Robert Hanks: Obama euphoria puts dampener on political humour

A question that kept poking up this week was, can political humour survive euphoria? On The News Quiz (Radio 4, Friday), Francis Wheen responded to a question about the US election by pretending that the obvious answer was Joe Biden, giving hope to dullards everywhere, and making an offhand quip about the "allegedly inspirational" Obama. This raised, at best, a subdued snicker from the audience. Jeremy Hardy, as a rule reliably non-emollient, barged in: "If we could be allowed to drop our tone of cynicism, it's bloody marvellous that Obama's been elected." Loud applause.

In much the same spirit, over on Clive Anderson's Chat Room (Radio 2, Saturday), an attempt to create a more free-form outlet for topical humour, Arthur Smith said that the nastiest thing he could think of to say about the president-elect is that he has "a bit sticky-out ears", while Nick Robinson, the BBC's political editor, declared that Obama is "a stone genius" and "the real deal", and that "a lot of the hype about him is justified" – again, applause, and a whimpering finish to the panel's rather desultory efforts to squeeze gags out of an unpromising situation.

At least The 15-Minute Musical (Radio 4, Wednesday), returning for a new run, kept its nerve enough to keep poking fun – it probably helped that it was recorded before the election, when optimism hadn't yet washed over everyone. 'Washington High School Musical' retold the election in the style of 'Grease', with Obama in the John Travolta role, Hillary Clinton as Olivia Newton-John, and John McCain perched awkwardly on the sidelines. The pastiche was efficient, but the satire limped along. To get some laughs out of Obama, the lyrics resorted to vacuous caricature – to the tune, almost, of "Summer Loving", he sang, "Some are saying I am a fool / No experience, though I look cool"; and, "Some are asking, 'What have you done?' / Hey, who cares, I'm young and I'm fun". That's probably funny for diehard Republicans; or rather, would have been funny for them a few weeks ago, before Obama made it clear he could be just as nerdy and sober as his opponents.

Still, let's not start reading the last rites for political humour yet. 'The 15-Minute Musical' has always been a bit rubbish, with satirical logic stepping aside to make way for an easy gag or clever rhyme; and 'Clive Anderson's Chat Room' was handicapped here by the presence of comedians – Arthur Smith and Miranda Hart – clearly not as switched on to current affairs as the format demands. By contrast, on 'The News Quiz', Jeremy Hardy managed to swallow his new sunniness and argue that Obama's success will mean that black people are never allowed to complain about anything ever again – as the next hurricane sweeps into New Orleans and they start crying for help, they'll be told, "You've got a black president, what more do you want?".

I hope topical humour makes it through, because topical sentimentality doesn't work for me. This week's play in the From Fact to Fiction slot (Radio 4, Saturday) was 'This Is Our Moment' by Kwame Kwei-Armah (all over the airwaves this weekend, with his TV play 'Walter's War' on BBC4): a father who left his family years ago is inspired by Obama's victory to make contact with his teenage son. Kwei-Armah is a skilful writer, but slips too easily into soap-talk. The mother tells the absentee father that his son doesn't want him: "Has he told you that?" "He doesn't need to." And at the end, the father asks, "Can I call you?", and the son, echoing Obama, says, "Yes you can". If people don't start getting a bit less hopeful soon, I'll be in despair.