Jackie Mason, the New York stand-up, looks very strange. It’s as if somebody shrank Tony Bennett and microwaved him for two hours. Mason is short, dark, troll-like, densely built, with shining bulbous lips and a twinkly expression of diabolical mischief. His hair gathers over his head in a wave of red-brown crinkliness. For his solo show he wears a sharp, grey business suit. He could be Rumpelstiltskin selling real estate.
All his jokes are Jewish. And none of them are. He uses ‘the Jew’ as a catch-all tag for a fretful, brow-beaten loser. ‘The Gentile’ is his relaxed, prosperous and self-confident counterpart. The Jew wants to impress people by sporting designer outfits but everyone who talks to him spends all their time reading labels. The Jew hates opera but goes there so that he can boast that he went. And what is opera? ‘Two Gentiles yelling and 3,000 Jews sleeping.’
The Jew is always put-upon, left out, second-rate, overlooked. He may find happiness but only when comprehensively defeated. The Jew finally marries his eldest daughter to an octogenarian. ‘Eighty-seven?’ he rejoices. ‘It’s a very nice age. They’ll have a wonderful year and a half together. He may not be hot in bed but he’ll be great on the toilet.’ These ancient jokes feel up-to-date because the racial idiom is being used to disguise standard observational comedy. And Mason’s overt references to ethnicity create a flavour of naughtiness and transgression. But none of his stuff is racist. Only one quip — he says he was offered a job in Palestine which included funeral expenses — feels a bit icky.
We’re told this is Mason’s ‘farewell tour’. Usually that means a cry for help from a celeb with a tax demand.
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