Game for a Laugh
Don't laugh but buoyed by the feedback following my stand-up debut earlier this year I decided to have a crack at the comedy game.
After being invited down to Venue M by Laugh It Up organiser Gillian Cowell the initial plan was to do one ten minute set, hopefully garnish a few chuckles and then write about how terrible the experience was.
However, it didn't go exactly according to plan. The laughs came, albeit fleetingly, and filling the allotted time slot was not a problem. The terror though failed to materialise. I actually found myself enjoying the experience - perhaps a little too much.
The rather generous Hastings crowd seemed to warm to my second-rate jokes and before I knew it I felt like a slightly skinnier, hairier Ricky Gervais.
A charitable round of applause and some equally kind comments from professional funnyman (and now show-stealing actor if this week's The Bill is anything to go by) Steve Furst left me determined to give it another go.
A couple of days later I had a call from Gillian saying she had entered me in a gong show at London's famous Comedy Store. Each comic, and in my case I use the term very loosely, is given five minutes to tell jokes and not get gonged off. It was clear I would need to get some practice in beforehand...
As luck would have it then a friend of mine asked, more out of kindness than eagerness, if I would do a set at a charity concert in Brighton. I agreed and before I knew it the weeks had rolled by and I was having to compile a routine.
This is where I get to the point (I realise the first 200 odd words of this column sound pretty self-congratulatory). Where-as the crowd in Hastings were a proper comedy audience the revellers at Audio in Brighton were there for the music - not the comedy.
It was obvious I was going to have to tone down my jokes accordingly. Leave in the gags about 80s TV, bullying and vegetarians. Take out most of the others.
It got me thinking - what makes comedy offensive one day and funny the next? A quick straw poll round the pub showed a huge variety of comedy tastes. Everything from Jimmy Carr and Jack Dee to Victoria Wood and Lenny Henry.
One friend said he loved Bernard Manning. The rest of us tutted. "You don't understand", said my friend, "it is a parody - ironic." Not in anyway just an old racist telling politically incorrect jokes then...
But whatever your views on Manning and those of his ilk (i.e. racist bigots) it is baffling how a joke in the hands of one comedian can be racist and offensive while the same joke told by someone else is funny, clever and ironic.
The difference, as far as I can tell, is not the comic telling it - but the audience laughing at it. A crowd who laughs at a politically incorrect joke because they are clever enough to tell it is a parody is fine. An audience doubled over with laughter because they think racism is a laughing matter is not.
Is that the fault of the comic though? Probably not but there is clearly a world of difference between Chris Rock delivering a tongue in cheek joke about Black America and Jim Davidson poking fun at foreigners.
It is just not everyone is clever enough to spot it.
The two charities which benefited from the concert last week were The Robert Eaton Memoria Fund (www.remf.biz) and Coaching For Hope (www.coachingforhope.org). Both do really excellent work using football as a way of spreading hope to youngsters in this country (in the case of the REMF) and in war-torn HIV stricken Africa (Coaching For Hope). If you have a spare minute, give them both a look.
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Weather for Hastings
Sunday 12 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 2 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 3 C to 6 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North west
