Standup has become an escape for many as the conflict drags on, and comics see dark humour as part of their mission to ‘stop people going crazy’
From: The Guardian by Luke Harding in Kyiv
Anton Tymoshenko is exhausted. Ukraine’s most famous standup comedian – Volodymyr Zelenskyy doesn’t count, since he is the president – has just returned from a gruelling European tour, involving 36 shows in 50 days. He played in Berlin, Paris and London. And Birmingham, where Tymoshenko tried unsuccessfully to buy Peaky Blinders merchandise.
His audiences were made up of Ukrainians living abroad, many refugees. The tour raised nearly half a million dollars, all of which will go to Ukraine’s armed forces.
As well as being tired, Tymoshenko is angry at the situation his country finds itself in after Russia’s invasion. “War is very funny for the first couple of years. Then it becomes not so funny,” he says, speaking in Kyiv’s popular comedy venue, the Underground Standup club.
He quotes Mark Twain’s observation that humour is tragedy plus time. “We have tragedy plus tragedy plus tragedy,” he says, after a week in which Moscow has pummelled Kyiv and other Ukrainian citieswith hundreds of kamikaze drones and missiles.
It’s cool to have a guy like Zelenskyy in power. You get pretty strong Black Mirror vibes. It’s not normal
Anton Tymoshenko
The war has transformed Ukraine’s once small standup scene. A decade ago most comedians spoke in Russian. The well resourced Kremlin flooded Ukrainian channels with Russian programmes and music. In 2022, when Russian tanks arrived, all comedians switched to performing in Ukrainian.
Voice of Ukraine 