REVIEW Frank Cottrell Boyce is on the scene of the third Merseyside Festival Of Comedy Smiles Better west of Minsk. And a queue is the best audience in the world. Everyone in a queue is bored, you need only tell the slightest knock-knock joke to be treated like a pro- phet of better days. But the people of this city have an even longer tradi- tion and culture of waiting around: wives waiting for their seafaring husbands to return; dockers waiting for their ship to come in; mer- chant seamen waiting to go home. And in the meantime, a few jokes and a few songs. Then of course there's the Irish connection. Now I'm not saying that Sterne, Swift and Wilde are in the same league as Chegwin, Tarbuck and As- key, but the prestige of verbal performance is a feature of Irish culture. All dominated cultures have their ways of reasserting pride. For the Irish in Britain it was the smart reply and this has stuck in Liverpool. Then there's Catholicism. Catholics are still not in the majority in Liverpool but all of Liverpool's key cultural figures have Catholic roots with the exception of Mrs Hemans (author of 'The Boy Stood On The Burning Deck') and Gladstone. Where the personal columns of left-wing magazines are filled with sensitive guys looking for mountain bikes or lesbian couples looking for sperm, the personal column of the Liverpool Echo is filled with thank-you letters to the Sacred Heart and to St Jude (one in today's is signed, 'Grateful Protestant'). Catho- licism is innately comic in that it offers vertiginous aspi- rations (communion with the godhead) but holds abyssal expectations (weekly con- Trev and Simon: Reaching new heights of stupidity in Liverpool fession). Just as important, being a Holding a festival of comedy scousers are funnier? Of Party was looking for its Catholic puts you to one side in Liverpool is like holding a course they are. Just think of salvation to a man who tried of the mainstream of British festival of neurotic commut- that great tradition - Arthur to save your city by covering life. In fact, Liverpool itself ing in London. How are you Askey, Jimmy Tarbuck, Keith it with trees; wouldn't that was to one side of the main- going to know where life Chegwin... help you see the funny side? stream even before it was stops and art begins? But at Why do we have such a won- The material roots of scouse put there officially as a the third Merseyside festival derful sense of humour? humour are, in fact, easy to matter of government po- of comedy (July 12 - July 29) Well, imagine if the great identify. One of the key licy. It boomed with its back the scousers are going to be and good tried to regenerate sources of humour in urban to England, looking out to in the stalls instead of on the your town by building a ski- society is the queue. Since sea. When the ships stopped stage. Not that this is likely slope that dumped its users the late 70s, Liverpool's social coming out and it turned to stop them coming out with on the middle lane of a busy security offices have been round to look at the rest of all the best lines of course. motorway; wouldn't it make host to some of the longest the nation, it had already But is it really true that you wry? Imagine if the Tory and most disaffected queues grown up strange. It was the 8 MARXISM TODAY JULY 1990 PREVIEW nearest the British Isles ever ception. Maybe that's because got to a city-state. As such it comedy has become less a had a native aristocracy vehicle of personal expres- (hence the vast parks) but an sion and more an aspect of absentee bourgeoisie (they employment training. Smiles still live 'over the water' on are now our biggest export. the Wirral). Television has found a use Liverpool never really felt for this raw material. Any like part of England. Cer- series that is not about social tainly the governments of workers or city sharpers will England act like it is in Bor- probably be set in Liverpool. neo - hence the reafforesta- The reason for this is ob- tion programme. Out of the vious. On television talk is mainstream is a good place cheap and in Liverpool there to be, of course, if you're is plenty of talk. In television hoping to get laughs, al- drama it is easier for the though it's not so good if writer and cheaper for the you're hoping for the Queen's producer if the characters' Award For Industry. lives are described rather Deep down, I'd really like to than dramatised so it's al- explode the myth of the smi- ways easier if you've got ar- ling scouser. After all, not all ticulate characters. scousers are funny. Herman The scouser is articulate but Melville worked here - not has an edge that the social exactly a laugh a page. And worker lacks. On the one hand Brookside even at its long- this basic economic fact has gone best was the least funny meant that we have been programme on tv. given the opportunity to de- Like all stereotypes, the velop a rich local tradition funny Liverpudlian image is which draws directly on the a swine to live with. I hate stand-up comedy but which that look that comes into in the hands of real talents people's eyes when they hear like Alan Bleasdale, Frank Emo Phillips: Surreal humour my accent. Half eager, half Clarke and Terence Davies challenging, it's a look that has moved way beyond that Liverpool Line-up air event with stalls, inflat- says, 'Go on then, make me and enriched the culture of Black Comedy Club: Some of ables, hot-air balloon rides laugh'. A potential employer the whole nation. the best of Britain's new and throughout the day. Plus once went so far as to say But there's more to scouse established comedians hit paper sculptures, local per- this to me. I said: 'Listen, if I humour than the patter and Liverpool for the first time. formers and musicians. Birk- was black you wouldn't say, the putdown. Edward Lear Sets from Miles Crawford, enhead Park, July 21, from ok, let's see you dance; and if lived and worked here and Tracey Anderson, Ras Leo 1.00pm. I was Jewish you wouldn't his worthy inheritor, the Chester, Felix, Angie le Mar. Trev and Simon's Stupid Party: say, ok, let's hear you say Squire of Knotty Ash, the sub- Hardman House, July 14 and Cult crazies from the BBC's something paranoid about lime Ken Dodd and his didd- 27,8.00pm. award-winning Going Live. your mother. Why should I be ling men, are still talking. Kirkby Response 'Stop The War Trev and Simon swing their funny just because I was born The fantastical and nonsen- I Wanna Cop Off': Loosely pants into Liverpool as part in Liverpool?' He thought this sical light up the works of based on Aristophanes Lysis- of their first live, national was so funny he practically McGough and Bleasdale, not trata, translated into scouse stupid tour. Philharmonic wet himself and offered me to mention Lennon and Mc- and performed by an all- Hall, July 24,7.30pm. the job on the spot. Culloch. And the flight of women cast from Kirkby. Jeremy Hardy and Kit Holler- Which brings me to the real fancy can be genuinely lib- The battle of the sexes and bach: Hardy, described by reason why a lot of scousers erating where the banter is the battle for sex. Liverpool The Sun as 'a disease that can are funny these days. They generally defensive, as Ken Playhouse Studio, July 18, only be cured by amputation have to be. Anyone who has himself can no doubt testify. 7.45pm. at the neck' teams up with caught a late train up from In the days when we're all Phil Cool: With facial fea- one of North America's fun- London to Liverpool on a Fri- fighting the poll tax, I can tures more flexible than a niest comedians. Bluecoat, day night can tell you that think of no better local hero. British Rail timetable. Plus July 25,8.00pm. huge numbers of young Holding a festival of com- support, Nothing By Chance. Drive-in Movie: Nuns On The Liverpudlians now work away edy in Liverpool is like hold- Philharmonic Hall, July 18, Run. Two crooks, Robbie from home in jobs where a ing an opera festival in Milan, 7.30pm. Coltrane and Eric Idle, take sunny disposition is your an art festival in Venice, Prunella Scales: An Evening the money and run... into a only real security. They are or a football festival in... With Queen Victoria. A por- convent. Southport Beach, nannies, waiters, 'financial Liverpool. Come and you'll trait of an old Queen drawn July 27,28,10.00pm. consultants', and of course, be with people who really from her diaries and letters. The Famous Five: Alan Bleas- film and television extras. know what they're laughing Glenda Jackson Theatre, dale, Adrian Henri, Roger For a city with such a rich and for and who are determined Birkenhead, July 21,8.00pm. McGough, Brian Patten and lengthy comic tradition Liver- to have the last laugh. Be- John Hegley: Top alternative Willy Russell get together pool has produced surpris- sides, they're going to have comedian and Britain's fun- for an evening of anecdote, ingly few alternative come- drive-in movies on Ainsdale niest poet.