‘It is more important than ever to foster a spirit of joyful defiance’: Life according to… comedian Josie Long

Comedian Josie Long on falling in love with Glasgow, going back on tour, and political comedy.

How much are you looking forward to getting on the road and touring again?

It’s been such a long time since I’ve been able to tour and it’s something that I’ve been doing every year of my life for about 15 years.

I feel like every city that I’ve played, I’ve got a favourite little place that I like to go, people that I’d like to catch up with, all these relationships with different towns and cities, so I’m really excited to like get back to that.

How fitting is it that it starts off in your adopted hometown of Glasgow?

I’m really thrilled, because this is a show about loving Glasgow in a really pathetic, deep way, so to start there is the absolute best. I’d been wanting to move to Glasgow for over a decade and the honeymoon period just hasn’t worn off.

I’m genuinely quite embarrassing about my true fandom and love of it. It’s the greatest city in the world.

What is it about Glasgow that has captured your heart?

For the size of the city, the amount of beautiful, fantastic culture that has come out of it is just astonishing. There’s also the political history of the city which I find really inspiring.

Jimmy Reid is contemporaneous with loads of my friends’ dads. I just feel really proud to live in a city that has connections to those kinds of social movements. It feels like a massive privilege.

Everyone’s so friendly as well, up for a chat and that is so meaningful to me. It is embarrassing how much I love the city but I just feel really content and in the show I was talking about how I didn’t realise I was discontented until I wasn’t anymore.

I feel really happy and at ease and it makes everything in my life so much more joyful because it’s a stable base.

© Matt Crockett

We live in doom-laden times, how difficult but important is it to find the comedy in it?

It really is more than ever important to try and foster a spirit of joyful defiance. I think people in power want to grind everyone down and make everyone’s standard of living worse and so the one thing you always have at least some control over is whether or not you buy into their worldview, and whether or not you buy into their idea that things can’t get better and things can’t change and that people are not inherently good and wise and smart and kind.

The show is called Re-enchantment and that comes from a book by Lola Olufemi, who’s a fantastic writer. She talks about how after a big defeat, you have to kind of fall back in love with the world and also you have to try and kind of re-magic the world somewhat.

I think that I’m in a very lucky position where I really am so happy to be where I am and to have my little family, that it’s given me a little bit more time and space in myself to start building up to a place where I can try to be more joyful and more excited.

I’m trying to write a show that is hopeful but that isn’t pretending that things are okay, it isn’t pretending that positivity will solve difficult things or change material conditions.

If anything, I think that things like niceness and even kindness have been exploited by people who want there to be no political change. The solution isn’t just being nicer to each other, it’s to make a more equal society and to topple horrific people who are in power and change things massively.

First of all, I am touring my show Re-enchantment next year, all around the U.K. and hopefully further afield! It’s a show about protest and defiance and also contentment and excitement. It’s fun and silly. A perfect gift for your fun aunt!https://t.co/8Eaq60ERUH pic.twitter.com/IJocZ2cCay

— Josie Long manifesting the baby sleeping through (@JosieLong) November 8, 2022

You got an ADHD diagnosis during lockdown, how has knowing you have that impacted your life and career?

I haven’t been able to get on medication yet and I really would love to because I feel like, for me personally, as a writer, I think it’s going to be quite profound. I find it so hard to get into a state of concentration, stay there, and feel as if I’m finishing a lot of things that I love. I have so many ideas and so many things that I propose and then can’t quite necessarily get over the line.

It’s been really interesting as a comedian, because when I found out I thought, ‘I have to write about this, this is such a rare and unique experience’. And then I got to Edinburgh and was like, ‘oh, everyone has ADHD now!’

It makes perfect sense because writing jokes is about making unusual connections. And that’s what ADHD brains do. Being on stage and improvising is about very quickly saying things in an unfiltered way and making connections and that’s basically what ADHD is good for.

It was very mixed to find out. At the time I got diagnosed, I was in my late thirties and if I’d have known this five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, my life could have been different with people being able to make accommodations, perhaps being able to be medicated, university and school people understanding.

But there was also this immense pride of all along having this thing that has genuinely been making a lot of things more difficult for me and I’ve still managed.

Are your children a goldmine for comedy?

I don’t want to just be like: ‘this is funny stuff my kid said’, but they do say and do a lot of funny stuff! There’s something about being around them where all the rules are suspended.

I feel really lucky to get to be around my two little kids, we end up playing so much and being silly a lot.

The show’s definitely: I love Glasgow, I love protest, I can’t bear the government, I’m scared about climate change, I love my kids!

Josie Long: Re-Enchantment, The Stand, Glasgow, January 12. For tickets and other tour dates, visit josielong.com