wrote a superb book called The Empire of Illusion, which was damning indictment of our obsession with vapid celebrity culture, blind consumerism and our inability to distinguish the real from the artificial, interestingly makes similar arguments that Frankie Boyle does in "Work!Consume!Die!" as does Don DeLillo in the novel White Noise. The only difference is that Hedges and DeLillo use their weapon of choice, which is eloquent prose and Boyle relies on what Mark Twain called "the human race's most effective weapon", humour. The underlying point is the same.

Boyle has also obviously read Umberto Eco when he asserts with customary dark humour, dark humour being a particular leitmotif of his. "The best comics are really trying to wake you up from the symbolic world; they're desentimentalisers, pointing out that those First World War soldiers who had a truce to play football at Christmas probably killed each other the next day before muttering 'that was never offside you c*nt'. Impressively well read, he quotes a range of writers and thinkers such as Thomas Pynchon, Slavoj Zizek and as with George Carlin and Bill Hicks before him, he has been profoundly influenced by Noam Chomsky. This is very apparent when you notice that an unstinting morality reverberates through the pages and the pages will stick to your fingers like glue as he is an incredibly engaging writer. This lends Boyle's rage a palpable moral force as his book is one long plea for more humanity in an increasingly inhumane world.

As with all great books, you will read about something you didn't know before and you will look at something very differently that you did know before whilst pausing for inner reflection. The pages are also drenched in Boyle's uniquely acerbic wit as he deservedly excoriates the usual suspects: venal politicians, vacuous celebrities, organised religion, the reactionary right, racists and bigots, complacent and smug middle class liberals, the craven, ineffectual and corrupt media and the double-standards and nauseating hypocrisy that wafts through our dysfunctional society like a fetid fart.

Boyle is not shy of breaking taboos and pushing boundaries. Such as when he punctures the cosy consensus of deference towards the monarchy and exposes the glaring double standards of the press in their fawning coverage, which is often thinly veiled servile propaganda that would make the editors of Pravda blush.

"Prince Charles gets praise in the Daily Mail for the way he's brought up William and Harry since the death of Diana. Eh? For years as a single parent living mainly on state handouts? Has the Mail gone nuts?" To all the people that feign offence and horror at Boyle's innocuous words that have never physically harmed anyone, where is your faux outrage and indignant letters over the violence, suffering and social misery that *is* being caused by governments on your behalf and with your money due to waging (and in Ireland's case facilitating) illegal wars, torture and the imposition of harsh austerity measures on the most vulnerable in society? Boyle regularly reminds the reader of the nefarious crimes of governments and the complicity of an anaesthetised public.

Frankie Boyle is that nagging voice in your conscience telling you to turn off that TV, stop imbibing celebrity culture and wake up from your soma induced coma and pay attention to what is happening in the real world, not the soothing artificial one that you find comfort and solace in, the proverbial flickering of shadows on the wall of Plato's cave.

Crucially Boyle, who is a drinking man's Michael McIntyre, has crammed in more laugh out loud gags on the average page than most bland comedians manage in their entire hacky sets.

Will Lynch