Jonny & The Baptists have been the quiet success story of UK comedy for more than a decade, amassing swelling numbers of arts centre and comedy club patrons on a wave of absurdist songs, gentle one-liners and erudite political commentary. They’re the alternative comedian’s alternative comedians, hiding a structural finesse with digressions, esoterica and seemingly loose improv between Jonny Donahoe and Paddy Gervers. 

Using David Cameron’s introduction of a ‘Happiness Index’ to the UK as a launchpad to discuss the decline of Gervers’ mental health, their show takes on an NHS being rapidly dismantled, lockdowns driving a wedge through communities, a revolving door of poisonous prime ministers, and a country turning its back on the socialist principles Donahoe and Gervers live by. While chummily delivered, every joke in The Happiness Index is embedded with a razor-sharp message about hyper-capitalism’s invasion of our every waking moment, systematically stripping away social services for the neurodivergent (or, as Donahoe puts it, the ‘neurodelightful’) or anyone unable to commit to the tyranny of work. 

In case this refresher course on recent political chaos sounds like a soapbox-shouting rabblerouser, there are more flights of fancy per minute than in the average stand-up hour, from barbed sideswipes at politicians to indulgences on monkey funerals and ‘Gangnam Style’. They’re deliriously off-piste and backed up by a sense that if the world wasn’t on fire these would be the tightly crafted gags that Donahoe and Gervers would much rather dedicate their talents to. 

As this duo grow older, their ability to weave disparate elements that really shouldn’t be compatible has only got stronger, balancing satire, music and pathos before dovetailing into an emotional and humane climax. These are tumultuous times and, while Donahoe and Gervers don’t have the answers to fix it, their underlying message of hope through friendship is both heartwarming and hilarious. 

Jonny & The Baptists: The Happiness Index tours the UK until June 2025; reviewed at Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh; main picture: Matt Crockett.