Amuzed audience at comedy club Syster O Bror. Photo: Syster O Bror.

It’s Wednesday night and I am one of the 300-plus people who have packed the Syster O Bror (Sister and Brother) comedy club in Stockholm to the rafters. The crowd applauds the headline act, Magnus Betnér, as he takes to the stage. The atmosphere is electric.

Betnér begins by inviting those who are standing (and have paid less) to come and sit at the front. His act goes on to rattle the bars of the establishment — nothing is held sacred. With the raw danger of a punk concert he breaks the rules with big laughs. This is stand-up comedy in its purest form.

“What shall I talk about tonight?” he asks the crowd
“Incest! Pedophilia! Religion!” they respond, knowing his outrageous stock-in-trade subjects.

One big family

His rallies against religious institutions make the audience question who is setting the agenda. He has picked up the baton of Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks (iconoclastic American comedians who he cites as influences) and is running with it.

According to Betnér, the “them and us” that fuels British and American comedy doesn’t exist to the same extent in Sweden. People identify more with the establishment.

“We are the government, the council, the unions, the tax authorities. We are all members, or know people who work for them, and they are the same as us,” he says.

Magnus Betnér finds inspiration from international comedians. Photo: Helena Sandklef

Room for more comedians

But Sweden is changing, becoming more diverse and eclectic, and new voices are making themselves heard. Stand-up comedy has always given a voice to those on the margins of conventional society such as gays and, most recently, the so-called nya svenskar or new Swedes. Zinat Pirzadeh, who arrived in Sweden as a refugee from Iran 20 years ago, represents the new face of Swedish comedy. Her warm, charismatic style never fails to disarm the most cynical of audiences, and she has established herself as a regular fixture on stage and screen.

Stand-up comedy has never been more popular among Swedes, and it is easier for newcomers to have a go. Rookie clubs are springing up all over Sweden, with BungyComedy in Stockholm running a biannual competition that sees 15 finalists each perform onstage for three nerve-racking minutes.

Zinat Pirzadeh represents the new face of Swedish comedy. Photo: Thomas Claesson 

Stand-up sees a rise

At the heart of the stand-up scene is comic and impersonator Mike Räsänen, although he is better known to comedians than audiences for his encyclopedic knowledge of who’s who, who’s been where and who’s going places. When memory fails, his website komikaze.se serves as an archive for pretty much everything that has happened in Swedish comedy in the past decade.

“Fifteen years ago there was practically no stand-up comedy in Sweden,” he says. “As a kid, there was only broad revue-style comedy on TV.”

Nowadays, every major TV show is hosted by the rising stars of stand-up comedy, whose influences are more often British or American comedians than Swedish. Funny business is becoming big business with at least 10 clubs in Stockholm, and five in Gothenburg and Malmö. Most of these are run for love not profit.

At the top of the tree is the RAW Comedy Club in Stockholm, which regularly brings over headliners from the UK, Ireland, Canada and the US, with Swedish audiences snapping up tickets for the bigger names. At Syster O Bror, Canadian Jason Rouse paid a surprise visit ahead of his show at RAW. He made no concessions in the speed of his delivery or the range of English used, yet he had the crowd hanging, shocked but laughing hysterically, on his every word.

Ben Kersley

Ben Kersley is a writer and performer. He is also Sweden’s only Swenglish stand-up comedian. www.speakup.se

The author alone is responsible for the opinions expressed in this article.