Number 11 by Jonathan Coe review – a spider woman snares the super rich

Jonathan Coe captures expertly the insecurities of a sick Tory Britain – but he also reveals a few of his own

A few years ago, Jonathan Coe denounced the dominance of comedy in British culture. A country where Have I Got News for You had political significance was in danger of sinking “giggling into the sea”, as Peter Cook had once warned. At best, political comedy encouraged an easy cynicism about everyone in public life. At worst, it substituted sniggers for protests. It certainly didn’t change society. Boris Johnson and other slippery political operators responded by adopting comic personas of their own, and neutered well-founded attacks by showing they could give and take jokes as well as any standup.

The critique reappears in Coe’s state-of-the-nation satire, Number 11. A detective investigating the murder of celebrity comedians reads an anonymous blogpost. Comedians who turn corrupt politicians and rightwing newspaper columnists into jokes, the post thunders, made the “fucking Guardian-reading Pinot Grigio swilling middle-class wankers feel they have to do NOTHING except wait for the next crappy one-liner”.

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