» Making a crisis out of a comedy drama
Victoria Nangle is finding days off sick are not good for your comedy health and has some tips for scriptwriters…
Whenever I end up watching daytime TV soap Doctors it’s generally because I’ve had to see the doctor. A small irony in life. Another was added on to it, as I coughed and spluttered through my dressing gown hood, when the storyline I caught myself watching featured a stand-up comedian character who takes the gamble and goes out to do a university gig, while still infectious with the chicken pox. This is all despite the pleas of his girlfriend. Halfway through his set he saw the error of his ways and declared his troth to the aforementioned girlfriend, stepping out of his stage persona and walking off stage and out the door, arm in arm with his one true love. Ah. And then as a postscript he gets a call on his answer machine saying that there was a big agent in who loved his new persona and could he do loads more gigs. Happy ever after, right? No!
First off, he was pants. And that’s my axe to grind with these fictional comics extraordinaire.
First off, he was pants. And that’s my axe to grind with these fictional comics extraordinaire. Not only did no-one laugh when he was doing his set but no-one paid any attention when he made his big exit. Not really traits a big time agent is after. Secondly, again – he was pants! And he’s not the only one. If comedy is the new rock’n’roll – once more – it seems that dramas want to have a few insights into the backstage world of these stars-in-the-making – and a good script. Whether it’s EastEnders’ ‘Mrs Beale’ persona as Jane takes to the boards and bad mouths her husband – very funny but how many successful acts have you seen that are dependent on slagging one other person off repeatedly on stage? Or even looking further back to movies that have tackled the comic life, like Tom Hanks and Sally Field in Punchline. According to the scriptwriters all comedians are hiding a tortured soul and laughing through the pain, and if they ever go ‘off script‘ and ‘wing it’ then the whole facade doesn’t come falling down around their ears – oh no. It releases them to express the comic genius they were too shy to expose previously. Just check out Sally Fields’ ad libs with a hen party. She’s so clever. And not scripted by a seasoned scriptwriter who’s part of a film that’s costing millions. Is the facade falling yet?
It’s nice that comedians are no longer simply being portrayed as the ageing lothario with the twirling bow tie – R.I.P Mike Reid, gone but not forgotten. But do we all have to be damaged versions of Oscar the Grouch? Sometimes comics do joke about when they’re not on stage.
It would be a heck of a bad career choice if they couldn’t. Sometimes they even crack a smile. And just occasionally they laugh out loud at other people’s jokes, stick to their set and get the best response ever from carefully crafted, well thought out, practised and gigged gags. It doesn’t happen overnight. So take scat and shove it you fair-weather dramas.
