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David Baddiel: I was always very against the idea that for comedy to be "important" it has to be dark. It's very much a critic's way of thinking. Comedy is a difficult thing for a critic, as, unlike all other art-forms, it has an inbuilt success-o-meter: laughter. Therefore, there's no real need for critics. However, one [method of criticism has] been found, which is for them to talk about the underlying seriousness or otherwise of a comic's act.
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In a recent Guardian interview, Limmy said that he can see humor in "rape jokes, pedophile jokes, all the darkest types of humor." He also provided a counter view: you shouldn't joke about these topics if they're affecting people who are "still raw" from these experiences. Dementia can be upsetting. Do you feel as if you have a social obligation not to joke about it if it hurts people?
I don't believe in these boundaries exactly. I think we get hung-up about subject matter, with this "can you joke about this or that." But I don't think it's the subject matter that counts: it's the joke. You can have a hateful, mean-spirited, upsetting joke about dementia, or you can have an uplifting, comforting one. Or, more importantly from my point of view, you can have one that gets to the truth of it and one that is a construction. You have to look at it on a case-by-case basis. There is no single rape joke or cancer joke or AIDS joke, no more than there is a single slapstick sketch, or knock-knock joke.
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Maybe. You might be right—dementia can do that. When friends of my dad read that Guardian piece [where Baddiel talks about his father's dementia] they were upset, and one of them rang my brother to make the point that my father was "easily the cleverest of all of us." So he clearly felt that, my dad's mate, that highlighting his dementia subverted the memory of my dad as a witty, intellectual bloke, which he undoubtedly was—though a very sweary one. But I think we should be able to see one's whole life as a narrative, in which the end isn't necessarily the defining thing—why should it be?
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Well, my father's dementia wasn't instant, and while it was appearing, it wasn't that funny, just kind of insidious. But since it's been full-blown—and because it's Pick's disease, which presents as a kind of Tourette's—yes: it was clearly funny to me from the word go. It's complicated with my dad, as he was always very sweary and rude. As I say in the show, when the neurologist told me the symptoms—lack of inhibition, aggression, rudeness, irritability, obscenity, sexual inappropriateness—I said: "Sorry, has he got a disease, or have you just met him?"
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I recently watched a program called Dementiaville. When I worked at the care home, I was told it's best to be consistent with the resident's version of reality. In the program they said this is a controversial method. What are your thoughts?READ ON MOTHERBOARD: How Virtual Reality Could Help Diagnose Dementia
It's been difficult for me, as someone who is very committed to the truth—I'm OCD about truth; I never lie, not even in tiny ways—to accept this process with my father.Having said that, I think the idea of making the universe fit with the dementia patient's view of reality is clearly a good idea, if it makes them happy, or content, or at least less anxious. I'm just not sure I'm the person to create that world for them.People sometimes feel uneasy when artists use family members in their work without prior consent. This is especially pertinent when the family member is unable to give consent because they're no longer compos mentis. How would you respond to someone if they said you were being exploitative?
I think this is complex. And when that article came out, some of my dad's friends got upset. I think, basically, that I'm happy to let it stay complex. The alternative—which is to never speak about these things publicly at all—seems to be not good either. I also talk about my mum having an affair, which also upset various people. But here's the thing: both my mum's affair and my dad's dementia are very much part of my story, too. And I'm a storyteller.On the subject of death—and an artist's response to it—do you feel that, due to the media being saturated with images of death, we're more desensitized to it?
I think until you're faced with a hard version of death, you don't know. And yes, we are desensitized. Not necessarily from violent films. What I felt when my mum died was that we were desensitized by an assumption that we would say goodbye to a loved one in a serene, white-curtained room with birds singing outside, whispering words of sad love. Since it wasn't like that at all—it was a horrible A&E nightmare—I started to wonder if even the deep cultural insistence that one should be present at a parent's demise was correct.Thanks, David.If you're in London, buy tickets here to see Baddiel's new one-man show, Work-in-Progress.Follow Liam Lonergan on Twitter.