Comedy clubs that platform marginalised identities: Prefigurative politics in Sophie Duker’s Wacky Racists

Abstract

Wacky Racists is, in the words of its creator, Sophie Duker, ‘not a night for actually wacky, actual racists’. It is one of a number of clubs which provide a platform for identities and perspectives that are marginalised on the British comedy circuit. This article demonstrates that such ‘platforming clubs’ can be considered as prefigurative spaces, drawing upon Raekstad and Gradin’s model of prefigurative politics. Using Wacky Racists as a case study, it is argued that these clubs pose a necessary challenge to dominant industry practices by building an alternative to them. Their impact exists in their capacity to expose a range of harmful and inequitable practices, to demonstrate that these are unnecessary, and to provide the living and viable alternatives that, as Raekstad and Gradin argue, are a precondition of change.