So you think you're funny?
Feature (Crackin' Magazine)
I think it was verbose, lacy-cuffed fop Oscar Wilde who was once famously overheard to say, “What do you MEAN I’m going to JAIL!?!” On a previous occasion, though, he’d also touted that “Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing.” Even annoyingly knowing aphorisms can be true, one good case in point being the current showcase heats of the annual stand-up comedy competition ‘So You Think You’re Funny?’, the oldest and most influential outlet for new talent since Moses took the all-Israel “So You Think You Can Part Seas?” title.
Lurking with intent along the bar in the top small comedy venue The Amused Moose in London’strendysoho™, the gaggle (or whatever the collective noun is for a group of unknown stand-up comics) of hopefuls prepare, some of them for the first time, to launch themselves headlong into the comedy firmament. Swanky Edinburgh finals and a life of showbiz excess beckon for those that progress, but it’s not all lighting fat cigars with rolled-up Radio Four commissions and as many groupies as you can snort. Fame costs. And here’s where you start paying. In sweat. Though not as much as you’d think, thanks to the fully-functional air-conditioning.
The competition is the brainchild of Gilded Balloon founder and impresario Karen Koren, who launched it 1988. The list of winners is quite literally written on this press release here in front of me, and includes the likes of Dylan Moran, Peter Kay, Rhona Cameron, Tommy Tiernan, Phil Kay and Lee Mack. A shifty glance down the ‘close but no Cohiba rolled on thighs of dusky maidens’ list also throws up Ardal O'Hanlon, Johnny Vegas, Ed Byrne and Dominic Holland, proving that even just getting to the final isn’t exactly small beans.
Christian Knowles of Channel Four is the man responsible for shepherding the neophyte flock and, more to the point, making sure no-one worries the sheep. A successful comedy promoter in his own right, he’s keen to see that the fresh-faced hopefuls are given a fighting chance, and that their first stand-up experiences aren’t going to result in an avalanche of shouty drunken abuse and competitors spending the rest of their waking lives indoors rocking back and forth in the foetal position. “The kinds of venues and also the nights we choose are selected purposely to give everyone a fair chance. We avoid the stag and hen nights and the Friday and Saturday night crowds – that way we can focus solely on the stand-up aspect.”
This is also the reason that none of the showcases, nor even the finals at the Edinburgh Festival are filmed, despite Channel Four’s sponsorship. “We don’t run the shows on television because the people competing have only been doing this for twelve months or so,” says Christian. “The last thing they need at that stage in their careers is to go out on TV and then have Gary Bushell ripping into them in the national press.” You can see his point, though being savaged by Gary Bushell is probably a fair marker that you’re headed in the right direction.
The comedy safe house approach is reinforced on this particular night by compere Mickey Flannagan, who discourages have-a-go hecklers. “It would be like smacking small children,” he announces to the crowd, “But if they start showing off…well…fuck ‘em.” Mickey is also a SYTYF? alumnus. “Oh yes, lots of the greats have come up through this competition,” he confirms. “Except W C Fields.”
You’d perhaps expect the show-off quotient to be fairly high – perhaps the kind of flash, jammy chancers that have hitherto enjoyed limited notoriety as “the office joker” with their ‘hilarious’ Ali G impressions at the water cooler and who show an impressive capacity for repeating popular catchphrases of the day to impress Louisa from Marketing that time at the work’s party, and all you could do was stand there staring at your warm can of Red Stripe as she succumbed to his greasy charms, suddenly filled with nauseating self-disgust that all it took to win her over was a derisory “Suits you sir” and, er, anyway... maybe that was just me.
In any case, it’s a much more diverse bunch of punters – a Channel Four TV Presenter (surely flouting the eligibility rules?), a strung out French mod looking for all the world like a Gallic Robert McCrumb cartoon, and what appears to be a low-ranking mafia goon annoying the barmaid with his errant cigar smoke. But impressively, there’s nary a whiff of nerves. Contenders, as they say, ready!
Last year’s king of the castle was Miles Jupp, whose success initiated many a column inch making physical comparisons between him and Stephen Fry or Martin Clunes and any other number of shambling posh-os. Thankfully, though, most people also mentioned the fact that his act, in the guise of endearing toff Rupert Donaldson, was quite good, too.
He says he initially entered “because someone told me to”, but the feeling of it being just another open mic spot changed completely once he was selected for the Edinburgh finals. “I’d been around the fringe before, but the SYTYF? gigs had an amazing atmosphere as well as guaranteed crowds, which is important.”
Jupp came through a regional showcase in Newcastle (“It was my best gig of the whole competition”) before being chosen to return to Edinburgh, where he was still a student. Coincidence? Or something more…sinister? Um, coincidence, apparently. “The finals were held in the hall where we used to have our cheesy discos and exams. I’d set myself the target of making the final, and even with people like Graham Norton hosting and Steve Coogan judging, which is quite nerve-wracking, it’s a real comedy crowd, and not brimming with cynicism or anything so you can just go out and enjoy it.”
“The finals were great because you get to meet people that you haven’t seen for ages and catch up, even though you’re competing against them. I already knew quite a few of the people I was up against like Alan Carr and Michael Downey, and also Inder Manocha, who, incidentally, my mum thought should have won.” Flying in the face of unabashed maternal disappointment, Jupp stormed to a victory that, for reasons best know to himself, he dedicated to dour cricketing Lancastrian Michael Atherton.
Although on winning, the exposure and prestige were fairly immediate, Jupp decamped to France (“Basically I just didn’t want to end up having to go on the Big Breakfast.”). Surely his recognition factor had been upped considerably by the time he returned? “Yeah. Mostly with drunks and weirdos. The sort of people that just want to rant at you for five minutes about double yellow lines. They recognise you a LOT.”
Miles has since enjoyed lashings of piping hot TV and radio exposure, with stints on Does Doug Know and You Must Be Joking for Channel Four. He’s also appearing in an upcoming children’s series for the BBC, as a “kind of mad inventor who makes toys out of loo roll.”
And with that Big Breakfast appearance successfully sidestepped, he must be feeling pretty pleased with himself? “I only had a couple of ambitions starting out. One was just to be able to make a living out of writing and performing comedy because it’s such a great opportunity to talk about whatever you want.” And the other? “To say something memorable or funny in an interview.”
Back at the showcase, Seven minutes is proving to be a long time in stand-up comedy. Still-burgeoning reputations are being made, lost and absent-mindedly forgotten with each pronouncement of famous first words, redeeming ad-libs and unprovoked admissions of homosexuality (contestant’s identity tantalisingly withheld).
Stand-up comedy is obviously one of the bravest things you can do outside of a marriage proposal to Vanessa Feltz, and personally I’d rather knit a balaclava out of my own arterial passageways than attempt to make a small crowd of people laugh. But betwixt the unnerving giant baby heads of the SYTYF? logos, there’s a full gamut of tactics being run, from the tried and all-too tested “Don’t you just hate it when…” to stream-of-consciousness social satire set to the rhythmical structure of Copocabana.
One contestant ends a perfectly good set by bafflingly, and with time ticking away, simply REMOVING ONE OF HIS TEETH as some kind of molar-based finale. Call me a blinkered old cynic, but I don’t predict that the extraction of prosthetic dental accessories will ever become a major comedic trend (though now watch next year’s winner turn out to be “Braces” O’Connor and His Amazing Removable Fillings”).
Support is fairly unanimous for all the acts. The fact that there are no winners on the night and that all the performers could, in theory, progress to the Edinburgh heats, breeds an atmosphere of comedic socialism. No-one is jeered for missing a cue, and there’s never a suggestion of bad juju being wantonly willed in anyone’s direction, though at one point a spontaneous attack on “short haired dykes” struggles to find any takers in a sudden unforgiving silent darkness. That aside, it’s all one big, happy, jokey family.
Indeed, some might even say that stand-up comedy is a strange thing to take to competitive levels, a bit like the sedate artistic rivalry of “Watercolour Challenge” or the hotly-contested browsing for overpriced antique tat on “Bargain Hunters”. “I suppose it is technically a competitive situation,” concedes last years’ runner-up, Stefano Paolini, “But at Edinburgh you’re just happy to be given the chance to showcase your act. You spend so much time just trying to get gigs. I wanted to win my semi-final, though, not least because I’d spent so much time in the car just physically getting up there.”
“For me, it wasn’t really about the winning or losing,” Paolini continues in a not-too- unconvincingly sincere voice. “Mostly it was about wandering around saying things like ‘Bloody hell, it’s Graham Norton!’ Otherwise, it’s the perfect vehicle, not least because it’s not on TV so you don’t have to worry about what pants you wear.”
For Paolini, SYTYF? not only gave him the ideal platform to wow industry bigwigs with his vast array of impressions, it resulted in his dream gig of performing on Radio Four’s much-vaunted Dead Ringers. Now he has the comedy clubs calling him, though not, perhaps, the one that thought they’d put him on hold when he called in asking for a return gig and he was treated to hearing “We’ve been told never to book Stefano Paolini ever again!” Though it would no doubt be a kick to turn them down.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, chances have been blown, stars have been born, and physical advantage has been taken of some naïve Romanian tourists at the bar. For some, Edinburgh awaits, for others, maybe just a return to the workaday grind of studying, the office, or presenting Sunday morning music television shows. One thing’s for damn sure as hiccups, though, and that’s the benefit of experience that everyone will take from SYTYF? – as stand-up goes, it’s not a half bad way to jam a faltering foot onto the first rung, and entertaining for those of us merely judging from behind the coward’s shield of non-participation. Still, I’ve got a killer act for next year…if I can just get to the dentist’s in time.