June 7 , 1997
SECTION: THE GUARDIAN FEATURES PAGE; Pg. 6
WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?
Things looked grim for political humour even before Labour got in. But since the election? We asked stand-up comic Ivor Dembina (left) and Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell if they still have a job to do
BYLINE: Ivor Dembina
LENGTH: 2667 words
My first live gig after the election. At the start I ask the audience if they're pleased about the result. There is general cheering, but one man boos: Me: What's up mate? Him: What? Me: Why are you booing Labour? Him: I'm not. I'm booing you.
You don't have to be a Marxist to appreciate that comedy in Britain has been appropriated by the Blairite middle class, which in personnel terms doesn't seem to differ greatly from the Majorite one that preceded it. Like soccer and snooker, comedy's commercial possibilities have been realised by those sharp enough to line up sponsorship to cover their costs, and television contracts to guarantee them their profits.
The only thing that needs careful control is the product itself. Like a well -marketed hamburger, the recipe for comedy is dictated not by the largest number of consumers it will appeal to, but by the largest number it will not offend.
For the past 20 years, 'debate' about comedy has been funnelled into a spurious discussion about Bernard Manning and his ilk. The point about Manning is that he knows the game and has formed a career based on his own notoriety. He makes a good living by dwelling upon working-class anxieties, expressed through racism and sexism - but any comedian who taps into proletarian anger rather than fear soon disappears.
This has been the fate of the two finest stand-ups of the last 10 years, Gerry Sadowitz and Ian Cognito. In their time they have unleashed more political anger on stage than anyone else on the circuit. They both drove a horse and cart through the years of political correctness in a vital, vitriolic and funny way. Sadowitz used to set up an imaginary confrontation between himself and a Tory canvasser: Canvasser (trying to be reasonable): 'It's all very well wanting better schools, more hospitals, better social security and so on, but where will the money come from?' Sadowitz (pointing finger): 'From you, you bastard, from you.' Cognito, on the other hand, was more memorable for his fierceness on stage. He was actually scary. The only person I have ever met who made bullying a virtue, his comedy had the audience cowering. A typical Cognito line: 'I use the word 'cunt' because its time you women stopped using our swear words to describe your private parts.' These two, refusing to be either banal or derivative, gobsmacked the audience with their fusion of personal and political rage. Excluded from TV under the pretext that they swore too much, Sadowitz and Cognito were like Sinn Fein MPs: they wouldn't take the oath, so facilities were denied. Today's comics prefer expediency, the Tony Banks approach, embracing the oath with fingers crossed in order to make a living.
But there came a point, as Sadowitz told Cognito, where they couldn't go on being angry any more. Last I heard, Sadowitz is concentrating on his magic show and Cognito no longer performs at all.
Instead, then, we have comedy megastars like David Baddiel and Jack Dee. Jack returned to the West End of London recently with the soft press to which he is accustomed: he is allowed easily to deflect questions about his former drink problem - which is surprising, perhaps, when he spends so much of his time selling beer to others. Comedy should attack hypocrisy, not promote it.
The poster for his West End show has Jack going for the 'moody, peering down at the floor, can't see his face' look. His manager and promoter is Addison Cresswell, who represents the Barry Hearn school of comedy ('I let my boys do the business up there while I do the business down here'), and Addison is very good at posters: his logos and associations alone chart the journey of modern comedy away from its political roots and towards the corporate sponsorship deal. In the 1980s Addison was associated with Red Wedge; in the early 1990s it was Holsten Pils. Jack's current show is triple-logoed: by Paramount Comedy Channel, Vision Video Ltd and Stoll Moss Theatres. No wonder we can't see Jack's face: there isn't room for it.
It seems that, to survive in this business, the comedian has to accept that the meaning of funniness is dictated by others, and must 'go on board' commercially.
Going on board means entering a conspiracy of silence with the media. The agreement is, 'We don't care what you believe in provided you'll come on the show.' It's not just the spectacular instance of Have I Got News For You playing host to the Tory crook Neil Hamilton. Apparently the Sun once had the 'great idea' of its TV critic Garry Bushell publicly interviewing his then-favourite target Jo Brand - a comic whom he'd previously described as 'a hideous old boiler' - all for the 'fun' of Comic Relief. To her credit, Jo refused. But the temptation to share a sofa with any jerk who will offer it is ever present.
The comedians who are most successful are the ones who embrace the commercial world best. David Baddiel wrote in the Independent recently about the unexpected death of a close friend. It was a sensitive, almost moving piece of writing, and as I read it I was thinking I should revise my opinion of Baddiel as a career opportunist. Until, that is, I read at the article's conclusion: 'David Baddiel takes his first solo stand-up show on a two-month national tour starting in Southend on April 10 . . .' I imagine that plugging his show was probably an afterthought, but the effect was that of someone giving out their business cards at a funeral.
The problem for us liberal comedians is how to handle our guilt. Yet, fortunately, there is a mechanism that allows us to dip our toes into the political paddling pool: the benefit show. Politics as charity.
You can dip the toe in, but remain politically wet all over. During the arrangements for a benefit for the Merseyside dockers one comic said to me: 'I'm quite happy to support these people, Ivor, but I do wish they'd stop calling me Comrade.' The other attraction of the benefit show is that it can do good things for your career, and often the least important thing is the worthiness of the cause. One comic (I swear I can't remember who) told me that they were determined to get in on 'that Nicaragua benefit' because they'd always cared a lot about Africa .
I was invited to show my support for the Merseyside dockers benefit by attending the press launch in London . In the chair was Lee Hurst, flanked by a couple of dockers. The show was planned for the London Palladium and was to be televised nationally. There was an impressive turnout of photographers, and the less-famous comics would tactfully step out of the path of the cameras so the better known ones could be photographed.
During the short speeches from the dockers, the younger comics became a little uncomfortable as words like 'scab' and 'shop steward' were bandied about like a language from a bygone age. But the prospect for the younger contingent of appearing at the Palladium with the whole thing getting national television coverage wasn't to be sniffed at. The meeting was the church service you sit through as the price for going on the Sunday School outing.
Against my name in the signing-in book I had put the words 'career move'. I then managed to annoy Lee by asking the press to identify themselves, because I felt it would be a good idea if the meeting knew if there were journalists present who might be hostile to the dockers' cause. 'They are the ones with the cameras, Ivor,' said Lee. But I persisted and, although Lee continued to put me down, it became clear that despite the bevy of cameras there were hardly any representatives of national newspapers and TV there.
A few seats away, Mark Borkowski, the public relations guru handling the benefit, snapped at me, 'There are loads of press here', and I began to wonder what I had done wrong. Then I figured it out. It was embarrassing for Borkowski that in spite of the flashy photocall there was an absence of heavyweight journalists. He had after all, we've been told, joined the revolutionary struggle for 'expenses only'.
Still, they shut me up and the meeting moved on.
Instead, I got a few comics together and raised the funding to take us up to Merseyside and perform in the area to people unable to afford a Palladium ticket. Raising money and profile is one thing, I thought, but trying to build political support in Liverpool might be even more useful.
But there has been no active response from the dockers. Maybe they don't want any smart-arsed comedians coming up from London - or maybe, in their way, they've been taken 'on board' as well.
So where, now, do you go to see political comedy? To London 's Comedy Store - where modern comedy was born in the seventies - to its weekly flagship political show, Cutting Edge, perhaps? I went to see the first show after the election. A team of six comics joked about the sexual peccadilloes of politicians, and swore at an audience apparently inoculated against mediocrity. In the pub afterwards, the team agreed it wasn't the best of performances, but congratulated each other on the way they pulled it round - by five of them riffing on the theme of having sex with the sixth's mother.
It was a polished performance. The bland jokes, professionally delivered, brought home plenty of laughs. But there was no radicalism, no heart, no sense of connectivity with the audience - no politics. Then, a little later, one of the team bought me a pint and told me he felt the show was his 'spiritual home'.
Have you ever laughed out loud inside? We are witnessing one of the great missed cultural opportunities of all time. The comedy club is one of the few places where an artist can communicate directly with a couple of hundred people. There are a few good comics out there - Andy Linden, desperately trying to expurgate his working class discomfort on stage; Al Murray with his brilliant, oafish 'The Pub Landlord'; and, best of all, Simon Munnery, whose new creation 'League Against Tedium' lampoons the absurdity of middle-class arrogance.
But look at the majority of the stuff: an endless stream of 'where my wife and I live they don't allow dogs so we've decided to have a child instead' jokes. Form before content. Head before heart.
Everywhere now, it seems, there are no comedians, there are just people doing comedy. The Cutting Edge team and the rest of us are having to adapt to the rules of New Labour. You don't have to be funny, as long as you're not political.
(Ends)