Brexit, comedy and 'Britishness' - what to do when parody becomes real

If comedy is tragedy plus the benefit of time, sometimes time allows things to come full circle

If as it is said comedy is tragedy plus the benefit of time, sometimes time allows things to come full circle. When in 1999 Edward and Tubbs, characters from the BBC’s The League of Gentlemen, declared their Royston Vasey village store “a local shop for local people” I laughed because their narrow-minded localist zeal seemed so grotesquely out of step with the UK’s global and multicultural attitudes. But in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, where not being “local” became a figurative, legal or literal stick with which to beat others,