Comedian Josie Long On Staying Positive In The Post-Truth World

Josie Long always sounds like she's on the verge of breaking into a giggle, which one could view as evidence of her exuberant, positive personality or a defence mechanism to keep herself from dissolving into a puddle of tears. Personally, I'm inclined to believe it's the former, although the current state of the world is enough to give the acclaimed UK stand-up comedian cause for concern.

"I feel like a lot of things are not going the way I would choose in any way, shape or form, which is part of why I wanted to write a show that is optimistic," Long says on the eve of bringing her latest show, Something Better, to the MICF.

Long rightly points out for that for many people, particularly those whose politics and worldview leans to the left, the world is "quite frankly, being a total arsehole". Brexit in her home country. "The spectre of fascism haunting Europe." Trump. Even here in Australia, Pauline Hanson somehow regained some form of relevance. Total arsehole, indeed.

"I muck about on stage - there's a lot of fun and silliness and trickery - but I am very earnest."

"I feel like what is happening at the moment is such a waste," she says. "In Britain, we have a deeply entrenched conservative government, and the things they're doing are so counter to my values and what I believe might be useful or helpful for society, right down to the fact that they're not treating climate change like it's a serious thing. A lot of things are not going the way progressives would hope, so it's hard to stay optimistic and positive because your whole life is a fight against it."

And that's where Something Better comes in. If anyone is capable of shining a light on these dark places and finding bits and pieces of possibility and positivity, it's Long, who has long combined earnestness and silliness to tremendous effect.

"I am very earnest," she admits. "I muck about on stage - there's a lot of fun and silliness and trickery - but I am very earnest, and people who hate my personality just see me as some kind of hippie. I get that a bit. What this show is about, a little bit, is me seeing how different certain personality types are, and how much that can inform people's politics. What can you do to win people around? Can you win people around? I think I've been quite naive because I thought everyone was convincible because everyone deep down held the same values or would accept certain things are true. But it's more complicated than that and it's always going to be difficult. So how do you try?"

Long may not have all the answers, but she does have one or two. And even the fact that she's asking the questions - and hoping you might as well - is a good thing. "I've been reading a book called Hope In The Dark by Rebecca Solnit, and she's so cool and chilled and sane. You need to reconfigure your thoughts on winning and losing - all your actions will have consequences you can't necessarily envisage or quickly and easily measure. But anything you're doing that's useful and compassionate and heading in the right direction adds to the good. I get a lot of joy and enthusiasm and hope from activism and community groups and young people setting things up. There's some tricky stuff going on, but I think there's loads to be hopeful about."

Josie Long presents Something Better, til Apr 23 at Melbourne Town Hall, part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.