I was recently invited to be a co-organiser of a stand-up comedy festival. I’d never done one before so I was given the rundown before we got to work.

The first thing they told me is that over the past ten(ish) years, comedy festival audiences had completely changed from people coming out to laugh, to people coming out to find ways to be offended, like people who once rode roller coasters for the fear and thrill, now riding them to see how much they could sue for being intentionally frightened.

And it’s true. I saw it actually happening. Every night of comedy two or three people would yell out “inappropriate” or “intolerant” instead of just laughing at what were essentially jokes told in a place centred around joking.

People are dogshit now. We’ve lost our fucking way. We’ve actually gone to war with humour and laughter.