The Happiness Index
Jonny & The Baptists
Chorley Theatre, Lancashire

SOCIALISM loves a double act. Fidel and Che, Lenin and Trotsky. The straight man and the renegade. Perhaps it furthers the dialectic. 

Less common in socialist circles however is the comedy double act, and so Jonny Donahoe and Paddy Gervers — the Marx and Engels of musical comedy — plough a unique furrow with their mix of radical politics, surreal comedy and expert musicianship.

They have been performing for over a decade as Jonny & the Baptists with songs that leap from republicanism to the climate crisis: “You’re either against capitalism, or you are for the end of the world … also we’ve got merch!”

Their latest tour which takes in much of Britain and a run at the Edinburgh Fringe, is two shows in one — the first hour is a retrospective: Ten Thankless Years, and the second a new piece of gig-theatre called The Happiness Index. 

The retrospective shows clearly why they’ve been doing this together for so long. Always carefully poised on the edge of chaos and disaster, they deliver a raucous set in which their comfort and confidence in each other allows for a kind of freewheeling chemistry that is as much husband and husband as it is best friends. Here is a show that sees two performers in total control of their craft, easily winning over a room that may not know “the hits” but can tell a good thing when they see it. 

Being in a basement with a couple of hundred comrades laughing together, Jodi Dean’s writing on that word “comrade” comes to mind: here is a space in which joy, courage, and enthusiasm affirm our collective struggle. 

But if all of that sounds perhaps a little cosy, then the second half — a show called The Happiness Index presents something much more challenging. This hour sees Jonny & The Baptists ask: “Why aren’t we happy?” 

It’s a look at grief and clinical depression and political defeat. Taking as its premise David Cameron’s attempt in 2010 to begin measuring the happiness of the nation — right before he began his party’s sustained campaign to destroy it — the show is a genuine revelation, as filled with pathos as it is with laughs. 

It tracks Jonny and Paddy’s own personal and political experiences over the last five prime ministers — no doubt six by the end of the tour — and reaches for a way forward in the face of it all. Jonny & The Baptists personify that question of Brecht’s: “In the dark times Will there be singing even then? Yes, there will be singing. About the dark times.”

We are lucky to have them singing for us in these dark times. 

On tour until June 17. For more information see: jonnyandthebaptists.co.uk.