Comedy Sketches as Social Representation

Vegan? Celiac? Lgbqt? They’ve got you covered!
On how to be kind, raise awareness, avoid clichés and still be hilarious

The lads are known for their kindness and wit in real life so it is quite natural that this would appear in their comedy. But this is not everything to the quality content they produce week by week. The professionalism of their sketches suggests that factual understanding is also an important element of their writing method, while maintaining a compassionate viewpoint too. Only with all these together is it possible to put out sketches that cover rather sensitive topics with utter brilliance. Let’s take a look at the social “outcasts” represented in their comedy.

The vegan battle
Not being vegans themselves, they were able put out a sketch that circulated online vegan communities for months to general applause: Telling Your Family You're Vegan. Approaching such a potentially divisive topic with such ease, originality, and general kindness, while maintaining the hilarity speaks volumes about their professionalism. They even fooled members of the vegan community with the understanding they showed towards the matter at hand, receiving comments such as:



(Also thanks for raising awareness among the uninitiated family members: lactose free and chocolate milk are indeed not vegan! &#128516;)

But bittles is a celiac, Sire!
Next on is the all-time classic Paper Bagssketch from their live show SkiddlyWup (2016), which brings us the long awaited representation of celiac disease in popular culture. Bittles to celiacs is what Captain Marvel is to female superhero lovers - okay, there might be minor differences… - but you get the idea: we’re on screen! Again, the lads do what they’re best at, being subtly educational and sassy all the way through. They have the audience in stitches, but if you ask any celiac you’ll see that this sketch, again, is spot-on realism! (Minus the Middle Age vibes.)

Coming out and getting on
The same goes for Coming Out; engaging, inclusive, and utterly realistic. Which of the lads has been through this? Probably none of them, it’s just professionalism, that’s it.

Then there is the spot-on and adorable representation of senior citizens in the Songs for the Elderly sketch from their live show Oink (2018), but now I do realize that writing this is rather ageist, having been educated by their How not to Offend People sketch.

Written by Zsuzsanna Jakab