An Alternative Comedian: that means, alterantive to comedy -
the sort that doesn’t make you laugh.
There they stand usually white males or female ladettes swearing at ‘trendies’, soon they will be saddening the nation's television screens -'well', say the Producers who created the phenomenon, 'cheap to do, isn't it. Just stand them up there and point a camera at them.'
Ian Hamilton reports of where it all began in London - the Comic Strip.
The Comic Strip’s compère and guiding star is called Alexei Sayle, a portly, spring-heeled Liverpudlian with a convict haircut, a Desperate Dan chin and an Oliver Hardy silkette suit well-buttoned at his bulging gut.
The audience sit there gloating as if they had been invited to some inner sanctum that has cachet , they are audiences made tolerant by the sleazy ambience and the prospect of a late-night drink.
Their reward to be abused -
"Silly fuckers from Hampstead and Islington’ who have been conned into paying ‘four fucking quid’ in the hope of seeing something ‘alternative’ (Sayle whines this in a poncey voice),
Sayle hurtles onto the stage, spraying the audience with saliva, sweat and a deluge of fucks, cunts and bastards .He is a big man, a pathologically aggrieved pub lout who’s read some books;
Sayle’s posture is manically contemptuous, he delivers a hysterical crescendo of obscenity with spat-out satirical asides. Before he introduces another 'stand-up comedian'.
The audience naively believing they are at the cutlural cutting edge now listen to a bombed-out monotone for someone trying to get through their day (on benefits no doubt) you couldn’t really call this stand-up one of the unemployed because the simple business of getting through the day demands his total concentration, his entire stock of ‘resources’.
There is, to be sure, a great army of the unemployed, but, as this chap makes clear, there is also an army of the unemployable.
Sayle, the compere returns,watch out! if you are in the front row your drink is going to be peppered with saliva,
The compere's own philosophy of life seems, yes, fairly simple: all you need is ‘to have a fucking good grip on your temper – cunts!!’
So not too much threat to Wittgenstein or Hegel there.
Our comepere it would appear does not do complexity.
If anything was to be learned from a night out at The Comic Strip it was that bad language still has an awesome potency
Most interesting in all this woeful nonsense, was the audience who sat agape at a night where abuse was rained down on them.
Well, I suppose it is understandable - most of them, it seemed, had never been called cunts before.
Are people who attend Stand Up comedy masochists. Discuss.
the sort that doesn’t make you laugh.
There they stand usually white males or female ladettes swearing at ‘trendies’, soon they will be saddening the nation's television screens -'well', say the Producers who created the phenomenon, 'cheap to do, isn't it. Just stand them up there and point a camera at them.'
Ian Hamilton reports of where it all began in London - the Comic Strip.
The Comic Strip’s compère and guiding star is called Alexei Sayle, a portly, spring-heeled Liverpudlian with a convict haircut, a Desperate Dan chin and an Oliver Hardy silkette suit well-buttoned at his bulging gut.
The audience sit there gloating as if they had been invited to some inner sanctum that has cachet , they are audiences made tolerant by the sleazy ambience and the prospect of a late-night drink.
Their reward to be abused -
"Silly fuckers from Hampstead and Islington’ who have been conned into paying ‘four fucking quid’ in the hope of seeing something ‘alternative’ (Sayle whines this in a poncey voice),
Sayle hurtles onto the stage, spraying the audience with saliva, sweat and a deluge of fucks, cunts and bastards .He is a big man, a pathologically aggrieved pub lout who’s read some books;
Sayle’s posture is manically contemptuous, he delivers a hysterical crescendo of obscenity with spat-out satirical asides. Before he introduces another 'stand-up comedian'.
The audience naively believing they are at the cutlural cutting edge now listen to a bombed-out monotone for someone trying to get through their day (on benefits no doubt) you couldn’t really call this stand-up one of the unemployed because the simple business of getting through the day demands his total concentration, his entire stock of ‘resources’.
There is, to be sure, a great army of the unemployed, but, as this chap makes clear, there is also an army of the unemployable.
Sayle, the compere returns,watch out! if you are in the front row your drink is going to be peppered with saliva,
The compere's own philosophy of life seems, yes, fairly simple: all you need is ‘to have a fucking good grip on your temper – cunts!!’
So not too much threat to Wittgenstein or Hegel there.
Our comepere it would appear does not do complexity.
If anything was to be learned from a night out at The Comic Strip it was that bad language still has an awesome potency
Most interesting in all this woeful nonsense, was the audience who sat agape at a night where abuse was rained down on them.
Well, I suppose it is understandable - most of them, it seemed, had never been called cunts before.
Are people who attend Stand Up comedy masochists. Discuss.
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