...continued HITTING FUNNY - Why?

But, I hear you cry, we have the freedom to dissent. Think Rory Bremner, think Have I Got News For You. Think any other form of satire widely available through the mass media… hang on… Let's face it, satire as a form of dissent is now toothless. It's an Establishment-sanctioned form of dissent that allows us to let off steam and convinces us we can change things without actually giving us the ability to do so.

So, with this thinking rapidly coalescing in my head, another question posed itself - if dissent was vital to society, then how come nobody was doing it? The answer is because it's not commercially viable. Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks were never incredibly successful in their lifetimes. Their work, like the work of Jesus, has grown in influence and popularity since their death. But when they were alive they found it hard to get gigs, their audiences were either small and uncomprehending or small and a preach to the converted and, on top of that, they were both prevented from saying what they wanted to say by the powers-that-be - Bruce by the courts and Hicks by the media's indifference and censorship. Comedians - and by that I mean the majority of working comics who tour the country playing clubs and student unions - make a pretty meagre living. Why would they want to jeopardise that by alienating their audience? They wouldn't. And so - following the glorious capitalist mantra - they give the people what they want.

And what do the people want? Do the people want to be challenged? Do they want to be asked to think about uncomfortable truths that may cause them to change their whole outlook on life and society? Of course they don't. They want a bit of a laugh. A giggle. Some chuckles. And while they're laughing they want to be reassured that everything is alright. They want to be entertained. This is where my love of comedy and my love of theatre came together and Hitting Funny as a show was born. What is entertainment? Why do we need it? Why do we seek it out? I've spent the past twenty years of my life entertaining people in one way or another, both as an amateur and as a professional. I've appeared in countless stage productions of dramas, comedies, musicals and I've watched as the medium that I love has become more and more obsolete. Audiences become smaller and smaller and the people that do come to the theatre fall into specific groups: older people who are looking for an evening out with friends, perhaps a meal before the show, a drink in the interval and something to talk about at a dinner party; School kids who have been forced to come because they are doing the play for GCSE and either sit through the show (more than likely yet another production of Romeo & Juliet) with their heads constantly buried in their notepads, unable to take in the story since they need notes for their essay and can't write it from memory - or they sit, bored, texting their friend two seats away, eating sweets, talking, longing for it to be over. There are other groups too but the quality that unites them all is boredom. People come to the theatre because they have bought a ticket for something and they know precisely what experience they will have. If it's Shakespeare then the evening will be long and they won't be able to catch all the words but they will feel that they have done something 'worthy' by coming. If it's a comedy then they will laugh and forget the evening by the time they get in their car, etc.

But none of this is what entertainment is for and it is why theatre as an artform is dying. The purpose of entertainment, to quote Shakespeare, is to "hold the mirror up to nature." And nature, in all her glory, is a pretty extraordinary, ugly, terrifying, beautiful, appalling thing. When I buy a ticket to a piece of theatre I believe I am buying a piece of the unknown. I want the evening to take me by the scruff of the neck and force me to look under the stone that I'd really rather not look under. I want to be shaken, enthralled, appalled and delighted. I want to feel something. In short, I want catharsis. And this is where theatre and comedy meet. The purpose of stand-up comedy is catharsis. We give the comedian licence to say the unsayable for us and, by doing just that, the comedian gives us licence to free all the pent-up emotions that we have built up. It's a pressure valve for society and a vital one. So vital that it predates either comedy or theatre. In ancient civilisations, the shamans were a vital part of every tribe. They gave catharsis and cast out the evil spirits by performing and 'entertaining' around the campfire. They were the proto-actors and comedians - as I talk about at great speed in Hitting Funny. The purpose of comedy and theatre is the same since they sprang from the same root - catharsis. But the two branches went in different directions - theatre towards narrative and comedy towards anarchy. Clowns (again discussed in the play) were the first comedians and the true spirit of the clown is anarchy. He is the id, the eternal child who will not do what he is told and his spirit lives on today in stand-up comedians. Or at least it should do…

So, these are the seeds of the play. How to articulate this in a dramatic way? How to create a hybrid of stand-up and theatre? I needed to articulate the dilemma in a character. The dilemma is the perennial one: Art versus Commerce, Idealism versus Pragmatism. Or as I say in the play - sell out or sell in? So, I created the character of Chris Rich - a young (well, as young as I am), ambitious comedian who is in the grips of this dilemma. Should he take his material into the darker, edgier realms that will fulfil his role as an ancestor of the clown but lose him his audience? Or should he 'give the people what they want' and provide them with safe, nice, funny observations about the difficulties of making a toaster work?

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