A Room Full of Stinky Losers: Fin vs History

William Garrood reviews Fin vs History: Live at Leeds Playhouse. A podcast gone viral!

“Wow, 800 people…” Comedian, Fin Taylor, leans back, shaking his head in mock disbelief. “Really puts Bonnie Blue into perspective”. The room erupts in laughter. 

His video from cult favourite Youtube series “Fin vs the Internet” in which he interviewed the “unsinkable” adult entertainer, Bonnie Blue, earlier this month is approaching 400,000 views, and has spawned countless outrageous shorts and soundbites. Tonight, Taylor has the swagger of an athlete making a victory lap. Following years of chasing his niche on the outer rims of the British comedy circuit, he has found his people. 

Originally a spin-off from “Fin vs the Internet”’s companion podcast, “Fin vs History” has been a runaway success, consistently hitting the top of Spotify’s comedy charts and amassing 21,500 paid subscribers on Patreon. On the back of this unexpected hit, Taylor and co-host Horatio Gould are on a nationwide tour, with the Leeds show on the 23rd of October being the 5th date on the lineup. Along with producer Charlie Milner, the series sees Taylor and Gould pivot their faux-intellectual gaze from interviewing internet celebrities to tackling the most pressing debates in history. Starting in January with “the most pointless war in history” (the English Civil War), the series has seen the pair explore questions as diverse as “Was Chairman Mao the GOAT of dictators?”, “Was JFK the horniest president in history?” and “Why did Rasputin stink so good?”. If the past is a foreign country, Taylor and Gould will throw away the guide and have a stab at the accent. 

“For people who like history but don’t care what actually happened.”

The podcast’s tagline is: “for people who like history but don’t care what actually happened”. As the hosts reminded the audience throughout the performance, this is not a history podcast. Each hour-long episode consists as much of discussing bodily functions and xenophobic stereotypes as it does anything to do with actual history. As a result, the hosts often delight in stereotyping their fans as being smelly, chronically online losers who practice wielding toy lightsabers in their mothers’ basements. Knowing that I would be entering a room filled with “Fincels”, I was apprehensive. However, when I was standing in the queue for the bar I was pleasantly surprised by the wide variety of people who had shown up. Although there were certainly more white men in their 20s and 30s with glasses and beards than is representative of the population, there was a healthy mix of folks from all corners of society. Even at its more acquired-taste edges, comedy is the great unifier.

Speaking of the audience, the crowd work was witty and impressive. Despite one or two blokes who had been convinced by the unscripted medium that they were mates with the hosts, the questions were funny and answers were well-placed. True to form, whenever a woman asked a question an alarm sounded advising the neckbearded average listener to remain calm. As the second half went on, some of the segments got a little gimmick-y as what had been throwaway gags on the podcast were turned into 15-minute setpieces. However, the medium being what it is, it would have been easy to phone it in and do what they’re used to for an hour and call it a day. (I’m just very relieved I wasn’t drawn into any audience participation).

“Edgy” comedy is nothing new and is hardly in short supply. Punching down on the most vulnerable people in society is heating plenty of indoor pools in central London, especially now that Ricky Gervais’ “After Life” has finished airing. However, “Fin vs History” feels a world apart from stand up that offends for its own sake. The key to the format’s successful transfer from podcast to live show was the experience of watching a show with a thousand other people, all in on the joke and not taking it seriously in the slightest. In lieu of the thin veneer of “brave social commentary” under which most “edgy” comics thrive, Taylor and Gould frame their comedy as the low-brow filth that a lot of it is, all while maintaining their air of refined superiority over the people who enjoy it. Throughout, their fingers were on the trigger of a pre-recorded “IT’S NOT FUNNY WHEN YOU DO IT” which blared from the PA whenever anybody got a little over-zealous in their imitation of the comics’ style. As hard as it may be to believe, a lot of the enjoyment comes from the subtly underlying joke that pokes fun at comedy which pretends to be more than it is.

To collectively shrug off the normal conventions of what can be laughed at is a liberating experience, and one that comedy is uniquely poised to deliver. To an outsider, the puerile jokes, explicit projected search results, and costumes that would make Prince Harry circa 2005 blush may appear to be crossing a line. Maybe they are. 

Nevertheless, in a world in which the war over words has been taken to the streets, laughing at twelve layers of dripping, moustachioed irony just feels good. With the reception Fin and Horatio got, Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland had better start making more poo jokes.

Words by William Garrood