Episode 144: Frank Sanazi on Being A Comedy Dictator

Frank Sanazi is a unique comedy character, a tongue-in-cheek mashup of Adolf Hitler and Frank Sinatra described by his creator, the British singer and comedian Pete Cunningham, as “a satirical blitzkrieg blending dark humour, swing music and politically incorrect cabaret”.The newspaper The Scotsman has called him “brilliantly stupid, fantastically wrong and ridiculously funny”. The comedy blog Chortle considers him “a pleasure uber alles”.As well as doing solo shows, Frank also leads The Iraq Pack, a gang of crossover crooners including Dean Stalin, Saddami Davis Jr., Osama Bin Crosby, his daughter Nancy Sanazi, and, of course, Diva Braun. Frank has performed internationally, from Austria to Israel, and regularly features at Glastonbury and Bestival in the UK.His act is a wild freewheeling thumb in the eye to the seriousness with which history’s lunatics and despots have been traditionally accorded, and it cannily highlights something often overlooked about Hitler: He was a performer.“There’s no doubt about it,” the legendary comedian Mel Brooks told Der Spiegel in 2006. “Hitler worked in the same branch as we do: he created illusions.”In the same interview, Brooks summed up why mocking the 20th century’s most infamous boogeyman was not only permissible, but necessary: “[B]y using the medium of comedy, we can try to rob Hitler of his posthumous power and myths.”In this episode, Frank Sanazi joins me to talk about how he conceived and honed his character, how standup comedy has changed over the years he’s been working, and why satire and ridicule are essential tools against tyranny.You can buy Frank’s albums Mein Way on a Steinway and Songs for Swinging Leaders here. Tickets for his one-hour show at the Edinburgh Fringe (August 1 through 23) are available here. You can also visit his website.1984today.substack.com1984.todayX: @1984TodayPodInsta: @1984Today This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com