Rob Gilroy: Honesty seems to be the hardest word…
This week’s been quite a big week for me. I say me, I should probably include my girlfriend in this. After all, it is partly her doing. This week we got the keys to our brand new house, it is our first step on the property ladder and I’ll tell you what; this rung feels good.
I should say, in the interest of full disclosure, that I haven’t actually collected the keys to the house yet. Due to one thing and another, I am writing this column a whole week before it is put online, meaning I won’t actually get the keys till next Monday. Yet it seems odd not to address such a momentous event in my life, therefore I am proactively writing about experiences I haven’t experienced yet. I just hope it goes as smoothly as it sounds.
The reason I mention this is because I don’t want Giggle Beats getting tarred with the same brush as Rupert Murdoch and his cronies. There is no deception going on here my friends. No voicemail accounts were hacked for the simple reason that I can’t even access my own messages, let alone those of Steve Coogan’s nearest and dearest.
Nope, I’m not pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes, nor am I doing a Blue Peter and doping kids up on sugar and claiming that they’ve collected the most milk bottle tops. No, I am standing by my honesty and waving it like some sort of cotton strip attached to a flag pole.
Yet, the more I think of it, the more I realise my shoddily made cloth-waving-thing may be as false as the lies sprouted by newspaper barons and those that recycle washing up liquid bottles.
This column I write – how often do I tell the truth? Am I laying my life out for people – cutting myself and letting the blood fill the page? No, for a start it wouldn’t be compatible with an HP laptop. But it is an interesting topic; I take experiences from my life but are they the truth? Do they reveal the real me, like an OK Magazine shoot of the soul?
The honest answer (see I can be truthful) is that I don’t know. This was always one of the problems plaguing my stand-up. What was I trying to say? Was there any truth behind the jokes? A big thing that’s often made about stand-up comedy, and comedy in general, is that it bellies a great realisation that we all share, even if it is told through tit jokes and nob gags.
But in and amongst all my tits and nobs, is there truth? It’s something I mulled over a lot as I was performing and I never really got to the bottom of it. Initially I wasn’t performing with a message; the only reason I had was – I wanted to be funny.
There can be a pressure to feel like your comedy has to be more than just funny. It has to have a point, it has to have bite, it has to have something to makes it more than jokes. But why? The reason I make people laugh is because there’s nothing better than it. It’s not to raise awareness for the plight of the Equatorial Dingo, or to push back against oppressive politician’s faces. Those things are great, and we should have more comedians wanting to do that, but it’s not for me. I can’t help but feel I would only add to the problems in Gaza if I waded in with a few jokes.
As I developed my act some truths did start to seep into the set, but they weren’t so much honest declarations of self, but little bits of mundanity. So while I never nailed myself to the side of a political debating fence, I would talk about dishwasher tablets and waiting to see an advisor at the bank. I’m nothing if not cutting edge.
Even when I stopped doing character comedy and started performing as myself, it wasn’t really about being more honest, it was about finding the best outlet for the types of jokes I wanted to make – sometimes discussing the merits of Sting’s songs works better when you’re not wearing a hat. While I used a few parts of my life as starting points for jokes, the punch lines would seldom have anything to do with reality. I wasn’t what you’d call a surreal comedian; I just wasn’t interested in cross-examining myself. Ooh, pardon!
You know who I blame, don’t you? Lenny Bruce. Lenny, with his crusading honesty and brutal depictions of life, made it hard for the little men (me) to stand there talking about the narrative arc of 27 Dresses, without it seeming worthless. Well you know what Len? You can stick your truth up your arse!
And if you think I’m just another one of your oppressors then come over here and say that to me! And you Bill Hicks, with your cancer and your cigarettes, what’s wrong with a bit of slapstick or a double take? You may think you’re the messiah of comedy but if you can’t pull off a funny French accent or fall off a chair backwards, then you offer me nothing of worth.
The thing I’ve come to realise is: I am honest. I do write what’s true about me. It might not be statistically correct, it might not be particularly accurate, and more often than not it isn’t directly about me, but the way I choose to be funny says more about me than an hour long one-man show called Me and My Bits: A Show About Rob ever could. I try hard with everything I do and I hope that, even if it is willies and boobies, it’s still me.
And as I start my new life with my girlfriend, in our new house – and as my stand-up duties finally subside, I’ll work hard to make sure I keep being me, whoever that is.
