‘Ventriloquists were always the sideshow, the little guys, the cheap easy entertainment’ … Dunham with Peanut. He doesn’t just hold the Guinness World Record for most tickets sold for a standup comedy tour – 2m across 386 venues – he is also ranked by Forbes as one the highest paid comedians on the planet, up there with Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Amy Schumer. Spurning all accusations of racism, sexism and homophobia, Dunham has become a comic phenomenon. His puppets are dysfunctional, foul-mouthed and unashamedly stereotypical, from Seamus the drunken Irish baby to José the Mexican immigrant and Achmed the jihadi suicide bomber. We’ll make a reality TV guy the president – who 60% of people hate – and then, here’s something weirder, we’ll make this ventriloquist guy so successful he sells out stadiums.’”ĭunham is no children’s entertainer.
“Other comedians,” he says, “must be scratching their heads and thinking, ‘How the hell is this happening?’ It’s like aliens were looking down and saying, ‘Here’s how we’re going to screw up Earth. But Dunham and his cast of dummies pulled in a whopping 19,000 fans – and every one of them seemed to have had a riotously fun evening. Any other ventriloquist would be happy with an audience of a few hundred, maybe in their wildest dreams a thousand. He has just played to a sell-out crowd in the Texas city of San Antonio.
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