I Drink Magners

It is interesting, to me, that the Chortle-located shitstorm about the apparent selling out of Mark Watson comes so soon after I awkwardly attempted to express my feeling that it is difficult to compare comedians to each other, since there is no strictly defined idea of what a ‘comedian’ is. My exact words were:

“The problem with these arguments is that there are no clearly defined grounds of what a ‘comedian’ is and does, therefore arguing that one comedian is ‘better’ than another is always going to be a completely subjective process”.

The recent article by David Jesudason offers a very different view of a comedian, claiming that:

“The role of the comedian is to highlight the ills of our society and not be scared to say things that other people are afraid of highlighting.”

The rebuttal I would give to this is already redundant, as it has already been made by Carl Donnelly, who says in his direct reply to David Jesudason:

“The role of a comedian is to make people laugh.”

I think anyone would be hard pressed to argue against that statement, but this simple fact is often overlooked in the light of your personal preference of comedy style. Regardless of what topics, themes or styles are ‘the best’ in comedy, the first port of call is to make it funny, and not, as David Jesudason suggests: ‘to highlight the ills of our society’.

It is quite an odd feeling to be advocating this, as I believe the comedians I favour tend to, in my opinion, ‘highlight the ills of our society’, or moreover to, in some way, examine the human condition. Despite saying this, it is only my own opinion which informs me that this is, in fact, what these particular comedians are doing, and different ears hearing the same material might disagree completely. Despite my enjoyment of what I have heard described as ‘comedy-as-art’, I am also fond of comedy for comedy’s sake, and why not? Laughing is still laughing even if there isn’t a hard-hitting point being made. In terms of actual laughter caused (referred to hereafter as ALC), the most successful radio comedy I have heard is Another Case of Milton Jones, which is a wonderfully crafted jaunt through a ridiculously skewed story, based on the waver thin conceit of a plotline, knitting together a string of garlic puns. No holding a mirror up to society here, just jokes. Which were what I wanted, of course, since I had wilfully tuned in with foreknowledge of Milton Jones’ style.

In a far more recent example, I went to see Chris Corcoran’s Committee Meeting in the Muni just yesterday. The show is a cheeky character double-act, with Corky taking the role of Chairman of a Labour Club, ably helped by veteran caretaker and all-around handyman Rex. This particular outing involved a surprise birthday party for Rex, which led to a “This is Your Life” pastiche charting Rex’s unexpectedly colourful history. The night featured claims that Rex once stood in for a poorly Brian May, wrote health and safety speeches for Martin Luther King (which were overlooked in favour of ad-libbing something about a dream) and also highlighting Rex’s time in the Soviet Union. A little unusual, and far more than a little funny, the life and times of such a traditional ‘no-bother’ aged Welsh caretaker were a joy to experience. Also featuring were the Raymond and Mr Timpkins Revue, who play unbelievably heavily on misheard song lyrics expressed through props, who seemed to do the joke to death, only to have the joke resussitated under the weight of the fact that they dared to stretch the joke that long.

Pointless, and hilarious. Glorious

Further apologies for the poorly written nature of this entry, I was rushing and stressed, I will revisit this eventually as there are interesting points I want to make more clearly.