Resisting the Hostile Environment with humour

Art is a powerful tool. It moves us and compels us to action. In the words of James Baldwin: “the role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” 

Art helps us see what is invisibilised and forges connections with those whose perspectives are often erased. Counterpoints Arts works nationally at the nexus of arts, migration and cultural change to do exactly this.

The organisation harnesses the power of art to help people talk across difference. Since 2018, Counterpoints has been bringing comedians together to make injustice that has been so normalised, laughable. The collective, No Direction Home, is for comedians from refugee and migrant backgrounds. Their performances bring levity and laughter to topics that have a tough, raw underbelly and tell stories led by lived experience, not political point scoring.

Most recently, in October, the collective performed at the Journeys Festival in Leicester. Over Zoom, I chatted with one of the comedians, Victor Rios, about his set at the festival, the database he co-founded, Latinx Actors UK, and the power of comedy in these polarising times. I also spoke with Tom Green, Senior Producer at Counterpoints, about its origins, its evolution and the broader role of art in our society.

The horrors of the hostile environment

The hostile environment is a harsh, unrelenting, and sometimes fatal beast that administers a paper bag test before unleashing its worst. In lieu of safe routes, inhumane systems force some to resort to dangerous passage. Even for those whose journeys to the UK are simpler and safer, long ordeals still await them: ups and downs punctuated by intense scrutiny, bureaucratic hoops, racism and xenophobia.

We need look no further than the streets surrounding the Journeys Festival for evidence of this reality. Just two months prior to Victor and his fellow comics on the bill taking the stage, the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) in Leicester defected from the Tory platform he was elected on and joined Reform UK, becoming the party’s first PCC in the UK. His political shift came on the heels of far-right protests in the city that caused mayhem outside of hotels where migrants, refugees and people seeking asylum were housed. Deeply unfunny – quite the opposite.

Yet, those who have borne the brunt of the systems are using humour to express what they have had to navigate. As Victor puts it: “some of the journeys were quite difficult to actually say, but [through performance] there was great exploration of them.” 

Though he reminds me, too, of the lighter parts of those journeys navigating a new place. Touching on the way language barriers showed up early on, Victor tells me about a time someone confronted him asking, “You want some beef?” Being on the way to the chicken shop, Victor replied, “no, chicken” to which the person approaching him retorted, “what did you call me?” Even without the stage, the lights and the comedic timing, Victor had me laughing over our video call, so I can only imagine how audiences across the UK lap that story up!

Telling me more about his set at The Journeys Festival, Victor explains that he’s often using the imported elements of British society to prove just how hypocritical the far-right urge to preserve ‘pure’ Britishness is.

He says he started out by making the audience sing the unofficial anthem of the England men’s team at Euro 2020, ‘Sweet Caroline’. Once he has the crowd singing along, Victor explains that, written and popularised by American Neil Diamond, Sweet Caroline is an adopted anthem, not British-made, just like the many other things we consider to be quintessentially British. 

Victor shared that once he’s given the audience a good fill of the way other cultures have long been intertwined with Britishness, he hits them with the punchline: “hey that’s the British way, we take what we want!” Too true. My only note: let’s not forget the rest of the infamous British way. After we’ve taken it, we act bewildered when the kids and grandkids of the rightful owners come to collect their birthright.

Laughter as tonic in polarised times

Reflecting on the intentions of the collective, Tom explains, “we want people to have laughed, and shared that laughter with those in the room – it creates a very powerful sense of togetherness.” In a political era marked by splintered communities pitted against another, there is hope in us being able to laugh together.

I felt further hope creep in when Victor told me about the collective’s October performance in Colchester, as part of the Platforma Festival, that acted as a fundraiser for Medical Aid for Palestinians. Victor reflected on how proud he felt to see the collective have tangible impact. To grow campaigns and bring more people in, we need these sorts of gateways where the things folks do, the spaces they’re in, and the things they care about, converge. Art is a powerful vehicle for making that possible.

Tom adds that it’s not just comedy but art, creativity and culture, in general, that “help us understand who we are, how we relate to one another and what is possible for ourselves and collectively”. As someone who failed art in school but has great respect and appreciation for its transformative power, this really resonated with me: the way that shared laughter, tears, reflection and relief can be evoked by a comedy set, a painting or a music performance.

Harnessing courage, speaking up and taking action

In a context of increasing surveillance and erosion of the right to protest, where the stakes for speaking out are only getting higher, I ask both Victor and Tom what their message would be to artists shying away from speaking out. Reflecting on his work building the Latinx Actors database, Victor was adamant that sometimes we just need to move beyond our overwhelm at the barriers and do something. He recommends that fellow artists “take action towards something to make a change.”

Responding to the same question, Tom tells me that Counterpoints’ theme for Refugee Week in 2026 is courage. He elaborates on that choice, explaining that they are calling on arts venues and organisations “to be brave about standing up for their values.” Tom makes it clear that this cannot solely be about community programming that touches on refugees and migration. Rather, he says, “they should also be looking at main stages and bringing those diverse voices the spaces and resources that their talent deserves.”

It’s refreshing to hear them both speak so decisively about the importance of bravery and action. Lately, it has felt like the far-right is doing its best to get institutions to batten down the hatches when it comes to vocal, active support of migrants and refugees. Also caught in the crossfire are racialised communities, trans folks, and anyone else far-right talking heads  have made public enemy number one – or even numbers two, three, four and five –  in the so-called ‘war on woke’. In this context, institutions of conscience need to be brave, and resolve to speak out even when it may cost them.

Poking fun at systems, and ourselves

From what Tom termed Counterpoints’ “journey into the unknown” with the first ever No Direction Home performance seven years ago, headlined by Nish Kumar, through to Victor’s set at the Leicester performance earlier this year, comedians with lived experience as refugees and migrants have been gracing stages with their stories in every corner of the UK. Their artistry has been pushing audiences to laugh together, reflect together and, perhaps above all, just be together.

Poking fun at systems of injustice can, with a sleight of hand, rightly poke fun at us. As Baldwin put it, making us conscious of that which we couldn’t see, even in ourselves. How silly are we to enable the hostile environment to wreak havoc in our names? How hilarious is it that we forget our collective agency? How funny would it be if we demanded change? 

Counterpoints, and the No Direction Home Collective, continue to change hearts and minds with performances across the country. The collective closed out 2025 at the Bush Theatre in a partnership with the Palestine Comedy Club for another fundraising comedy night. I can’t wait to see where their next stop is. Break a leg!