CULTURE Stand up and Punch
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CULTURE Stand Up And Punch Jet-lagged and drunk on punchlines, Peter Guttridge, just back from the annual Montreal International Festival Of Comedy, has a vision of the global comedy village of the future The jokes come thick and fast the 72-year-old queen of the at Just For Laughs, the Mon- one-liners, that's a little slow - treal International Festival Of but it still adds up to an awful Comedy which takes place lot of jokes. each summer. With 250 per- Because of the American formers shipped in from 12 tie-ins, the American acts countries to perform in the dominate the festival. In the 10-day festival, the humour is States over the last eight relentless. On the streets, in years comedy has been a ma- clubs, in the St Denis Theatre jor growth industry, with and for 400m people on tv and chains of comedy clubs start- radio in 10 different coun- ing up all over the country: tries, the performers give it the Punch Line, the Funny their best shot. Bone, Sir Laff A Lot and Just For Laughs started life others with equally excruciat- seven years ago as Juste Pour ing names. There are now two Rire, a celebration of French 24-hour cable comedy chan- comedy. That French festival nels. Rowan Atkinson: Trying his visual humour on the French still goes on alongside the En- Comedy is the new rock 'n' glish one but the English fes- roll and every road house with world, into the movies. And, it means trimming your mate- tival has blossomed - largely a single microphone and a keen as most comics are to rial to present yourself as because there's a lot of money small podium has been set- travel this road, there's an ideal tv fodder. By some to be made in television tie-ins ting up as a comedy club with army of agents, producers curious alchemy, this means in the States. Home Box minimum overheads. Where and casting directors eager to that for comedians like Lenny Office, the American cable in the 60s and 70s touring help them along the way. As a Clarke, Richard Jeni, and channel, hold their own gala singer-songwriters made a matter of fact, most of them Ritch Shydner you have to be evening for screening in nice living writing songs are in the VIP tent at Just For misogynous, anti-gay and ra- America. Channel 4 screen Laughs. cist. And since two of these the best of the festival's five Just For Laughs is, for the comedians are rated top class English gala nights. comedy professionals, a acts, that's a cause for con- The French and the English trade fair. All the big guns are cern. festivals differ. While they here - representatives from In an odd way the jokes' might share a city, 'franco- Carson and Letterman, film themes are international. phones' and 'anglo-phones' producers, dealmakers, hype Small town ('Moosehead was can't necessarily share a artists and money people. more than just a beer in Kirk- joke. The French taste is for They're looking for 'product'. land Lake'), big city ('I live in visual humour; mime and Keeping pace with this com- New York. It's the only place performance art. The English edy boom means keeping an my neuroses are justified'), prefer stand-up comedy. eye on new talent. marriage ('Marriage is a lot However there's stand-up So the business people from like MTV - it's a 24-hour a day and there's stand-up. As New York and Los Angeles proposition. You don't get a Rowan Atkinson, one of half a crowd into the VIP tent back- break.'), girlfriends and boy- dozen British performers at stage at the gala venue, the St friends ('One night last week the festival says: 'there's no Denis Theatre, to see each my boyfriend dreamed he was better example of how lan- evening's four-hour show. in Las Vegas - and I woke up guage does not unite cultures LeCoat: Humour that sticks Well, not all of it. And not live. with a mouthful of quarters than the gap that exists be- They prefer to watch on tv and a sore arm.') and politi- tween British and American.' about life on the road, these monitors because that way cians ('Someone was com- So he does a sketch of a vicar days it's the comics cashing they know if the camera likes plimenting Reagan on his new mourning Tom, Dick and Har- in with jokes about hotel the acts. And as often as not alligator shoes. Reagan said ry which involves heightened rooms, short plane hops and they'll be discussing some act thank you but those aren't my wordplay: the American and finding somewhere to eat in a as a product while the act in shoes - I'm in bare feet'). At Canadian comics deliver pun- strange town. question is going on, ignored, least there are only two Ben chlines. The road to success for on the monitor. Johnson jokes. Punchlines are popular. stand-ups in America goes Your ambitious comics know Jimmy Tingle and Pieter There's a man here from the via an appearance on Johnny the game. They know that it Dirk Uys show that political Carson Show reckons that to Carson or David Letterman, doesn't matter how you go comedy can and can't work go over well a comic should the alpha and omega of Amer- down in the theatre. The big here. Tingle, a Boston born aim to have 25 punchlines in ican comedy, into a television question is: did they like me in blue-collar comic has a nice six minutes. To Phyllis Diller, sit-com and then, in an ideal the tent? And for some comics line in absurdities: 'In some 45 MARXISM TODAY SEPTEMBER 1989 CULTURE countries, they put their poets in jail ... When was the last time you were jumped by a poet?'; 'We're spending 40m dollars on a plane that won't show up on radar. Why don't we borrow two of General Noriega's? His have been flying drugs into America for the last 25 years and they don't show up on radar either.' Uys, a South African satirist presents an 'Edna Everage 'Lenny Henry's film is his most sustained attempt to make a name in the States. Characters like Theophilus P Wildebeest should ensure crossover appeal' with fangs and a gun in her bag'. He goes down, as he predicted 'like a fart at a wed- ding'. Not because he isn't funny - 'There's only two things I hate about South Africa,' he says in character, 'apartheid and blacks' - but because few people know what he's talking about. His 'culture of death' seems woe- fully misplaced among all the froth. And then there are the Brits. Five Brits and a Dubliner have come over, headed by Rowan Atkinson. Terri Carol is a paper-tearer, Les Bubb is a 'physical comedian', Jennie LeCoat, Craig Ferguson and Michael Redmond are stand- up comics. Atkinson came here (stand-up is such a think of. In return he gets a Lenny Live And Unleashed. two years ago, shortly after macho act) she drops much of shot at the big time. The audi- He came to Montreal several the Broadway run of his one- her 'menstruation material' at ence and the camera both love years ago and attracted atten- man show was abruptly the last moment. Not because him. And that means the VIPs tion, but the film is his most halted by a bad review from it won't work, but because a in the big tent love him too. sustained attempt to make a the New York Times. With Canadian feminist did a lot of Within a week he's making the name in the States. Imperso- Black Adder a cult success in very similar stuff the night Craig Ferguson Special, an nations of Steve Martin, Canada and the States, he before ('I really resent hour-long pilot for a series, for Eddie Murphy and Richard isn't here to woo the Amer- women's hygiene products MTV He's on his way. Pryor plus American charac- icans though. In fact he has that make the user look like That a Scottish comedian - ters like Theophilus P come primarily to try out his she's smuggling a canoe in telling non-sexist, non-racist Wildebeest and blues singer 'visual humour' at a French her knickers'). Instead she jokes about, among other Hound Dog Smith should en- gala night. This visual com- gets the biggest groan of the things, his mum in Glasgow - sure the film "has enough edy is more or less mime - a evening with a joke about can make a successful Atlan- transatlantic 'crossover' man changing into bathing scraping the 'sticky bits' off tic crossing is heartening. It appeal. trunks on a crowded beach, a her knickers when she can't remains to be seen how And with American popular student trying to cheat in an be bothered washing them. much Ferguson will have to culture dominating the world, exam. In the spirit of 1992, he 'Doesn't everybody?' she asks tone down his aggressive it seems inevitable that com- wants to do this sort of Euro- innocently. approach. ics will have to adapt if they comedy. Craig Ferguson attacks the Lenny Henry will no doubt want to succeed outside their Of the others, Redmond's audience ('Don't fucking pat- be watching with interest.