Archive for comedy
Funny, ha-ha
October 9th, 2008 • comedy, culture
It has been a pretty difficult week for comedy. Before we go any further, it’s helpful to recognise that comedy is hard work. Sometimes - and even with the best preparation and writers - jokes fall flat. Having to explain that something is, in fact, a joke is not normally a good sign, and not a defence that works well with audiences or reviewers.
For example, the noted humourist, the Rector of St Michael, Cornhill and St Sepulchre without Newgate Dr Peter Mullen, has been having some trouble with his new material. Let’s hand over to The Guardian for a second:
A Church of England vicar could face disciplinary action for saying gay men should have “sodomy” warnings tattooed on their bodies. [...]
Mullen, 66, wrote it was time for religious believers to recommend the discouragement of homosexual practices in the style of cigarette packet warnings.
“Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan sodomy can seriously damage your health and their chins with fellatio kills.”
Mullen is apparently unaware that straight people are also allowed to have oral sex. No-one tell him, okay? When complaints were made, Mullen responded:
“I wrote some satirical things on my blog and anybody with an ounce of sense of humour or any understanding of the tradition of English satire would immediately assume that they’re light-hearted jokes.”
Some small confusion here from Mullen, whose piss-weak “ha-ha, you can’t take a joke” defence rather fails to understand the “tradition of English satire” which he hopes to join. Satire is not kind. Satire is not half-hearted and satire is certainly not light-hearted. It’s a way of attacking something of which the speaker strongly disapproves. The person being attacked should not be provoked into genuine laughter, but sharply needled.
Beyond the failure to meet certain rhetorical standards, if Mullen had the strength of his homo-hating convictions (and understood satire at all) he might have taken this opportunity to tell us how AIDS is Gods punishment for “teh homo” (always a rib-tickler) rather than hiding behind the defence that he was sadly misunderstood and that:
I certainly have nothing against homosexuals. Many of my dear friends have been and are of that persuasion.
I quite understand. I myself have spent many hours riling up hatred and revulsion against some of my closest friends. /sarcasm
Mullen’s attempt to distance himself from the content of his homophobia by claiming it’s just light-hearted satire is nonsensical (and hey, I got to use some literary criticism at the same time). And obviously, the main problem with Mullen’s “joke” is that it’s old and tired. I’m sure we all remember how quickly the Third Reich’s “comic” forced tattooing of social minorities became unfunny. Instantaneously, in fact.
Hmm.
Anarchy in the Ukelele
September 18th, 2008 • comedy, culture
The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain, who’ll be at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre in a few weeks:
Deeply important, silly stuff.
Faversham Forever round-up
September 12th, 2008 • comedy, festival, penny dreadfuls
Fringe 2008 and Aeneas Faversham Forever marked my third year of work with The Penny Dreadfuls - following Aeneas Faversham (2006) and Aeneas Faversham Returns (2007) - and I think we’re getting better at it.
Some production detail:
- we jumped ship from the Underbelly to the Pleasance 2, a 156-seat venue in the Pleasance Courtyard.
- our early previews played to over 100 each night; the rest of the four week run was sold out.
- our reviews were extremely positive, with a majority giving us five stars.
- thought the production budget for the entire year (running from development previews in the winter through to fringe) was far larger than either previous show, the company will turn a profit for a third year in a row. Yes, you can make money at the Fringe.
- our publicity was once more designed by the ultra-producer, Idil Sukan. It’s the third year we’ve produced a pack of bespoke playing cards which doubled as fliers: no-one seems willing or able to match the effort or cost of copying us.
- for the third year, we’ve given our audience beautiful badges as they leave the show, this year reading “Henchman of the Month.” It’s a nice call-back to a key scene in the middle of the show (it’s a title awarded for good attendance); audiences seem genuinely delighted to have something to take away with them.
- we spent far too much money on children’s tricycles for a climactic mine-cart chase, which never made it into the show.
- the show now has three further performances in London and Brighton during October, including the Apollo Theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue on October 5th.
On a more reflective note, there was a moment mid-fringe where I realised that word-of-mouth is partner to hype, leading to a small percentage of our audience buying tickets for a show that they knew nothing about (other than that a friend thought it was quite good).
On those nights - most often weekends - the cast had to work incredibly hard in the opening scenes to let the audience know what kind of performance they were watching: not only the genres of comedy and melodrama that were being blended, but the way in which the play was staged, characters were created and narrative constructed. That said, audience response was generally very positive, and very generous.
Finally, we’re almost certainly taking a break from the Victoriana for a while: the guys are working on other writing projects (including a pilot for Radio 4), though we may return for a short burst of shows next fringe.
We’re all winners
August 24th, 2008 • comedy
When it was announced last night that the if.comedy spirit of the Fringe award would be shared amongst all performers at the festival, it was a running joke that everyone could put it on their posters next year: “if.comedy award winner.”
14 hours later and I’ve just been given a flier for a stand-up proclaiming her the recipient of the 2008 spirit of the Fringe award. It’s quite literally true, but probably not what the judging panel had quite intended.
Heh.
Near miss
August 24th, 2008 • comedy, festival, penny dreadfuls
Did I mention how the fringe show I work on almost got nominated for an if.comedy award?
After three weeks of visits to the show from judges, the panel met last Wednesday morning and decided that The Penny Dreadfuls‘ Aeneas Faversham Forever was so funny that it should be short-listed for the main if.comedy prize.
Then, five minutes later, one of the judges remarked that the show wasn’t actually eligible because it was a play. Hmm.
Lively opinions were exchanged (ahem) with the director of the award and another panellist fighting our corner. Sadly, they didn’t convince enough of the other judges. So that’s possibly why the nomination list was a little short this year.
When the news reached us, we had a few hours of mild hysteria and bewilderment as we tried to get our heads around what had (nearly) happened - then drowned those heads at the Avalon birthday party free bar. Meh. I don’t think we’d have won this year, but it would have been nice to be nominated.
Fortunately, the spirit of the Fringe panel prize was awarded last night to every performer at the Fringe in the shape of a free drink on Monday evening (news which was slightly muted by delivering it to a room full of people already on their third free drink of the evening). So there’s that for the poster.
Also see: Why the if.comedy shortlist is intriguingly short.
