Don’t Laugh at Me (part one – stand up)

I had an idea of where I wanted to go, but I was determined that this post should not become just another ‘list’, without realising that it could, instead, become very long indeed (and has thus found itself split into three parts)…

…So, it started with a car-boot purchase of an autobiography by long-retired stand-up comedian (and later film star) Lee Evans (The Life of Lee) and a short passage reminiscing about the comedians he admired as a child, which of course, got me going.  There is a certain class of comedians who are ‘just funny’, regardless of script or situation.  The undoubted king of this category would, for me, be the late, great Tommy Cooper, a comedian who could, quite literally, have his audience in tears of laughter without saying a word: Eric Morecambe (Morecambe and Wise), Marty Feldman and the greatest of all stand-ups Billy Connolly all had the very same gift of simply being funny.  It wasn’t even an anticipation of what they were going to say that got people laughing, it was just them being there.  All of them had (or in the case of Sir Billy have) funny bones.  It isn’t that you know they are going to be funny that makes you laugh, it is simply that they are funny.  A great script is the icing on the cake – but these people are funny anyway.  The wonderful Larry Grayson was another comedian who could make me laugh simply by being there.  He did nothing more than invite you in to share his life.  He didn’t even tell jokes, he just tittle-tattled on.  He was simply funny.  I would also put the incomparable Dave Allen in this category, although for a minutely different reason: he would make you laugh before he started, but in his case it most certainly was in anticipation of what he was about to say.  His humour was never intended to appear spontaneous, but you knew he was going to make you laugh out loud so, what the heck, you might as well start now…

Victoria Wood was very much the same: you were ready to laugh the moment you saw her, because you knew that she was going to be funny.  A bona fide comedy genius she played with words in a way that nobody else has ever matched.  Her sketches were true comedy gold and in Dinnerladies she gave us an absolute gem of a sit-com, but for me it was always as a stand-up that she truly sparkled.  She drew the entire audience in, in such a way that everyone wanted to be part of her life; to laugh with her at the sheer ludicrousness of it all.  AND she succeeded where so many failed before her: in making comedy about female subjects accessible as well as wildly funny.  Along with my American love, Rita Rudner and, in the UK, Sarah Millican and Sarah Pascoe, she taught men that a) women can be every bit as funny as them and b) men can be every bit as ridiculous as women.

The comedy giant (in Britain) that is Peter Kay has recently returned to his stand-up comedy roots and when he is in full-flow he remains impossible to resist.  He has mastered the skill of playing to huge audiences: allowing us all the opportunity to laugh at ourselves and everybody else around us.  Michael McIntyre and Romesh Ranganathan at best are capable of the same, but like most modern stand-up comedians they have shone brightly for a while before, at the very first opportunity, finding something else to do.  Something that is far less demanding and which, at the same time, exists solely because of past glories.

Stand-up is not dead, it has just become a game show…

I’m not good-looking, I’m not too smart
I may be foolish but I’ve got a heart… Don’t Laugh at Me (‘Cause I’m a Fool) – Norman Wisdom (Seskin/Shamblin)

N.B. I make absolutely no apology for including this song amongst the list of classic rock I have used for my titles so far this year.  Norman Wisdom films were a staple of my youth and this song sums up his hapless lovelorn screen persona to a tee.

It has occurred to me that most of these great comedians are, in fact, late great comedians and I wonder what that might mean for stand-up comedy in the future.  There are many many very good comedians doing the rounds these days, but how many will go on to be great and how many see stand-up as merely a stepping stone to TV gameshow host or Hollywood voice actor remains to be seen.  Also, I realise that many of these comedians, Sir Billy outstanding, are probably fairly-well unknown anywhere outside of the UK.  Comedy can be very ‘location specific’ and those that brook the geographical laughter barriers are few and far between.  Other than the ubiquitous Mr Connolly, we have only really shared Eddie Izzard, Ricky Gervais and Russell Brand with the US of late (and for one of them – at least – I can do nothing but apologise).  Germany has given the UK Henning Wehn, the US gave us Reginald D Hunter and Rich Hall.  Canada gave us the delightful Kathrine Ryan and the much missed Kelly Monteith (who once made me laugh so much in a theatre that I feared auto-asphyxiation).  TV and film comedians find national divides much easier to bridge, for the stand-up the world is made up of very different places.  Perhaps this shrinking world of ours will change things.  Perhaps we all need to learn to laugh at the same things – or maybe we just need to learn that it is ok to laugh at one another sometimes…   

If you have not heard of the comedians I have mentioned here, I can only apologise and urge you to check them out on Youtube…