Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about comedy. Not just in the practical sense of “What am I going to do tonight and will the audience be smashed?” but also in the “What’s it all about?” sense. I’ve always (and hopefully always will, however jaded I become) thought of comedy as one of the arts, alongside music, theatre, painting, sculpture…etc.
This throws some people as you frequently hear that “It’s just there to make people laugh”. I think that’s about as true as saying food is “just something to fill you up” and alcoholic drinks are “just something to get you pissed”. To my mind, making people laugh is the first step of comedy, not necessarily the last one. The intention to generate laughter indicates the medium that you’re performing in, but beyond that comedy can do the same as music or theatre. It can inform, it can provoke, it can offend, it can relax…it can do any of these things and still be comedy.
Comedy, like the other arts, can be used purely for entertainment purposes. This is often solely how it’s viewed by audiences – which is fair enough as they usually only have a casual interest in it and they’re not practitioners of it. I always find it more troubling when I hear comedians referring to it in that way though. Not because I look down on that one part of it – just that I see it as only part of a bigger picture that they’re missing the rest of.
Throughout the ages, comedy has been used to engage the mind as well as to numb it. It’s been used proactively as well as reactively. When China’s emperor wanted to build a 2nd Great Wall, one which like the previous one would have had a huge cost both in terms of finance and human life, his advisors were too scared of execution to attempt to dissuade him. The only person able to have the ear of the emperor and manipulate the message into an acceptable form was his jester. Lives were saved by a comedian.
At this point, it’s important to state that just because I’m aware of the broad spectrum of comedy’s form and application, it doesn’t mean that I make use of it all. Put me in front of a room full of drunks who want nothing more than to hear about shit their mate’s jumper is and I will make a dead-eyed attempt to pander to that just to get through the whole hellish experience relatively unscathed and allow me to put Felix in the bowl for the cat. In fact, put me in front of a room of engaged comedy-literate satire aficionados and I’ll probably do the same thing as I’ve pretty much forgotten how to do anything else.
Anyway, this isn’t about me.
Well, I say that.
There is a quote from Anais NIn that says, “We don’t see things as they are, but as we are.”*
I think that applies pretty well to comedians (so to myself included). People will explain comedy through the terms in which they themselves express it. Hence those who take an artistic approach may explain it in those terms and may look down on those who seek primarily to be entertainers, and vice versa. I’m conscious of that in-built prejudice, so I’m trying to put forward an argument stressing the breadth of comedy and there being room for all forms and all intents.
What I do still struggle with though is the view that all laughs are of equal merit. I remember a comedian once telling me that they felt there was no such thing as a bad audience. I asked if they felt there was such a thing as a good audience? They said they did. Once you’ve established a scale with some at the top…then there have to be others below. People have a desire to avoid being perceived as ‘negative’, but an inability to or unwillingness to differentiate quality means that you’re actually doing down anything of higher quality by refusing to acknowledge it as such.
I know, that was w*nky right?
Let me put it this way.
Two different comedians get two laughs of the same volume. One comedian is using a stolen old joke…the other is using a piece of original material.
To me that’s not a “Pound of feathers / Pound of lead” situation. However, I have already said that comedians see comedy as they are not as it really is…so working as a comedy writer as well as a stand-up gives me a fairly acute sense of intellectual property and probably skews my view. You decide.
Context is another important thing in comedy. Roy Chubby Brown, Doug Stanhope, Mark Thomas, Michael McIntyre, Tim Vine…all successful comedians. Put them in front of each other’s audiences and the reactions will change (not necessarily to the point of dying, people still have a level of skill). The fact is though, that by doing ‘what they do’, they’ve developed an audience for themselves.
When comedy is viewed purely as ‘entertainment’, the emphasis is on the comedian to entertain the audience. The thought of what that audience wants is expected to be of primary concern. This is at odds with say, paying to get into a gallery. You’re not paying to like the stuff you see there…you’re paying to have the chance to like it. Or dislike it. Or love it. Or hate it. Or not be arsed. Word of mouth, reviews, publicity etc spread things and will end up attracting the right audience for that particular exhibition.
The danger is that if you only view comedy as a form of entertainment then that doesn’t happen, comedians never find that audience for them. Because they’re too busy being the comedian for the audience that’s in front of them. It’s expressing this viewpoint that again puts a comedian at risk of sounding snobbish or dismissive of an audience.
If that’s how you read that, then consider this -
Q: Should a comedian’s prime concern be to entertain the audience that’s in front of him, being aware of their sensitivities and not seeking to challenge them?
A: Yes
You answered, A: Yes. You’ve just said that a comedian unexpectedly book to play a Neo-Nazi rally should take into account the sensitivities of his audience and do whatever he can to entertain them based on what he expects to go down best with them.
How do you sleep at nights?
Yes, of course I’m exaggerating to highlight the point. I just mean that there aren’t simple black and white answers to what comedians should or shouldn’t do.
From my own (skewed and biased) perspective, if you only give an audience what you know they already want, it’s like only giving your kids fish fingers. You don’t learn anything more about how to use other styles and future generations develop narrow instead of broad tastes. However, there’s nothing wrong with fish fingers as part of a healthy balanced diet in which a broad range of other options are also available…
Comedy. It’s quite big. Room for all of us.
Teddy x
* The missus says it’s actually Immanuel Kant. Further googling throws up Nin, Kant, or the Jewish Talmud. Whatever. It’s a good quote.

