Laughing otherwise: comic-critical approaches in alternative comedy

Abstract

The origins of ‘alternative comedy’ are difficult to pinpoint, though it coincided with the rise of Thatcher as Prime Minister in 1979 – that year saw the appearance of something called ‘alternative cabaret’, a term usually associated with Tony Allen, who combined activism and comedy. The acts this article will focus on are those which took a critical approach to comedy and/or politics – ‘alternative’ comedy (or altcom), therefore, as seeming to promise change through critical awareness. This paper will discuss parody as a means of critical (dis)engagement and transformation, in relation to context, and to influences such as punk. Altcom demonstrates an apparent eschewal of approaches which rely on irony and ambiguity, in favour of more ‘direct’ political engagement. It will be argued however that such ‘direct’ approach does not cancel out critical distance, but rather seeks alternative routes to establish it – namely comic and parodic overstatement, and the problematisation of ‘trust’. This entails the key questions of whether parody may take up critical distance without irony, as well as of the political implications of an approach which seeks to eliminate ambiguity. This more ‘direct’ approach however still depends on a balance of engagement and disengagement, requiring distancing from pre-established codes.

Keywords:

• Comedy
• critical distance
• irony
• parody
• alternative comedy
• punk

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the AHRC for funding this research. I would also like to thank Oliver Double, Ivan Callus and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

Notes

1. See Connor (1990, p. 81); and Cook (2001, p. 9).

2. A stance derived from ‘the Alternative Cabaret mob’ (Lee Cornes, in Cook, 2001, p. 50).

3. Parody, rather than pastiche, is the primary focus here, as having a ‘transformative’ function lacking in pastiche (Genette, 1997, p. 10). In line with Hutcheon (1998), I here favour a view of postmodernism which allows for attempts to challenge ‘late capitalism’ and contemporary conventions through parody, over Jameson’s view that pastiche overtakes parody in postmodernism (Jameson, 1998, pp. 4, 5).

4. Though it marked a shift in stand-up conventions (including increased heckling and emphasis on authorship and ownership of material), altcom wasn’t limited to stand-up. Here, I select examples from associated TV series as well as ‘live’ performance, while acknowledging that these are only a selection from a larger and diverse set, selected for their relevance and ability to illustrate certain features highlighted here.

5. Tony Allen recalls having had to expressly ask that ‘any children […] be taken out’ (Allen, 1979).

6. Affectionately referred to by Frankie Howerd in addressing his Establishment audience: ‘As you know – well if you do know at all – I’m a humble music hall comedian, a sort of variety artist you know, I’m not usually associated with these sophisticated venues … [latter word in a faux-French accent]’ (Howerd, 1963).

7. She points out that ‘on the public, that is non-club stage, censorship forbade the presentation or mention of royalty or government figures in any disrespectful light’ (Appignanesi, 2004, p. 237).

8. For further discussion of parody as punk strategy, and humour within punk, see: Bonello Rutter Giappone (2012) and Bestley (2013).

9. For example, from the episode ‘Sick’ (12 June 1984): Rick: I’m going to write to my MP. Neil: You haven’t got an MP Rick, you’re an anarchist. Rick: Ah, well then, I shall write to the lead singer of Echo and the Bunnymen.

10. The general consensus is that UK punk was at its height in 1975–1978, coinciding, more or less, with the life-span of the band the Sex Pistols as fronted by Johnny Rotten. Savage’s account of punk (1991) is Pistols-centred; Roger Sabin notes that punk is often viewed as being already in its death-throes when Thatcher rose to power in 1979, although his interest lies in exploring ensuing developments and the continuing legacy of punk (Sabin, 1999). The rationale for focusing primarily on Pre-Thatcherite punk in this instance is that this is the most immediate influence on the emergence of altcom. However, altcom itself may be seen as continuing (while transforming) punk’s legacy, so 1979 is posited here as significant turning-point, rather than strict boundary. Where relevant, reference will be made to later punk developments which maintain or highlight some of its central tenets.

11. Stewart Lee could be considered a ‘post-alternative’ comedian, on the basis of his politically conscious comedy and his open declaration of indebtedness to both punk (Lee, 1996) and altcom. Lee curated the 2011 showcase of 80s altcom ‘At Last! The 1981 Show’ (Royal Festival Hall, London, 29 May 2011), which featured performers such as Alexei Sayle, the Oblivion Boys, and Pauline Melville.

12. Kate Fox alleges that ‘The understatement “comes naturally” because it is deeply ingrained in our culture, part of the English psyche’ (Fox, 2004, p. 68).

13. For a discussion of the ‘double-coded’ nature and structure of parody, see Rose (1993, pp. 89, 90). Bakhtin sees it as intrinsically ‘double-voiced’ (1984, p. 195).

14. On the ‘monologic’, see Bakhtin (1984, p. 80). Irony (with the exception of some kinds of ‘unstable’ irony, in terms of Booth’s division), rather than destabilising, tends to assume the possibility of what could be called a finally monologic reading.

15. ‘It was never meant for subtlety, was it?’ (Lydon, 1994, p. 157). Mick Jones attests to the ‘honesty’ of the Clash: ‘All our songs are about being honest, right?’ (‘The Very Angry Clash’, Sniffin’ Glue 4 October 1976, p. 3); while Sniffin’ Glue editor Mark Perry’s most consistent refrain is an assertion of honesty (‘Every word I put my fuckin’ name to is honest’, Sniffin’ Glue, 8 March 1977, p. 2). Paul Weller, too, accounts honesty the main ‘ideal of punk’ (Punk in England, 1978).

16. See also: Burnel, in Punk in London, 1978.

17. John Hegley considered heckling ‘a new way of communicating’ (in Cook, 2001, p. 71).

18. I am of course dealing here with that species of irony that Booth terms ‘covert’ (Booth, 1974, p. 236).

19. See note 18 above.

20. This is not to suggest that Carr is free from altcom’s influence – but that he is sceptical of comedy’s ‘alternative’ politicisation: ‘Comedians are not the kind of people you want to put in charge of protecting minority views. As a breed they’re instinctively with the mob’ (Carr & Greaves, 2006, p. 192).

21. Lee (2008a) notes the ability of political correctness to euphemistically ‘cloak inherent racism behind more creative language’.

22. Hannan doesn’t deny the transformative power of the series – however, the insistence on how they ‘secretly did conform’ (Hannan, 2009, p. 517, emphasis added), while admirably advocating necessary scepticism towards claims of novelty, risks underestimating or overlooking the part played by imitation as a prelude to transformation in parody (see Rose, 1993, p. 29).

23. Travesty being the reverse (a high subject, in a lower register), see Genette (1997, p. 22).

24. The pun in its strictest sense, defined as ‘one signifier with two possible signifieds, which in a particular context are simultaneously activated, and as two identical signifiers, which in a particular context are made to coalesce’ (Attridge, 1988, p. 193), is only one instance of the range of wordplay considered here.

25. Robert Hewison observes that in the mid-70s, ‘the long shadow of Monty Python’s Flying Circus seem[ed] to lie across Cambridge humour’ (1983, p. 172).

26. The Carry On tradition of innuendo had earned a reputation for what was deemed ‘innocent vulgarity’, though at the time this was also a strategy for circumventing censorship (see Bright & Ross, 1999, p. 72).

27. Walter Redfern suggests that puns depend on that delicate balance that permits ambiguity, that bi- or ‘forked’ language that produces a moment of defamiliarisation of language itself ‘experienced as foreign’ (Redfern, 1984, pp. 1, 10).

28. Stallybrass and White discuss the cluster of these associations in Victorian writings: ‘In Bourke’s work the division between cleanliness and filth, purity and impurity, is that between Christian and pagan, the civilised and the savage’ (1986, p. 131).

29. Lydon (1991) has commented, ‘If I’m related to anything, it would be to people who have always been awkward and difficult, people like Peter Cook’. Nigel Planer sees Peter Cook’s influence as inherited by his generation, ‘a collective effort’, rather than locating it in any single individuals (in Hamilton, Gordon, & Kieran, 2006, p. 300).

30. This was in the ‘Summarise Proust Competition’ sketch. See: Perry (1983, p. 144); and Palin (2006, p. 106).

31. Marking this turning-point, there is also a high incidence of allusions to wanking in Derek and Clive: ‘They’ve heard rumours about copulation but they haven’t actually experienced it. They just wank’ (Peter Cook in Cain, 2007, p. 263).

32. Named ‘Definite Buy Single’ by Lydon (NME, 1978), the single was released on ‘punk’ label Beggars Banquet.

33. Of course, the literalisation of metaphor has long been perceived as a comic device (see Bergson, 1980, p. 135); a sort of flattening which may operate within, for example, the inherently dual structure of parody. Rose lists, among the ways of signalling parody, ‘semantic changes’ and ‘changes to the choice of words and/or to the literal and metaphoric functions of words taken from the original’ (Rose, 1993, p. 37).

34. See, for example, Attridge on Joyce (Attridge, 2000, p. 88).

35. The perception of ‘sentimentality’ implied here would accord with what Tanner identifies as its common characterisation, as ‘in some important way unearned, being had on the cheap, come by too easily, [the feelings which constitute it being] directed at unworthy objects’, and to be distinguished from ‘genuine’ and ‘worthy’ emotions (Tanner, 1976–1977, p. 128); distinguished, in Rodway’s words, as ‘feelings manufactured instead of discovered’ (Rodway, 1975, p. 53). However, such distinction is not consistently upheld in either punk or altcom, where the distrust of sentimentality takes precedence, yet is frequently generalised to a distrust of all emotion.

36. A poignancy that prompts Hannan to call it ‘possibly the most moving closing imagery ever employed by a situation comedy’ (2009, p. 508).

37. Sex Pistols (1977), Talking Heads (1977). Warning against emotions that have been learned, and which are therefore only deceptively authentic, the Dead Kennedys sing: ‘You learned so many feelings / But what is there to that/Which are really yours?’ (1980).

38. William Miller sees disgust as taking contempt one step further in constituting more of a dangerous threat, following upon increased visibility: ‘Clownish or invisible is what the contemptible are when they do not constitute a threat; disgusting is what they are when they do’ (Miller, 1997, p. 237).

39. This harks back to a long tradition in writings on comedy. Back in 1773, Oliver Goldsmith penned a lively defence of ‘True Comedy’ along these lines, arguing moreover that pity is not an option available to comedy: ‘Distress […] is the proper object of Tragedy, since the Great excite our pity by their fall; but not equally so of Comedy, since the Actors employed in it are originally so mean, that they sink but little by their fall’ (Goldsmith, 1969, p. 187).

40. Goldsmith considers the ‘Sentimental’ mode (which includes ‘pity’) to be ‘the most easily written’ (Goldsmith, 1969, p. 189).

41. Legg (2005, p. 488) identifies one prominent school of thought that links nostalgia with sentimentalisation and the establishment. Traces of nostalgia were nonetheless not entirely absent in either punk or altcom (see Bonello Rutter Giappone, 2012).

42. One exemplary instance is provided by Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley, who refused to return to their common Buzzcocks-roots when playing together again at the Lesser Free Trade Hall for what was to all evident intents and purposes a reunion, on 21 July 1978. Devoto introduces the song by saying, ‘And this is not nostalgia. This is not even off the cuff, but it’s up our sleeve’. Thus in one fell swoop, he debunks the very spontaneity expected, and precludes any emotional investment nostalgia might invite; before launching into a cover of the (even older) Troggs song, ‘I Can’t Control Myself’, with a few alterations which could be described as parodic, signposting its own status as performance (‘I can’t control myself … well, sometimes I can […] When I’m here, and I’m playing this song’).

43. Derrida comments on the association between the two meanings of ‘touching’ (2005, p. 60).