» A Merry Christmas for Stand-ups
Victoria Nangle looks at how stand-ups survive the seasonal downturn and why corporate might just save your skin
Happy Christmas! This is a no man’s land of stand-up comedy, where the chasm between the haves and have-nots is all the more apparent. The haves are being booked for corporate functions, preparing to be ignored in favour of Jane from accounts’ account of what happened last year, but making their agents work for their money nonetheless.
The have-nots are finding that the regular monthly show they have been booked to play ages in advance is falling through in favour of booked out rooms for Christmas parties with guaranteed massive booze sales. It’s an unsteady and unpredictable time and the shows available to watch are just as disparate – either one-off specials for charity or seasonally-priced comedy-banker line-ups. It’s a strange time in what is essentially a freelance comedy specialist’s life – for that is a stand-up comic. If you’re freelance and your bookings go doolally every year at a certain time, what are you to do?
“Comics get to work and the audience gets a warm feeling for being so good and giving”
Well, as previously mentioned, there are the one-off charity gigs. Fed up with travelling at Christmas and wanting to ensure they get some sort of work and exposure, a lot of comics set up their own one-off shows, guaranteeing some of the money goes to a worthy cause. Everyone gives a little something, comics get to work and the audience gets a warm fuzzy feeling in their tums for being so good and giving at a time of credit crunching chilliness.
The alternative is to savour having what everyone else around you so desperately craves – time off. If you can afford it, kicking your shoes off and just waiting out the silly season with a massive mug of cocoa and a bag or marshmallows could be just the ticket. I’m talking about people who are still breaking through into the mainstream comedy circuit, so they’ll have a day job making demands, anyway. Why fight for the slippery bookings when there’s enough to do in civvy street anyway at this time of year?
Then there’s the massive comics who’ve done their TV Christmas special way back in May and who get the best of both worlds – making the seasonal funny and enjoying the squishy marshmallows too. Kudos to them, and may their numbers swell as more laughter is baggsied throughout the holiday schedule.
Whether you’re watching, performing, recording or simply smiling at it all, this jolly season is a great time to laugh and to get others to giggle alongside you. From a Christmas wrapper fight to a kids’ joke book, have a very happy Christmas finding the giggles. Santa’s
already started.
