Yesterday, I was attacked in the street by a 12-year-old.
Writer Ariane Sherine’s highly-intelligent daughter was telling me how, in drama classes at school, she had been taught to (stage) fight.
She demonstrated this by repeatedly punching me in the face (but stopping short of physical contact) and delivering flying kicks to my body (but stopping short of physical contact).
Each time I was saved from physical harm by about an inch or maybe two. But I was increasingly slightly worried she might miscalculate. I feared (slightly) for the potential physical impact. The odds, I felt, would shorten the longer she demonstrated.
Which reminded me of a blog I posted here twelve years ago about writing an autobiography.
My opinion was and is that people are interested in people not in facts.
People are primarily interested in people.
Which brings us back to Ariane’s daughter’s demonstration of her stage-fighting technique.
I read an analysis when I was at college of how people watch screen violence. The study was able to use cameras to see exactly at which point in the screen the subjects’s eyes were concentrating.
Their results were not what I would have thought in advance but made sense when I thought about it.
If, for example, on screen, someone shoots or punches a person in the stomach, the victim will double over as the bullet/fist hits. If they are punched on the chin, their head will jerk backwards or sideways with the force of the punch.
So what does the audience look at?
The viewer does not look at the victim’s stomach as the bullet or punch hits. They look at the victim’s face. They do not watch the action; they watch the re-action.
When someone is punched on the chin, they do not look at the point of impact. They do not look at the chin. They look at the eyes and facial reaction of the victim. Of course they do. It seems obvious,
The point is that they watch the re-action not the action.
They are not primarily concentrating on the act or the fact of the action. They concentrate on the emotional and physical reaction of the person.
Because people are primarily interested in people’s emotions and emotional reactions, not isolated, cold facts.
That’s equally important in writing autobiographies (or thrillers) as it is in filming action or even comedy films.
‘Man (or woman or other) slips on a banana skin’ is only interesting in so far as it affects a person.
They are interested in re-actions more than actions.
People are interested in people not abstract facts, except insofar as they affect people.
If I write about and chat to stand-up comedians or any other creatives then, by-and-large, the various blogs I post here are intended to publicise them or their work.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, I have found that pure writers – as opposed to performers or writer-performers – can be slightly more difficult to interview because they are slightly more reticent.
They are more aware of what their spoken words will look like to a stranger in cold (cyber) print online.
If I think someone has said anything which is clear when spoken but which could be misunderstood when read on a screen or on a page, I warn them and check that they really do want – are happy – to be quoted saying that.
I can think of one interview (and one only) where the person I was talking to strongly criticised an organisation they worked with and were beholden to… alright, OK, they slagged-off the organisation providing them with a venue at the Edinburgh Fringe…
I asked them three times – because they kept doing it – if they really, really wanted to be quoted saying that. Yes. Yes. Yes. I even quoted my warning to them (once) in the published blog.
Ultimately, they kept their venue, but the organisation they criticised (who heard about it after a print publication picked up on my blog) were not well pleased.
I was not asked to remove the blog because the mini-maelstrom had already and inevitably happened. And because the person with the loose tongue was a pro.
Which brings me to this…
In January and June 2018, I posted a couple of interview-based blogs publicising a newish UK stand-up comic. That was over five years ago.
In August and September this year, I got two emails from the onetime comic asking that both blogs be removed.
He said he was now “pursuing a career in counselling” and wanted the two blogs removed because he was “trying to limit what potential future clients can find out about me”.
Call me innocent, but I thought one main thing counsellors/therapists did was to encourage clients to come to terms with – not try to hide – events from their past.
There is no real point taking 5-year-old (or any) blog down any more than trying to delete a past printed newspaper interview as the online blogs will be archived all over the place. Who even knows where?
You can’t really fully hide online blog posts or online anything by erasing them. Plus each of my blogs would have been emailed in their entirety to over 700 of my host site’s followers and there could well be re-posts of which I know nowt.
If people find a counsellor/psychotherapist is actually trying to hide his own past while telling them to come to terms with their own back story, I would think it’s staggeringly counterproductive. Far better to be open and honest. Just saying.
These two blogs were, I think, interesting but not especially revealing although, in one, Christianity was mentioned. Hardly shocking.
According to the UK’s National Health Service website, “Counsellors work with people experiencing a wide range of emotional and psychological problems to help them bring about effective change and/or enhance their wellbeing.”
For the avoidance of doubt if, in the next five years or more, anyone else wants their willingly-expressed opinions in any of my happily-published blogs hidden, they are in for a very loud “No”.
Anyone who tries to hide their past should find a counsellor or a therapist.
(Photograph by Glenn Carstens-Peters via UnSplash)
In my last couple of blogs, I asked AI to explain Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity and Quantum Physics. In both cases, I think the clearest explanation was when I asked the AI to pretend it/they were an 8-year-old child.
It also reminds me of a chat I had when I was a researcher on programmes at London Weekend Television.
Another researcher and I had a casual chat about the sort of people we might be looking for on various programmes. We agreed, I think, on a couple of vague principles which might seem counter-intuitive.
The first was how to get a person who could explain a complex idea in a way that could be understood by the general viewer. Not dumbing-down in any way. Just being clear and enthusing the viewer.
We agreed that the person you did NOT necessarily want was an expert.
You did not want someone who had spent the last 30 or 40 years totally immersed in a subject to the exclusion of almost everything else. They knew too much. Their brains were clogged up with details.
What you ideally wanted was not an expert but an enthusiast – a fan.
The expert would long ago have lost the single original kernel of the enthusiasm which had started them on their long road to expertise.
What you wanted was someone who was still gloriously enthusiastic, who retained that original intellectual vigour, who wanted to make others as enthusiastic in the subject as they were and still are. They knew the key points which simply – KISS KISS – would reveal the bases of the subject.
The other type of person we talked about finding was a true eccentric.
The sort of person you wanted to find was NOT the life-and- soul of the party who made all the lads and lasses laugh down the local pub. Counter-intuitively, you do not want people who seem extrovert. Jack the Lad ‘extroverts’ just want attention; they have no depth of eccentricity.
Rather than an ‘extrovert’, you want to find an ‘introvert’ with rare or unique angles of genuine thought.
If you can find the right introvert and make them confident enough to follow their creative or mental tendencies, they will let rip and you will get real originality of thought which, really, is what is meant when you talk of someone being ‘eccentric’.
The perfect example of this was when I handled a regular item called ‘Talented Teachers’ on the anarchic children’s show Tiswas (an ATV, then a Central ITV, production).
I was told about Mr Wickers, a teacher who could roller-skate while simultaneously playing the harmonica AND the spoons. I talked to him and he was a lovely, quiet-spoken man who DID NOT have any great ambition to do this on national television. But I persuaded him.
Obviously, I had seen him perform the act to ensure he really could roller-skate while simultaneously playing the harmonica and spoons.
On the day of the live show, he turned up with his roller-skates, harmonica and two spoons.
But he also turned up wearing a bright yellow oilskin fisherman’s coat, a bright yellow oilskin sou’wester hat and a life-sized seagull which he had himself crafted out of papier-mâché.
The papier-mâché seagull sat on his bright yellow oilskin shoulder by his bright yellow sou’wester hat while Mr Wickers roller-skated round the studio set playing his harmonica and clack-clacking his two spoons together.
Mr Wickers was – and I say this with vast admiration – a true eccentric but quiet and not in any way a so-called extrovert.
The epitome of a certain type of Englishman. (I say that as a born Scot.)
Last Friday afternoon I flew up from London to the Edinburgh Fringe and last Saturday evening I flew back. It was the cheapest way except for a National Express coach and I had buggered my back a few days before so did not fancy spending hour upon hour in one position in a cramped seat.
I went up to see Janey Godley’s Not Dead Yet comedy show because she is the single most multi-talented creative person I have ever met. And she didn’t disappoint. She gets better and even better.
After the show, I talked to another member of the audience – someone not in any way connected to the comedy industry but a regular Fringe-goer for years and years. In other words, an ‘ordinary’ audience member who goes up to Edinburgh just to see the comedy shows.
I asked her what she thought of the post-Covid Fringe. It was certainly crowded on Friday/Saturday; it felt back to normal as far as the crowds went.
Janey, as is normal for her, had a 100% sell-out show.
My ‘ordinary’ audience member, who prefers to remain anonymous, had gone to comic Phil Kay’s show the previous night in which he roamed round the streets of Edinburgh with his audience. That was his show. She was impressed:
He had about 20 or 30 people in his audience. He stopped at various places and told us about various experiences he had had in each place. Very funny experiences. Uniquely eccentric. The eccentricity hit a very high level.
I had seen him a couple of times before. Once I was trapped on a bus with him. I used my friend as a human shield. I thought I would go and see him again this year because I thought it would be an experience and I thought, as it was a walk, I would be able to run away if I needed to.
Where has Phil Kay not been? He’ll suddenly say: “Oh, I know a man who sells Morris Marina parts in Sri Lanka.” He’s had his fingers in so many pies. I’ve never known anybody who goes so fast from one mad experience to the next. He seems to end up naked a lot in his stories.
He was great.
But there seems to be more anger at the Fringe shows this year – Anger on stage from the comedians.
I saw three other shows yesterday, back-to-back, from people I had previously enjoyed. And there was anger from the stage in all three. It was one show after the next. Anger anger anger. Three in a row. It felt like it was a genuine anger aimed at the audience.
Covid has messed things up so much. People not having been on stage for a while. People not being able to earn money and then having life experiences that were horrific and then also things like TikTok.
People were going viral with ridiculous, nasty TikTok things.
People on TikTok and other sites were getting all this money and all the attention when the comedy performers, chipping away at their craft, couldn’t work.
Has comedy come back to its full pre-Covid state? I don’t think so. I think people are still upset a bit.
One of the well-known acts I had seen before – very experienced – he’s done quite a lot of telly – was, this year, really just practising his show. It wasn’t billed as a ‘Work in Progress’.
He told the audience he would have it down pat in the future. He said he didn’t want to look at his notes. He would just recall things and then say things but…
It wasn’t really ready as a show.
And, this year, I feel a definite hatred of the English.
I was at a show performed by an Irish comedian yesterday and she called me out because I was English. She picked on me and said there was a certain English smile that denoted something and I’d just smiled at something. Big distaste for the English. I understand those things, but not everyone’s that English stereotype. She didn’t know I’m half Irish. Just because you speak with an English accent, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re English. I understand she’s in a very bad place in life – her husband had a huge stroke and now he’s in a wheelchair.
In the next show I saw, a black male comedian was angry about English women and the way they react. I’m a white English woman who has lived in the States, has been in a bikers’ gang, lived with a black retired cop. I’m highly sensitive to racism against black people, but at what point am I myself having racism used against me because I’m white or because I’m English?
The black comic, like the Irish woman, had gone through bad experiences – his dad had died.
I suppose you have to perform comedy assuming people have not travelled; but you don’t know their experiences. I think what some comedians should remember is that, if you insult people enough, they’re not going to come back to your show. If it’s constant abuse towards the members of the audience in a show, it’s going to put you off.
The third show I saw was a British-born Indian. He was just constantly talking about white people, the way they are and kind of dumbing them down. I understand that too but, if it goes on through the whole show like that and you in the audience are the dumb person – if the audience are constantly the butt of his jokes – it’s not really that funny and you’re not going to bother seeing his next show.
Again, like the other two comics, bad things had happened to him – His dad had died from cancer – his treatment was delayed because of Covid – AND his mum had died from Covid – they would not give her the jab at that time.
I do understand the anger and I do understand they’re all in bad places but I sat there after the third show and thought… Well, when people start to have a go at you for being English repeatedly or being white – three shows in a row – you’re like WHAT THE HELL??
At what point do you start to think: This is a kind of racism and it’s kind of intense.
I go to different ethnicities of comedy because there ARE so many now, which is great and I like that. But at what point do you think the acts are being over-sensitive? When it’s three in a row, you start to think…
A few years back, there was another comedian rolling about on the floor. I think he had mental health problems at the time and couldn’t cope. He was rolling about on the floor saying how difficult it was to get up and do these shows night after night and the audience had no understanding of the pressure he was under. When somebody got up to leave, he said: “Do you think my show’s shit?” and the guy said: “Well, I don’t want to sit through this.”
It was horrible, really, because the comic was mentally in a bad place and to see the way people treated him was…
I thought it was terrible what the ‘fans’ did to Janey Godley tonight.
She has cancer. She said she wasn’t meeting people afterwards because she’s on chemotherapy but someone got her off the stage to sign a jumper. Someone should have passed that jumper to her. But, because Janey seems a kind person, it set off a whole wave. To get pictures taken with her. Not one of those people thought: We could kill her by touching her and being round her.
There was a woman in the row in front of me wearing a (health) mask and she went to have her picture taken with Janey and pulled her mask down and tried to put her arm round her and Janey said No about the arm-round.
But the woman shouldn’t have been standing next to her.
Janey’s immune system’s completely compromised. The reason you wear a mask is to stop you infecting other people. The woman wore the mask when she was sitting in the audience but pulled it down when she stood next to Janey for the photo. I thought it was an outstanding display of selfishness. People were taking advantage of her. Her kindness.
There’s anger from a lot of comedians – not Janey – but the audiences are a bit unsettled too.
With Phil Kay, there was none of that. It was an escape into a mad world which makes you laugh and makes you happy.
You go to see a comedian to escape, to be taken out of your world. There’s nothing better than a good laugh.
Last month, I was interviewed by Dr Maria Kempinska, founder of the Jongleurs comedy club circuit, who was awarded an MBE for her contribution to British comedy. She is now a psychotherapist. I talked to her for Your Mind Matters, her series of hour-long chats on the Women’s Radio Station. This is a brief extract of what I said.
… Performing comedy is a bit like performing magic. It’s all to do with misdirection. In magic, you’re looking at the wrong place when, suddenly, something happens somewhere where you are not looking.
In comedy, you have the audience going along a storyline – even if it’s just a short storyline for a gag.
You have the audience going along a storyline for a gag. They’re looking in one direction. They know what’s coming next… they know what’s coming next… they know what’s coming next… and then suddenly, out of left field, from nowhere, comes the punchline… and they react to that in shock.
It’s like a big AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!! But, instead of gasping, they go: “Ahahahahaha!” and laughter is a sort of release of tension. It’s a reaction to something unexpected that happens…
This is a poster for a London gig by comedian Joe Lycett. It features an irrelevant photo of comedian James Acaster. I saw it in Tottenham Court Road tube station maybe a couple of months ago.
I am not convinced it is a particularly good marketing strategy.
I emailed the photo to someone I know last night saying: “I don’t think I sent this to you when I saw it at Tottenham Court Road station the other week…”
I got a reply this morning: “We saw it together”.
Coincidentally (this is true) there was an ex-rugby player on breakfast TV when I read this reply talking about getting early onset dementia… He can’t remember playing in the World Cup a few years ago, which was the highlight of his career.
Fortunately I do remember I always had a rubbish factual memory. So no change there. It’s one reason in school that I was shit at languages and particularly bad at science. I once did not come bottom in Chemistry. Once.
I was good at English (I was interested) and at British Constitution (I could waffle).
I remember keeping a diary on a trip to South East Asia in 1989 and, on returning home and reading it maybe a week later, I had forgotten most of the details – Oh yes! That happened!
My friend Lynn, who has known me for 47 years, says I will live appallingly long because I seldom worry about things which happened in the past; I just accept them, forget them, unless they’re vital, and move on.
This is mostly true. But I am not sure that is a good thing.
Neither the forgetting nor the living appallingly long.
In my erstwhile teens I had a dream and wrote a short story about someone who had an artificial metal body and what he felt when his body eventually, inevitably started rusting.
“I was going to call her Strawberry,” he told me, “until a friend said: Remember she’ll go to school one day.”
Chilli Bobcat is now 2½. And he has a second daughter, now aged 2 months. She has been named Wolf.
Now read on.
“I thought we were just having a chat….”
JOHN: Why Wolf? Surely that is a boy’s name. What is a female wolf called anyway? Just a wolf, I suppose…
NATHAN: Possibly a bitch, because it’s a type of dog…
JOHN: So you were right: better to call her Wolf. What are you plugging?
NATHAN: I thought we were just having a chat.
JOHN: I thought you were plugging something.
NATHAN: Well, I’m doing a series of three monthly comedy cabaret shows, raising money for Hackney Night Shelter. I’ve done Christmas cabaret fundraisers for them the last three years at the same venue – Grow in Hackney.
The Hackney Night Shelter used to be called the Hackney Winter Night Shelter, but they’ve now gone year-round because of the demand for their services. It’s a critical time for them, because they’ve just moved into two permanent shelter venues, serving all the year round, so they need more money to do it but, for the last almost two years, because of the pandemic…
NATHAN: Yes. We were about two start a regular live cabaret – Big Wowie Cabaret – in March 2020 but, of course, lockdown kicked in and we had to cancel that. So we went online with an interactive character show. We did it every month for eight months on Zoom. It had to be on Zoom because it was interactive. It was two hours; loads of fun; and we started to ‘find’ our audience – people who were really into it.
But our last online show was in June and it got – what do you call it? – ‘bombed’?… Sabotaged by a bunch of kids who got the Zoom link and just jumped in, went absolutely mental and, with Zoom, whoever speaks the loudest gets the spotlight.
They were playing very loud YouTube clips and making rude gestures. Basically interrupting the show so, for the first hour, we couldn’t really start but we out-crazied them and got rid of them. It was still a debacle, though.
But now we are live again.
JOHN: People have to wear masks?
“It’s by the canal, the stage is a floating pontoon…”
NATHAN: No. The venue takes a lot of Covid precautions and there’s a healthy distance between the performers and the audience. The venue – Grow, by the River Lea – has made a stage which is a floating pontoon and the audience sits outside – there are heaters and stuff. So it’s by the canal, the stage is a floating pontoon and, if you don’t like one of the acts, you pull a lever and the stage flips over and the next act steps on. They’re just comedians. If they drown, no matter.
JOHN: (SILENCE)
NATHAN: Alright, I’m joking, but the stage IS a floating pontoon. It maintains a healthy distance and makes the audience feel safe.
JOHN: Why the name Big Wowie?
NATHAN: I always fantasied about the worst chocolate bar in the world. That’s why the logo is a chocolate bar wrapper. And the worst chocolate bar in the world is a thin tube of flavourless wafer with a little bit of chocolate drizzled on the top and it’s just a hollow wafer tube wrapped up in this glamorous chocolate bar wrapping. When you bite into it the whole thing just crumbles and you go: “Oh! Big Wowie!”
“I always fantasied about the worst chocolate bar in the world”
JOHN: This is a good image for the show? Hollow, tasteless and crumbling?
NATHAN: Maybe when I explain it like that it doesn’t sound so good… I think maybe I was trying to be ironic… I think most people would think BIG WOWIE!!!!
But, to me, it’s…
JOHN: …an empty chocolate bar.
NATHAN: Maybe it’s just a hollow dream… (LAUGHS)
My actual dream for Big Wowie was always to connect the local community and the Hackney community is really special to me because, when I stepped off the boat 15 years ago as an immigrant from Australia…
JOHN: You love Hackney.
NATHAN: Yeah.
Future parents – Nathan and then-pregnant wife Shelley
JOHN: Yet you just moved to Margate in April this year. Why?
NATHAN: I’m a conformist. I follow the trends. When you live in Hackney for 15 years, then have a family, you move to Margate. And we can pick up French radio here.
JOHN: So… the Big Wowie show is raising money for the Hackney Night Shelter.
NATHAN: Three shows… October 12th, November 9th, December 14th. And we have a sponsor – a local business INTUNE that makes CBD drinks.
JOHN: The active ingredient in marijuana?
NATHAN: Yes, but they have distilled the good stuff without the intoxicant. So it’s made from natural ingredients and it’s mood-enhancing, but you don’t get high. You are not macrodosing marijuana when you drink them.
JOHN: So during the 18 months or so of pandemic mayhem, what did you do?
NATHAN: I was doing Big Wowie’s online and I was making comedy videos.
Nathan remembers his Australian heritage…
We went up to Scotland for Christmas 2020 (my wife is Scots) and, about two days later, there was a national lockdown and we couldn’t leave Scotland. Well you couldn’t leave your shire; you couldn’t even leave your town. Fortunately because we had family up there, we had a place to stay and it turned out OK because there was more space and we were right by a forest and Chilli was happy.
JOHN: Your wife is a…
NATHAN: …a psychotherapist. She took a year off.
JOHN: The pandemic must have…
NATHAN: You would think so. Yeah, lockdown was hard. It certainly tightened the screws on my mental health. I started therapy again. My therapist is in Australia – online therapy via Zoom.
JOHN: Presumably you are not allowed to get therapy from your wife…
NATHAN: I get that from her constantly. (LAUGHS) She says very insightful, wonderful things but you’re not allowed to have any clients you know. My wife knows, as a therapist, that I need to talk about her to my therapist. Though, in fairness, I talk to her about my therapist, because she’s fascinated in the process. I struck gold with my therapist and my wife is fascinated to know why she’s so good.
JOHN: In the new year, you have new projects…?
“I haven’t really got time for much in my life right now…”
NATHAN: I haven’t really got time for much in my life right now. I’m running Big Wowie every month, I’ve got two children and I’m the primary carer… My wife’s going to go back to full-time work.
It’s very fulfilling being a present father, because my own father was an absent father and then he left us when I was four.
JOHN: Are you going up to the Edinburgh Fringe next year?
NATHAN: No. Because my child’s birthday is August 5th. Basically my second daughter has ruined my live comedy career.
JOHN: Well, she IS called Wolf, so I guess it’s best not to annoy her too much.
NATHAN: I tried to have her cut out early so it wouldn’t interrupt my future Edinburgh Fringe plans, but… Well, if the Fringe starts after August 5th one year, I might go up.
JOHN: A lesson to all performers there. They should control their base urges nine months before August.
NATHAN: Also I’ve got to have something to say in a Fringe show which is not “Being a father…”.
JOHN: You are tied-down.
NATHAN: I’m a happy house husband.
JOHN: And that’s great. You’ll get psychological insight into the human condition and can write novels about it.
Dapper designer John Ward, earlier this week, wearing one of his many professional hats…
A couple of days ago, I posted a blog about this year’s Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award for best publicity stunt at the Edinburgh Fringe. The trophy itself – as with all Malcolm Hardee Awards – was designed and made by mad inventor John Ward.
Dr David Weeks’ academic analysis…
Among John Ward’s many other accomplishments are writing a weekly column – Ward’s World – for the Spalding Guardian newspaper and ‘starring’ in psychiatrist Dr David Weeks’ 1995 academic book Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness.
Yesterday, I got an email from John Ward:
“A BBC Three Counties Radio bod rung me up just now – asked me about the Malcolm Hardee Award and asked was I willing to do an over-the-phone interview later today.
“Then he asked me if I had any connections with Edinburgh other than the Awards side.
“I said: My psychiatrist lives there (as in David Weeks) and then things seemed to get sort of quiet and he said he would ‘get back to me later’.
“I have heard no more.”
Obviously the BBC has to ‘up’ its reporters’ inquisitiveness.
They should have been even more interested by the mention of a psychiatrist and should also have asked the obvious question: “If you live in the middle of England, why do you have a psychiatrist in Scotland?”
John Ward is also featured (among many other appearances) in the 2015 documentary film A Different Drummer: Celebrating Eccentrics by Academy Award winning director, John Zaritsky.
Is there any point studying comedy for an academic qualification?
Someone asked that in an online comedy forum for comedians and wannabe comedians last week. It wasn’t and won’t be the first or last time the question is asked.
My reaction is – admittedly as a non-performer – absolutely not.
You are either capable of being funny or you are not. You learn from doing, not from listening to someone else telling you how to do something you either have or do not have in your psychological make-up.
Those who can… do.
Those who can’t… don’t.
They may try but they don’t.
Spend the time you would have spent getting an academic qualification or buying books written by academic wannabes by going out and seeing as many BAD comedians as you can and learn from their mistakes.
If you can’t see what bad comedians are doing wrong or where good comedians occasionally fail, then you are never going to be a successful comic.
You are not going to learn as much from watching a good comedian as you will by watching a bad comedian.
You learn from mistakes – yours and others – not by watching perfection. And, in any case, you don’t want to copy another person’s version of perfection. You want to create your own perfect stage version of yourself.
Comedy cannot be taught because teaching implies rules and there are no rules if you want to be original.
If you follow the alleged ‘rules’, you will – by definition – be unoriginal.
But there is a major downside in wanting to be an original comedian.
Performing comedy is not a job for sane, well-rounded people.
It is a vocation for misfits.
If you don’t have something missing in your life – a great, gaping psychological hole eating away inside you – you won’t be an original comic.
You may be watchable, but you will not be great.
Comedians are masochists with a vocation.
If they are about to play a gig, they fear the audience may hate them. Yet they must play it.
If they have a great gig, they ‘know’ their next gig is unlikely to be as good. Yet they must play it.
If they play a bad gig, then they are confirmed in their suspicion that they are as shit as they feared they might be. Yet they have an emotional need to play the next gig.
Comedians are spurred on by their own insecurity rather than by their own self-confidence.
They want to get an ongoing objective reassurance from the audience that they are ‘good’ – likeable, loveable, creative.
They are insecure inside.
To overcome this, they want to control the audience to such an extent that each and every member of the audience will be unable to control his or her emotions.
That is the whole core of successful comedy.
Each and every member of the audience will be unable not to laugh.
Their bodies and souls and nervous system – their reactions – will be controlled by the performer.
To be successful as a comic, you have to feel incomplete and be lacking in self-confidence inside and, as a result, want to demonstrate to yourself your own ability to control others.
This has not necessarily any connection with financial success.
Comedy is a series of paradoxes.
If you follow the so-called rules, you will – by definition – be unoriginal and will not stand out from the crowd.
Yet, if you are too wildly original, you will not be accepted by the general middle-of-the-road crowd.
But what do I know?
I genuinely don’t care what people think of me. So I don’t have the soul or psychology of a performer.
All I know is…
There are no rules.
Though, of course, by saying that, I am stating an opinion as a certain fact.
So you should ignore that and everything else I have written, because there are no rules.
A true comedian’s mind is a collection of extra-ordinary paradoxes.
A series of interlinked, extra-ordinary paradoxes.
In that respect, they are just like an ‘ordinary’ person.
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 