The Blame Game

...is a comedy show aired on BBC Radio Ulster. There are four comedians on the panel, a fifth comedian as MC, and they answer questions submitted by the audience like so: "Who do you blame for..." The questions can be very offbeat and a few of them are prewritten, focusing on recent news events. The show is taped in front of a live audience. We went last night and it was HILARIOUS. Lucky for us, there were two BIG news events this week, so plenty of fodder.

The panel loves making jokes about the many ways in which the animosities between Catholics and Protestants are expressed. Mainly, they focus on small-mindedness, grudge holding, stupid displays of tribalism (bonfires, parades, flags). Between the prince's visit yesterday and the ruling this week that Asher's Bakery discriminated against a gay man who wanted a cake with Bert and Ernie on it--the panel was in great form. One of the panelists was gay and he was a riot.

I wrote down a few of the jokes to share, but they just don't come across well in writing. Maybe once it's elevated to the BBC website, I'll provide a link. Part of the humour is the voices and accents and body language. For instance, they had great fun with English BBC announcers struggles in pronouncing Irish place names. Mountbatten was killed at Mullaghmore, which was a challenge. Even Omagh and Dungannon were problematic, apparently. The panel probably spent 20 minutes on the handshake between Prince Charles and Irish nationalist Gerry Adams, who is widely disliked here, I think by both sides. Apparently Adams was a bit like a teenage girl waiting as Charles made his way down the receiving line--trying not to look like he was looking at his Prince but Very Much Looking.

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