Comedy review of the year 2013: when stand-up found its soul Compared to such warm, nostalgic pieces a lot of comedy "output" today can seem comfortless and cynical, lacking the sunshine of human kindness. World headlines were made last month when Monty Python's surviving members announced they were reuniting next year; there was further coverage when the first of their 02 Arena dates sold out in 43.5 seconds. Of course the reunion has immense value as a once-in-a-lifetime, end-of-an-era event but isn't the box office stampede also partly explained by a collective yearning to turn back the clock? We don't just love the old sketches, we love the Pythons themselves and what they represent: good eggs, harmless eccentrics; something essentially benign. We want to bring back silliness, they pledged - people are afraid to say anything anymore. I'm sure a lot of us nodded at that. Eric and Ern, the Pythons - these comedy legends - had our interests at heart, no matter their success. They somehow spoke for us. Part of the anxiety, even animosity, surrounding comics today is that this sense of popular connection doesn't seem to exist as overtly as it once did, if at all. Sure, our comedians helped raised more than £100 million on Red Nose Day but still the suspicion lurks that career advancement is inextricably linked with the altruism. Ricky Gervais's music gigs, in character as David Brent, sold out in a trice too. He has five million followers on Twitter, two million more than John Cleese, but can he count on the same degree of popular affection? It's impossible to measure these things, but this year I felt something shifting in the way some of our top comedians relate to the public. In June, Jimmy Carr, master of the cold, calculating, knowingly offensive one-liner, had to cut short his routine at a Hackney Empire charity gig because he was being heckled over his tax avoidance and "misogynistic" jokes. "You're not one of us" and "You're not wanted here" came the cries. This wasn't his natural constituency but even so, it's no ordinary day when the normal deference shown towards a successful stand-up gets suspended. For the past five years or so, our leading funny men (and it remains mainly men) have become colossi. They have come to perform alone in arenas to thousands of heavily paying punters as if by birthright; some of them have shifted DVDs on a scale to rival Hollywood films. Those days aren't over - not yet - but there's certainly a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that the recent boom may have peaked. Some in the industry, considering the scene as a whole, are talking about a shakedown. September saw the collapse of Momo Leisure, the latest company to be involved in running Jongleurs comedy clubs, a once formidable franchise-based chain. "There's no doubt about it," says Mark Tughan, who runs the well-managed Glee Club venues in Birmingham, Nottingham and Cardiff, "lots of rooms above pubs and some of the smaller clubs have closed down. Talk to the comics out there, and they'll say they've never known it so bad. The boom produced so many comics trying to work the circuit, there are too many. Familiarity can breed contempt, success can stir complacency and stoke resentment. Did comedy become not so much a valuable alternative as part of the money-raking machine? Did too many comics become insulated from reality, disengaged from ordinary life, chasing the fast buck and the easy laugh? It's interesting that the shows that helped define this year's Edinburgh Fringe and, by extension, the year as a whole, were challenging, dissenting and presumed to speak out about the greater good. The subject of controversy following a public spat about his use of the word "n-----" at the Professional Footballers Association annual dinner, Reginald D Hunter demanded a new age of levelheadedness: "I think people are stupider now," the tall African-American asserted, and got a big laugh of recognition. Bridget Christie, 42, scooped the Edinburgh Comedy Award for a set arguing the renewed case for feminism. It was bold, passionate, cheery, provocative and invigoratingly funny: "Women were invented ages ago, before the Sixties," she informed us, "because God realised very early on that Adam needed an audience for his jokes." You could argue with some of it, but it knew where it was coming from. Russell Brand embraced the idea of a social revolution in 2013. That most political of comedians Mark Thomas has been upping his game still further by spurring activism nationwide in a mission to conduct "100 Acts of Minor Dissent." We have the power to change things, he told the audience, a sentiment echoed by a newly radicalised Russell Brand, who has embraced the idea of revolution with the same enthusiasm that he once greeted his awards in The Sun newspaper for "Shagger of the Year." Pure tactics with a view to sustaining his cult status? Some might say so but he galvanised debate about the futility or otherwise of voting in the wake of his Newsnight ding-dong with Jeremy Paxman in ways that throw down the gauntlet to other comics: be funny, of course, but be relevant too; hold on to grassroots support; be concerned with what matters; earn your place on that platform. With such trends bubbling, I think 2013 may well go down as a turning-point, when comedians - a disparate bunch though they are - started taking collective stock of the power they can wield, and asked how best they might be able to use it. The gags may be different but there's a greater degree of continuity with the benign best of the past than one might suppose. To quote the witty and wise Joan Rivers, returning to these shores next year: "These ARE the good old days. Let's enjoy them! READ: Comedy, best and worst of 2013