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NetflixThe campaigning US satirist covers politics, parenthood and ‘the jurisprudence of jokes’ in a brash set delivered with major brioYou can’t accuse Hasan Minhaj of not packing enough into The King’s Jester, his first Netflix special for five years. Material that others might stretch to fill a whole show (the struggle to have a baby; his experiences as a celebrity satirist) is crammed into a substantial hour about family, fame and the consequences of campaigning comedy. My unease with the show may be partly cultural. It’s brash, Minhaj’s self-mockery feels like a smokescreen for self-regard and the sentimental conclusions are packaged too neatly for me – but not for Minhaj’s US crowd, who cheer the schmaltzy moments to the rafters.I feel ungrateful pushing back against a show that’s this accomplished. Too accomplished, perhaps – there’s something clinical about how finely wrought every individual part is: the moment of sincerity, the tightening spotlight, the pause – then the punchline. With these tools, our slick and animated host tells us tales of fertility treatment and new parenthood (featuring a choice joke about adopting a white baby), then of an incident from his youth, when he was targeted by the authorities as a young Muslim in post-9/11 America. Scroll forward, and grownup Minhaj is hosting his own satirical show on Netflix, which was famously pulled from Saudi Arabian broadcast – and Minhaj gives full account here of his compulsion to rile the corrupt and powerful.Hasan Minhaj: The King’s Jester is on Netflix. Continue reading...