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  1. Politics
4 March 2010

Sarah Palin the stand-up comic

And, stop the press, she confirms the tomato saga.

By Sophie Elmhirst

 

Sarah Palin’s post-political life has been full of twists and packed with new undertakings — the book, the Fox appointment, the Tea Party speech — but none is more welcome than this: please welcome, on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Sarah Palin the stand-up comedian!

“At last!” the world cries. Because Jon Stewart was getting tired. And Chris Rock is frankly out of touch. A little Palin humour will put us right back in touch with our proverbial funny bone. Hell, I hand it to the woman for standing up and telling some jokes.

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She even gets her own back at Tina Fey. But she mangles the Congress one, and health care suffers from the delivery. And as for the (I’m summarising) our-faces-are-frozen-in-Alaska-because-it’s-cold-not-because-of-Botox one, the laughter is on some kind of time lag. Clearly the audience needed a heavy prompt: (“Laugh, numbskulls, this woman likes guns!”).

Also, listen carefully to the noise she makes as she comes on stage — what is that?

Anyway, the big news is that Palin confirms the tomato-throwing saga. But at this point she really kills the comedy, by uttering the immortal words: “It’s not funny, it’s true.” The first rule of comedy club: don’t tell people it’s not funny.

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