I remember when 'comedy', by which was meant 'stand up', was billed as the new rock'n'roll. It must be twenty years ago now if not more. And I suppose it still is, if we mean by 'new rock'n'roll' a tired and clapped out format derived from something that several decades ago was regarded as fresh, dynamic and ground-breaking.
It is no longer a new generation of politically correct comedians at the Comedy Store being all vociferous and recalcitrant and the opposite of Jim Davidson, Bernard Manning and Jimmy Tarbuck.
I just accidentally heard something on Radio 4 called Susan Calman Is Convicted. She seems like a nice enough girl with her observations on not having children, having cats instead and- wait for it- being gay (now there's a radical idea), but one might not have realized it had humourous intent were it not for the riotous response of an audience bussed in for the occasion and under strict direction as to when to whoop and fall about in fits of laughter.
Much of the output in this slot on Radio 4 seems to be like that and the parallels with rock'n'roll have remained intact. The format is still there, it sounds as if it ought to be funny because someone is being self-deprecating and honest about their life and making observations about it. But the medium is the message and without the suggestion from the audience that it is hilarious one would just think, yes, I see, fair enough.
Perhaps an audience brought up in a culture where this has become a staple diet, with thousands of comedians populating Jongleurs clubs in towns across Britain, accept it, like it and genuinely enjoy it in the same way that children of the 70's liked Showaddywaddy (like I did) and didn't make any differentiation between them and Eddie Cochran. And why should they, it's the fact that they enjoy it that is important. But one day someone is going to turn up - well, I just have in fact- and point out that it is no good anymore. The proliferation of so many performers inevitably means that they can't all be good, some must be humdrum, and if Radio 4 are picking the best to satisfy their middle class, middle-aged listeners then this is an art form, a genre that has run itself into a redundant pastiche of what it thinks it still is.
One startling exception was a firther series of the Mitchell & Webb Sound at the back end of last year. Four programmes of good stuff, the highlight of which was the doorbell shop followed by the cash register shop. Not 'stand up', no, but masterpieces of the sketch form. That is the way to do it.
David Green
- David Green (Books) is the imprint under which I published booklets of my own poems. The original allocation of ISBN numbers is used up now, though. The 'Collected Poems' are now available as a pdf. The website is now what it has become, often more about music than books and not so often about poems. It will be about whatever suggests itself.
