Rob Gilroy: Making A Stand #7
WARNING: The following article contains sensitive details that have been drastically changed to protect the stupid. What follows will be almost true, but nevertheless frustrating. Those characters involved will not be fictitious; though you may wish they were.
Before I tell you what I want to tell you, I must stress: I am not prone to bitchyness. It’s not my forte. Don’t get me wrong; if someone walks past me wearing orange dungarees I will probably snort loudly and make some sort of snide comment about The Waltons being Tangoed – but that’s not being bitchy, that’s just good fashion sense. When I say bitchy I mean deliberately spreading gossip about another comedian. I don’t do it. It’s not on. In much the same way that Edward Norton isn’t constantly bragging to his mates about this club where he beats himself up; I don’t laugh at my fellow colleagues behind their back. (Well, except for Edgar Slime: the Backwards Mime – that’s really the only way to enjoy his act.) I don’t indulge in idle gossip. If someone has a cocaine and Nutella addiction that’s causing them horrendous gout (naming no names) then I won’t share it with anyone. I keep their chocolate spread and coke-induced cramps to myself. I’m trustworthy like that. Nothing I hear or see goes beyond the walls of my own head. Not even Leo DiCaprio and his spinning top could hustle them out of me in my sleep (though he’s more than welcome to try). I am as tightly packed as a pair of hot pants at a clinically obese beach party.
THAT SAID; I am going to tell you something I overheard another ‘comic’ say the other day.
Do you see what I did there? I put the word ‘comic’ in inverted commas. A bit like I did just then, only that was to emphasise the fact that the word ‘comic’ was being talked about and not used. I did it again just there too. Oh, this grammar lark; it’s a bugger, innit? Anyway; I put the word ‘comic’ in inverted commas; not as a facetious dig at this person’s inability to be funny on stage, but because what I am about to tell you suggests he has little respect for comedy and so I have therefore decided to award him very little respect as a ‘comic’. Or should that just be comic?
Anyhoo; I was at a gig (I can’t say where for security reasons) when I overheard this moron in a novelty T-shirt talking to another comic (notice the lack of commas). I won’t divulge their identities because it’s unfair to name and shame them and also, in a moment of sheer rudeness, I forgot who they were. Nevertheless the first ‘comic’ was talking about how he got started in stand up – that’s fair enough; we’ve all been there, we all have stories about how we got started, if we didn’t then we wouldn’t have started – he explained that he and his student mates went to a comedy night. An act was on, performing to the crowd; this despicable chunk of stuff went on to brag about how unfunny this guy was. Fine. Bit disrespectful, but fine. Not every one can be an Eric Morcambe or a Nick Hewer. During this unfortunate fellow’s performance the ‘gimp who shall not be named’ whispered a bitchy comment about the act to his chums. This provoked a slight chuckle amongst his admittedly biased audience. Now most of us would have been fine with that – you’re not enjoying the entertainment so you try make your friends laugh, end of story. But it wasn’t the end of the story for our little turnip. This sly little comment had achieved such an uproar of hilarity from his pals, despite being dreadful (I know this because he repeated it first hand, and paused for laughter which never came) that it led him to one conclusion. He said, and I quote; “If I could make my mates laugh with one joke then this comedy-lark can’t be that difficult.”
You hear that? That’s the sound of my brain bleeding.
“Can’t be that difficult?” “Can’t be that difficult?!” “CAN’T BE THAT DIFFICULT!?” Who the hell does he think he is?! Now, I’m not for a second trying to compare comedy to open heart surgery but – you know what? Comedy is like open heart surgery. As a comic you hold an audiences attention in the palm of your hand, if you so much as falter on a single word, or joke, you could lose them and more often than not it can be next to impossible to get them back. Each joke, each syllable has to be pin-point accurate to achieve the desired effect. You need as much help as you can get – for heart surgeons; it’s those other people in blue gowns and Michael Jackson masks that say things like “Jeff, we’re losing him!” For a comedian; it’s the compere, the other acts on the bill, the sound and lighting person – all these people help to make the audience feel safe and comfortable and ready to laugh. And another reason why comedy is like open heart surgery – people die! OK, so nobody literally dies in comedy, if they do then more often than not it isn’t down to the strength of material but some deeper underlying health issues. But people can still die and it’s the comedians that die. Open heart surgeons don’t die when operating, do they? Again, if they do then that’s the result of other issues, but still; open heart surgeons don’t put their own dignity to the test in quite the same way as a comedian.
I’m fuming. This whole thing happened over a week a go now, and I still can’t quite calm down. I know it may seem silly or an overreaction but the thing is: I bloody love comedy. I love watching it, I love writing it and I most certainly love performing it and if there’s one thing I’m certain of it’s that it isn’t easy by any standards. You may have a good idea what works and what doesn’t, you may have a staggeringly high hit rate when it comes to jokes, you may even have made enough money through comedy to be able to tile the bathroom in your Winnebago but the second you think comedy is easy; the second you cease to be funny.
PS: As a side note, his orange dungarees were hideous. Like a Walton being Tangoed. Ooh, get me – what a bitch!
