Liam Williams, writer and comedian
It was a joke to me to call my show ‘Capitalism’ and explain a world system within an hour of stand-up comedy.
Welcome to What’s Left? I’m Amy Hoggart, a writer/comedian with the ideals of a Marxist and the risk-aversion of a centrist. Each week, I interview someone interesting on the Left about what they think and why.
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Liam Williams is a writer, actor and comedian. His work has included the hit BBC comedies ‘Pls Like’ and ‘Ladhood’, the novel ‘Homes and Experiences’ and live shows both as a stand-up and one third of sketch group ‘Sheeps’. You can catch him at the Edinburgh Fringe and also watch our conversation here.
Welcome Liam. So the first question I always ask everyone is this: if there was a version of the political spectrum where zero means you’re a centrist, -100, a fascist and +100, you're as far left as you could get, where would you put yourself?
I reckon 60-ish. Maybe.
What makes you put yourself there?
I'm closer to the far left than I am to the centre, though not necessarily by much. Are there notable yardsticks based on your previous guess of what a 60 means these days?
It’s self-report, so there’s no objectivity or exactness, and you have people with different politics giving themselves the same number. I think Neil Kinnock put himself at 60 or 70, but staunchly communist writer, Natasha Lennard said she lives as a 70, though is ideologically a 100. And then Josie Long smashed through saying she’s a 100.
I feel slightly spectrum-shamed by that, so I'll go 65.
It's just a fun question to start the conversation. But it's interesting to me that you wanted to know where everyone else is.
That is interesting to me as well. I think that makes me quite pathetic.
Would you describe yourself as figuring it out still, or are you quite set in your opinions?
No, I’m definitely figuring it out. I think that's how political engagement has to be, right?
One thing I'd say is that I subscribe pretty wholly—within the limitations of my own understanding, which are significant—to a Marxist material perspective reading of the world. Materially, the world is always changing, and so one's political relationship to it is always changing. As soon as you think you've got it all figured out, everything changes.
Have your views ever changed dramatically?
I imagine I've expressed many contradictions and hypocrisies, but in fundamental political aspects, not that much. I think I've always been a socialist with liberal values since I had any political consciousness at all.
And can you explain that? I've never heard anyone who describes themselves as a socialist also describe themselves as a liberal in any way.
Words are confusing once you start digging into them. I'm a socialist in that I believe in a redistributive state within a fairly active state. And at the more social level, I'm pretty liberal, as in I think people should live in freedom based on their identity.
So tell me, were your parents at all political? When did you first start thinking about politics?
My parents were definitely political. I remember a background ambience of quietly hating Thatcher and John Major.
And then I remember coming home from school one day, shouting and running around as was my want, and my mum was like, ‘Shush, shush, your dad's asleep.’ T was about three o'clock in the afternoon, so I asked why he was asleep, and she said that there was an election the day before, and that he’d stayed up all night because he was so pleased with the result that he took the day off work.
He would never, ever take the day off work, but he took a day off after the 1997 Blair election. That's the most I've ever seen my dad moved by anything except Tottenham Hotspur.
Oof. We’re also a Spurs household, so I commiserate with you in general on that.
I remember in my late teens, being in a conversation with my mum where she expressed some pretty robust socialist values about fairness in society and how that needs to be enacted through education and healthcare — you know, the stuff of the state. I remember thinking that I agreed with all of that.
University was a complete political vacuum for me; I felt so disengaged. But then I graduated into the financial crisis, with austerity and all the protest politics around that, and students became suddenly very politically active. That felt like something of an awakening. I found it exciting and something shifted in that moment.
You then did that brilliant hour-long comedy show about capitalism called ‘Capitalism’, which was inspired—you claimed—by a book you borrowed from me. Nice little personal shout-out there! But I want to hear more about that show because I loved it so much. It was so ambitious and funny.
That's really kind. That was in 2014, and I was trying to educate myself more politically. I had been quite engaged by the protests and Occupy and anti-austerity politics at the beginning of that decade. The book you mentioned was ‘Capitalist Realism’ by Mark Fisher. It was about how this ideological climate means that a lot of the culture produced has the effect of making the nightmarish horrors of living in a capitalist society seem normalised and inevitable. It was like that Fredric Jameson quote: 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism'.
I was very taken by that; I found it all quite persuasive. And it was time to write another standup show, so I thought I’d just put that into it. But it was also kind of a joke to me to call it ‘Capitalism’ and take it upon myself to explain a world system within an hour of stand-up comedy.
I can't remember much about the show other than absolutely loving it. But that’s a good takeaway, right?
I mean, yeah, I’m happy with that.
You can have it as a quote on a poster if you want. A good review just eleven years later.
‘Hilarious and completely forgettable.’ But that's stand-up that is stand-up for you, isn't it?
I haven’t read ‘Capitalist Realism’ for a good while, but I do remember Fisher talking about how a lot of our mental health problems stem from internalised capitalism. And I do notice that myself. Sometimes when I’m struggling mentally, I’m judging myself by metrics I don’t think our human brains have evolved to handle. Productivity, success, comparison with others, a desire to accumulate more stuff…
It's an interesting question: how much one's mental and emotional experience can be one’s own. And Fisher would say this is part of the problem: criticism of capitalism becomes immediately subsumed into the ideological matrix. More recently, I read Slavoj Žižek's... Wow, I've got all the reference points: Mark Fisher, Slavoj Žižek...
You're ticking them all off, one by one.
I'm a real 60-spectrum bro.
Anyway, in ‘The Sublime Object of Ideology’, Žižek talks about this idea of 'cynical ideology’: how by this point, we all know the problem, but we feel like there’s nothing we can do about it.
At a sincere level, I know that a lot of my mental health problems I can ascribe to the society I live in, but I still don't want to be mentally ill. And I can't dismantle capitalism myself, so what should I do?
Right. I suppose the goal is to try and live during this epoch of capitalism in human history in a way that is as healthy as possible for you.
And in solidarity with others. Right.
Oh, sorry, yes. I didn't mean to take care of yourself without giving a shit about other people!
It's both. Audre Lorde was one of the first people to popularise the concept of ‘self-care’ as a necessary tool and process for people who are involved in activism. It's radical and important to look after yourself to show up for your community or whatever.
You could also take a very capitalist framework to your own emotions and mental health and say, ‘I can create a surplus of wellbeing within myself and then share that surplus with others.’ So I make myself really well, and then go and use that energy to try and do things which might help others.
Watch the whole interview with Liam here!
Now that we've positioned you a little bit, what do you think of the current Labour Party? Did you have a 1997 moment like your dad after the election last year?
No. I can't imagine anyone did, did they?
I was happy, but I wasn't 1997 happy.
I think probably even Starmer wasn't that happy.
Yeah, we all had mild Starmer-esque responses.
Which may be appropriate. It didn’t really register for me emotionally. I don't think Starmerism is supposed to.
When you say ‘Starmerism’, what do you mean? He's so notoriously hard to define, so I liked hearing you use that word confidently, because I thought maybe you could define it for us.
Well, he's basically an austerity politician on the economy, and then on social policies, he's barely involved. It sounds like it's [chief of staff] Morgan McSweeney who's pulling the strings, and the strategies are pretty reactive to the right. They’re trying to toe a line between what [far-right party] Reform are doing and what they think their base wants. So it's highly pragmatic, cautious, right-centrism, I guess, with some little nods to quite hard-right politics.
Some people would say that pandering to the far-right is completely necessary. That we're in a horrible, borderline fascist moment and you have to tread extremely carefully to get through it. And part of me wants to believe that and be optimistic about that. But my affinity is with more optimistic leftism and Starmer does nothing for that.
Do you have any optimism for the British left?
When I try and zoom out a little bit, I feel like younger people are more left-wing. There's a general trajectory of progressive politics for our generation and maybe the generation below. But I don't think that can be safely taken for granted. Young people will go to the right, maybe even the far right, if their life chances seem to keep diminishing in the way they are.
But there's still a battle that can be won for that next generation, and that really feels worth staying hopeful, though not complacent about.
Would you say that, in general, you're optimistic for the future?
I do feel less pessimistic and doom-prone than I used to. But there are probably various factors involved in that, like generally trying to become a bit better in myself, and the idea that despair is a luxury for the privileged.
This generational fight will be about trying to persuade younger people to remain committed to a leftist position, and it's going to be more effective to inspire and bring people on board with a vision of a better society rather than just casting fear and doom about how wrong and bad things are.
That’s lovely. If you were on a soapbox with a megaphone this coming Sunday, what would you be shouting about?
Maybe the rivers.
In terms of poo?
In terms of poo, yes. I'd just be shouting that: ‘The rivers! (In terms of poo)’. That's the whole slogan.
People will get it.
People will get it, that's it. There's something very evocative, visceral, simple and meaningful about it. It's an issue that virtually everyone's pretty agreed on, and it ties in so directly to a corrupt and broken system of private enterprise damaging society. It's very unjust and not that difficult to see the chain of responsibility.
It's also the right time of year for it: the most natural thing on a hot day is for a human to get in a river. But in the UK, they’re just filled with shit. So, great topic and I hope you draw a crowd at Speaker’s Corner. Then everyone could jump into the fountains in Hyde Park right after.
Is there poo in there?
I'm assuming there isn't, is there?
I'm now wondering whether there might be. That's the thing, the poo is everywhere now. You'd be safer swimming in the sewer, the way it's going.
Ha ha. Ok, cheeky question you'd have to answer. Have you ever knowingly dated or slept with a conservative?
I don't think so. But maybe they kept it quiet.
Probably not after your capitalism show.
But maybe that was their kink.
Right, or their revenge. My last question is: what’s some action that you could recommend?
It's basic and obvious, but trying to be as engaged as possible with the anti-genocide protests at the moment is really important. If you haven't been on one and you think, Actually, I do want to, but I haven't got around to it, I highly urge anyone to do it. In the midst of what is, a truly scary, harrowing thing to be witnessing, to see people so engaged and so devoted to speaking up is inspiring.
That’s a great recommendation.
I'm not a very good activist. I find it difficult to get involved in the organisation and stay committed, really devoted day-to-day on a grassroots level. But I like to go and protest and drop in on meetings. To witness people really doing it is very energising and a good antidote to the pessimism we were talking about earlier.
Thank you so much, Liam.
Some really good questions. Thank you.
Enjoy hearing from Liam? Don’t forget to check out his novel, find him and the other Sheeps boys at Edinburgh and also watch our video here!
And if you’re a Sheeps mega fan, by genuinely strange coincidence, Liam’s sketchmate Jonno happens to be on my podcast this week, playing—you guessed it—a feminist vicar!
