I really enjoy Stewart Lee's pronouncements on comedy. I don't always agree with him and am sometimes infuriated by him, but I am very glad he's there, stirring things up and making comedians question themselves and him. I think he is usually fully aware of the impact he's going to have (though know from experience that you never really know what part of the stuff you're going to say is going to be quoted out of context so there's a random element too).
Today he was quoted (on Chortle) as saying, "I like to think stand-up comedians who rely heavily on writers will one day be stripped of whatever artistic awards or financial rewards they received in their careers, like disgraced, drug-taking Tour De France cyclists." I think it would be hard to argue that his tongue isn't in his cheek on this one, at least to a certain extent. It's an exaggeration for comic effect, but an interesting point to raise. He admits that he (and I) happened to start out at a time when writing your own stuff was an important part of our job. It wasn't like that fifteen years before and it wouldn't really be the same fifteen years after. But it seemed important to us. Though I am not sure it's that important to anyone else.
Of course some writers are not performers and some TV comedians have an awful lot of panel shows to do and perhaps need the assistance of writers. Some have writers to help them punch up their live shows too, though others pride themselves on at least writing everything that they tour. Predictably comedians who use writers were more annoyed than those that don't. I don't have writers (apart from for the heavily scripted Me1 Vs Me2 snooker podcast, but to be honest it takes me so long to practice the shots so that they happen exactly like they do in the script that I don't have time to help the creative team - actually there were scripts for the series of Bad Language that I recently did, but mostly not in my voice and I ended up rewriting nearly everything) and I do tend to think that a stand-up is not an actor or a presenter (except when they are) and I'd like to think that they created all their own stuff. The problem, perhaps, is that because the same dozen or so faces usually get to appear on all these TV shows (and you can't really blame them for taking the work, but you can maybe lay some responsibility at the door of the executives who are too scared to take chances). One TV comic argued that it's just not feasible for him to write all the material required for his many panel show slots. The answer to that, in an ideal world, might be to insist that an act writes all his or her own material and if they don't have time to come up with the goods then they shouldn't take on the job. Allowing someone else to have a go.
But then that's not really practical because no one wants to take risks and it would leave loads of writers without work. But it would be good for those writers who were also performers who might get to be on TV rather than writing someone else's script.
It's something that has to be a personal choice. For me performing a stand up show that I hadn't written would be pointless. But then my shows are very much about me and my take on the world and I think my audience would be annoyed if someone else was writing it. But I don't think it would work for me anyway. I would generally like to see newer and hungrier acts who are prepared to do their own work, rather than rely on a sheet of possible quips given to them before a panel show, given the chance to get on TV. And once you've got your feet under the desk it's easy to get complacent and lazy and just take what's given to you. But a lot of the comedians on those shows still work very hard. It's not easy. And part of the reason that the same faces crop up is because they have proven themselves at a difficult job. The best bits of any of those shows are in any case ad-libbed.
It's a complex issue. I am less of a Luddite than Lee and I don't look back to the 1980s as being some beacon of perfect comedy, partly because loads of it was shit and partly because I think you have to allow things to change and grow. The comedy scene is much richer and diverse than when I first started up in 1989 (where experimentation was rare and it was mostly men doing forumalic jokes) and there has always been a mainstream and an underground. And the underground is not big enough to spawn massive stars, like..er Stewart Lee. It can't be totally impossible for autered comedy and non-big management comedy to get on TV because of er.. Stewart Lee and all the people he is championing in his Comedy Central show. But also maybe those kind of people shouldn't be that bothered about this dying medium. They can make their own content online if they wish, or they can just get out there and do comedy live. It's an end in itself. Daniel Kitson has eschewed TV and it hasn't done him any harm. You certainly have to work a lot harder to build up a crowd, but there are enough people out there looking for stuff.
I enjoy the fact that many of Stew's arguments mostly hold water if you ignore his own phenomenal success, popularity and influence. It's great, if occasionally tiresome, to have someone posing these questions. It's either weird or admirable that it's someone who is doing so well. Of course if you're an act that can neither get on Mcintyre's Road Show or Lee's Alternative version then it can just feel like you're being doubly shunned. But then you have to fight to find your own place. Stew has earned the right to be where he is and to spout the shit that he spouts and to rub people up the wrong way. One would hope that his success and the success of other auteurs like the bloke who dresses up as Mrs Brown (who I think is thus the same as Stewart Lee) would encourage TV people to take more chances on comedians who have created their own worlds and curate their own worlds. Or maybe we should just get on with creating our own worlds and not caring about what TV people are up to. Those who want to find exciting and original comedy can find it online or in their local comedy club or at the Edinburgh Fringe. Go and find it. You are the commissioners of the new world order.
Let's make something new, not hark back to some myth of something old (even if it was better in many ways). But I hope curmudgeons like Lee will continue to stir. As long as they don't forget to create as well as critique.
I think I talk a bit more about Stewart in the second half of my Comedian's Comedian interview, which is now up. Everyone's talking about him. I saw David Baddiel's interesting and enjoyable new stand-up show about fame last night and even he's doing it. And no doubt we will talk about it together when he is my guest on one of the early RHEFPs. The "confirmed" (given it's Edinburgh this is always subject to change) guests are listed on the RHEFP pages
