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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.

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?

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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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