pension333: UK comedy in crisis and Ant and Dec to go silent

Also in this week's roundup ? the stadium comedy debate rages on, standup comes to the British Museum and is Jimmy Carr to blame for the decline of religion?

This week's comedy news

Is UK comedy is in crisis? That's the view from the US, where comedy website Laughspin has published this interesting piece on Britain's standup bubble bursting. Looking for symptoms? How about John Bishop advising young comics that "you can steal someone's gag here and there" ? as long as you don't plagiarise entire routines. Let's hope that unwise counsel doesn't reach the ears of this year's finalists in the prestigious Leicester Mercury comedian of the year contest, who have just been announced. Hotly tipped Lucy Beaumont is among them. Elsewhere, the Independent reports on a fun-looking gig later this week, as double act Nish Kumar and Tom Neenan become the first comics to perform in the British Museum ? where they'll conduct a comical interactive tour of the history of civilisation.

Elsewhere in Laughing stock, it pays to expect the unexpected. You don't expect to read that Geordie TV darlings Ant and Dec are about to re-launch themselves as latterday Buster Keatons, but here it is: news that the I'm a Celebrity presenters are taking up silent comedy. According to a source quoted in the Sun, "Ant and Dec had a great idea for a comedy which is completely silent. There will be some slapstick, but it won't just be full of physical gags. They have already started working on a script and hopefully they will find time to film it this year or early next." Neither do you expect to read the headline, "First autistic Miss America contestant will perform standup comedy." But so it comes to pass: Miss Montana Alexis Wineman, who is autistic, will also be the only one of 50 participants to perform standup in the "talent" section of the show. Her routine will address women's body-image issues. "One thing I've always loved doing," says Wineman, "is making people laugh."

You also don't expect to find Jimmy Carr blamed when a nativity crib scene is vandalised on a London street. But sure enough, Father Michael Daley of Our Lady and St Joseph Catholic Church in Islington has pointed the finger Carr-wards after the incident, which took place on New Year's Eve. On Channel 4's (already contentious) Big Fat Quiz of the Year, the comic "made a comment about people going off to midnight mass to worship an invisible man," Father Michael Daley told the Islington Gazette. "There doesn't seem to be any sensitivity to people's beliefs nowadays. He might think it's amusing to vilify the Christian faith, but it permeates into the consciousness of people. There's nothing wrong with free speech, but sometimes it goes too far." And finally, squillionnaire Donald Trump is threatening to sue comedian Bill Maher for $5m (�3.1m), having made public his birth certificate and thus proved that his father isn't an orangutan. So now it's clear.

Best of the Guardian's comedy coverage

� Should US megastar Louis CK play the O2 ? or writer Bruce Dessau's sofa? The merits and otherwise of stadium comedy debated here

� "25 hours. Jesus. I'm getting too old for this." Comic Mark Watson on his marathon standup show for next month's Comic Relief.

� "As far as I'm concerned, the best theatre and the best standup show is exactly the same" ? a new festival (curated, as it happens, by me) explores the overlap between theatre and comedy

� Charlie Brooker on "the Daily Mail's embarrassing failure to stoke national outrage" over Jack Whitehall's recent limp jokes about the Queen

� "Fuck you, dolphin, you bottle-nosed bastard! What is this shit?" ? Leo Benedictus on Wanda Sykes, in this week's Comedy gold classic DVD review

Controversy of the week

The biggest brouhaha at the start of January was over comedians ? Jack Whitehall and James Corden, to be exact ? drinking too much. Now it's the middle of the month, and a row is, er, brewing over one comic who's impeding the drinking of others. Harry Enfield is coming under fire from residents of swanky north London neighbourhood Primrose Hill over his plans to convert a well-loved pub into a family home. The Loadsamoney star bought The Queens last summer when the landlord retired, with the intention of letting it out to a friend to run the premises as a restaurant. But those plans have fallen through, and Enfield is now seeking council permission to convert.

Quoted in the Camden New Journal, Tony Peters, who ran the pub for 32 years, said: "to turn it into a home would destroy something special." Local resident Steve Collis said: "Edis Street has a real sense of community and the pub was its focal point. Since its closure there has been something of a sense of mourning, an unnerving silence ... We long for some life on the corner." Enfield addressed these concerns in a letter to neighbours of The Queens. "I have been a resident of Primrose Hill since 1988, my family since 1929 ... [and] my father was born in Eton Road," he wrote. But, citing the number of other nearby pubs, he continued: "we would imagine the council might think the loss of this one not to be too great, the compensation being greater tranquility." Protestors see it otherwise, of course, and are hoping planners will veto the comedian's plans.

Best of our readers' comments

Bruce Dessau's piece last week about Louis CK's upcoming O2 gig sparked a lively set-to about stadium comedy. Is it ever worthwhile? For audiences, seldom. For standups ? well, Jan86 doubted even that:

I haven't seen any of Michael McIntyre's arena shows, so I don't know, maybe he's as good with an arena as a comedian can be. I have seen Bill Bailey's Tinselworm DVD though, and though it had some good material it seemed to me that the weirdness of the setting, the delay between the joke and the laugh reaching the back of the crowd, was getting to him. I'd seen a couple of the jokes live when he was touring Steampunk, and they were great, but I thought Tinselworm was pretty flat ... There may have been other factors at work, of course, but I'm convinced that the O2 was a negative influence.

Which elicited this response from BrontheSellsword:

This makes the assumption that all standup is the same and thus would benefit from a small venue. It's simply not true: some comedians' acts are better in a personal environment, whist others thrive in front of a big crowd. You may have your own opinion as to which type of comedy you prefer, but that's not the same thing ... Same with music, some bands are at their best in a pub, others when playing stadiums.

"One of the most original shows on television," the Guide's Rebecca Nicholson wrote in a paean to Julia Davis's garlanded Sky series Hunderby ? a spoof Daphne Du Maurier-ish sitcom. Cue a debate on the show's merits, which drew this comment from nkpapoutis:

It's a great show! But you don't know what original means ? this show isn't original because it's derivative. Where Sherlock is original because it takes the stories and reinterprets unforgettably, Hunderby is simple (but funny) pastiche. Girls is original. So, in fact, was Last Tango In Halifax ? but perhaps because it wasn't seen as media-trendy you ignore shows like that here. You shouldn't. You should go on the writing, not the age or perceived trendiness of the creators.

That's us told. With a renewed commitment to prioritise un-trendy comedy, Laughing stock will be back next week.

Brian Logan

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2013/jan/15/uk-comedy-crisis-ant-dec-silent

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