Rob Gilroy: Making A Stand #43

After last week’s love-in, I’ve decided to try a more aggressive approach. If you don’t like that, tough! Deal with it bozo!

Alternatively, feel free to avoid the column this week, and normal service should resume next time. Thank you, kindly.

Right, that’s the admin out of the way; it’s time for me to kick off! (In a gentle yet firm manner.) The thing I’m getting all angry about is hack material.

I’m not talking shoddy chiffon or tacky tartan, I’m referring to material or comic styles that others deem to be ‘not proper stand-up’.

My problem isn’t with the material itself, whatever form that takes, but with the constant reaffirmation of what constitutes ‘hack’.

Everything about this approach to comedy angers me. Even the word ‘hack’ is a horrible word. Like cack but more devious.

To be more specific, I’ve had a couple of people telling me recently that using a guitar on stage is classed as ‘cheating’.

They’ve suggested that, unlike comics who stand there telling jokes, the very nature of having a guitar means I’m going to succeed in front of an audience.

They believe that my barely-grasped three chords are somehow a social lubricant that enables audiences to laugh, despite the below-par nature of my material.

Of course the people who have said this to me are not slagging me off – far from it. It is not their thoughts they are voicing, they are simply telling me what ‘others’ on the circuit think of guitar-based acts. How nice of them.

I much prefer bile when it’s packaged in layers of passive aggressive support – it’s the one true Valentines present.

So from this we must assume that Boothby Graffoe is hack. As are Flight of the Conchords, Rich Hall, Monty Python, Flanders and Swan, The Goons, The Goodies, Laurel and Hardy… the list goes on.

Now, I don’t see myself as a myth-debunker – a Jon Ronson or Donal McIntyre (before he took up ‘spandex wearing’ as a career) – yet I can firmly say, with my hand on my fret board, that this notion of guitar-based comedy being ‘cheating’ is, and I believe this is the technical term, utter bollocks.

At what point is using a guitar on stage making things easier for yourself? It must be the way I knock out funny, concise and catchy songs that resonate with people, on a whim.

If it is cheating then writing these songs should be a damn sight easier than it is. I don’t put in all that time and effort, writing songs then rewriting constantly to be told it’s essentially emotional manipulation.

Yes, when a song finishes people feel compelled to clap, but if the song is shit, then believe me, they are a lot less compelled than you may think.

Two things really wind me up about this.

Firstly – there is no retort. You have two options when someone raises this ‘concern’ with you. One: you think, “oh well, guess I better stop doing it then, if it’s hack” meaning that you abandon the thing you love because someone else doesn’t agree with it.

On the flip side you can think; “I’ll show them how funny a (insert marginalised act style) comedian can be” and then proceed to be brilliant. The problem with this is; it simply fuels their argument more.

The only real way to prove that you’re not ‘cheating’ is to go out there and die on your arse every night, but to me that seems a bit counter-intuitive.

The second thing is; a lot of the people who criticise so-called hack styles are just as quick to adopt them for a cheap laugh whenever possible.

I once spoke to a comedian about musical comedy who between waxing lyrical about Nick Helm and Tom Basden, proceeded to tell me how hack comedy songs were, cheap, easy laughs.

They then proceeded to play me a self-penned ‘hack’ song on my (MY!?) guitar. They then told me they were thinking of introducing it into their act.

I should have pepper sprayed them then and there. If you’re going to attempt a different type of comedy, have the bloody decency to treat it with some degree of respect.

And before this seems like me whinging that someone didn’t like my act, this goes beyond musical comedy. If we actually stop and list the things I’ve heard being derided as ‘cheating’ it would pretty much make up a ‘Top 100 Styles of Comedy’ show.

Let’s break it down; so far we know that musical comedy is cheating – that’s a given – but add to that; character comedy (not an honest form), prop comedy (trying anything), magic (it’s all trickery), poetry (not straight stand up), sketch comedy (not comedy at its purest though, is it?), observational material (just pointing stuff out), nostalgic material (just remembering stuff), political material (a bit preachy), physical comedy (trying too hard), one liner comedy (too bitty), near the knuckle comedy (shock factor), awkward comedy (too awkward), using stereotypes, being posh, being common, being laddish, being a woman, being young, being old, being black, being white or descending from Smurfs. I think that’s everything.

Basically, this only leaves us comedians with the simple – stand there and say funny things. That obviously depends on what subjects you talk about, though. They could be hack.

Airports, holidays, self-service checkouts, being a parent, being single, men vs women, women vs men, man vs food and periods – all come under the banner of hack. It’s a handy catchall phrase, leaving no wiggle room to even attempt something new.

When you really look at it; everything is classed as ‘hack’ and surely for comedy, that can’t be a good thing?

In a world where postmodernism rules and Batman is being rebooted mere seconds after he was last booted, nothing is new. No ideas, subjects or themes are original. They’ve all been covered a million times over.

Surely instead of belittling different types of creativity, we should be supporting anyone who is trying to put their own stamp on it, which is all of us.

Comedy is not an exclusive club, despite what a lot of people think. Comedy is for everyone.

Not everyone will like comedy and not all comedy will appeal to everyone, but the fact of the matter is – comedy is about making people laugh. All people.

No one hands you a rule book and a list of ‘don’t’s when you sign up; you have to make it up as you go along. You take what you find funny and share it with others and, hopefully, they’ll agree with you.

There should really only be two rules – is it deliberately hurtful? Is it funny? If you can answer those questions correctly (‘no’ and ‘yes’ if you were wondering) then that’s all you need.

As with all comedy – it’s the approach you take to the subject matter. If everything can be hack, then everything can also not be hack. Schrodinger’s hack, if you will?

So can we please stop referring to things as ‘hack’? It’s an ugly and unattractive side to comedy; that goes against everything it stands for. Remember – hack is cack. Hey, that’d make a great song…

Rob can be seen next peddling his brand of cheap audience manipulation (like a musical Hitler) at numerous places over the next few months. You wouldn’t like it though.