Unfunny jokes are on the rampage, apparently – and comedy fans should be delighted about it. That’s the theory propounded a few days ago in the New York Times, in an article arguing that “more and more comedians want to play with the distance between gravitas and giggles”. Taking as his starting point standup Tig Notaro’s recent HBO special, the second half of which she performs naked from the waist up to reveal her double mastectomy scars, writer Lee Siegel believes that this serious-mindedness is “a new phenomenon in entertainment”, in which comics startle us out of our culture-induced stupor with recourse to the unvarnished, un-comical truth. Given the state of our politics, he claims, “serious public truth-telling has become the responsibility of comedians”.
O brave new world, that has such comics in’t! Mind you, it’s noticeable that the Times article leans heavily on Notaro, and from a Daily Show address by the dearly departed Jon Stewart, for evidence. Its only other example is, er, the tweets of Louis CK. I think the argument is pretty drastically overstated, as Siegel himself seems to admit when – a few paragraphs in – he admits that this, ahem, new phenomenon in entertainment “has had a long gestation”, all the way back to Lenny Bruce. The “unfunny joke” – that is, a comic saying something deadly serious just when you’re expecting a punchline – does indeed have a proud lineage, and a funny one. When you’re suddenly serious in the context of a comedy show, the effect often is funny, even if the audience’s laughter is – to quote Siegel on that Stewart routine – “uncomfortable”.
But to call the argument an overstatement isn’t to deny it a kernel of truth. We clearly are in a moment when the lines are porous between comedy and public seriousness. Witness the disinclination to be glib of new generation standups like Bo Burnham and Liam Williams. Take Bridget Christie’s mix of comedy and campaigning, or Shazia Mirza’s show last weekend, which ends with a video sequence solemnly accusing Islamic State of traducing the teachings of the Prophet. Example – more obviously – the mayoral ambitions of Eddie Izzard, the political careers of Iceland’s Jon Gnarr or Italy’s Beppe Grillo, and (as per Siegel’s piece) the statesman status accorded to Jon Stewart.
Is this, as the article argues, a response to the increasing inauthenticity of our politics? Probably, to some degree. Nature abhors a vacuum, and if we can’t turn to politicians for un-spun truth and moral seriousness, we’ll look elsewhere – to novelists and musicians, historians and academics as well as comedians, although the latter have the most direct platform to put forward their views.
It’s probably also a function of the explosion of comedy in the last decade. A small percentage of comics have always been fearless truth-tellers (with or without punchlines); without that percentage much changing, there are now many more of them. Similarly, the artform – because it now seems to promise credibility and a financially viable career – probably attracts a wider range of sensibilities than back when it was the runt of the entertainment litter. You could also argue – especially if you’re a Russell Brand sceptic – that arena comedy is to blame, for bloating the egos of comedians to messianic proportions, for persuading them they’re no longer clowns but seers.
I love the comedy world Siegel describes (even if I share his anxiety about entrusting our public conscience to people whose priority is being funny). Comedy is at its most potent when combining humour with the forthright expression of a (serious, or seemingly serious) point of view – or, even better, by obliterating the presumed distinctions between funny and serious entirely. I don’t think we’re quite where he describes, or indeed ever will be. But if articles like this one encourage a handful more comedians to trade flippancy for emotional significance, so much the better – if a little more uncomfortable – for all of us.
Three to see
Doug Stanhope
The bar has been set high for Stanhope’s new UK tour, after he tweeted that he helped to intervene when he saw a man preparing to jump off a bridge in Edinburgh on his opening weekend. There’ll be little else that redemptive, I suspect, in this latest outing from one of comedy’s finest exponents of abyss-gazing, propriety-scorching black comedy.
• At O2 Academy, Leeds, 5 October; at O2 Academy Birmingham, 7 October; then touring.
Katherine Ryan
A national tour begins for one of UK comedy’s on-form acts, the Canadian exile and Joan Rivers de nos jours Katherine Ryan. Expect an extended version of her very enjoyable Edinburgh Fringe set, a mix of celebrity scuttlebutt and personal tales of single motherhood and visits home.
• At Royal Spa Centre, Leamington, 10 October; then touring.
Joseph Morpurgo
Pipped to the post for this year’s Foster’s Comedy award, Soothing Sounds for Baby casts rising star Morpurgo as a guest on Desert Islands Discs, bringing each of his arcane choices to life in a series of loopy character sketches, and spinning an unlikely love story to boot. High-concept comedy, terrifically well executed.
• At Invisible Dot, London, from 5 October to 31 October.
