can you fracture your funny bone?
My stand-up Supersize Me experiment had been ticking over nicely until last night. Something strange happened to my brain during Demetri Martin’s gig (George Square Theatre). Gags I’ve heard over the two weeks seemed to merge into one big joke pudding and I found I couldn’t stop thinking about comedy. I think after the Edinburgh Festival I might need to have my funny bone x-rayed for serious signs of wear and tear.
In the middle of his excellent, laid-back show Martin told a story about injuring his neck. He found that he could only look at someone by his side by turning his whole body to face them. As he result he recalled how even the most friendly offhand remark seemed threatening when accompanied by this pose – try it, it’s true.
As the punchline nestled in my head it seemed to hook up with a story told by Natalie Haynes (Pleasance) about going up to do a gig in York after putting her back out, which meant she was OK driving in a straight line but stuffed if she had to turn a corner.
This gag segued seamlessly into a one-liner told by Tim Vine (Pleasance) about asking a friend what music he should listen to when he was driving from London to Newcastle. “Bjork,” said his friend. “No, B’Durham,” replied Vine.
This made me think of Joanna Neary (Underbelly) whose quickfire character comedy show this year repeats some of the highlights of last year’s show but annoyingly not her brilliantly deranged Bjork impression.
Neary does, however, do a freakishly funny impersonation of an adolescent deer, all antlers and embarrassed shuffles. Luckily this made me think of a forthcoming documentary on Taxidermy called Stuff The World, which goes out on BBC2 this Wednesday. I’ve seen it and it’s great. And best of all, thinking about it helped me to stop thinking about comedy for a few minutes.
Even the sad, untimely demise of great politicians seems to link back to comedy at the moment. Mo Mowlam’s death reminded me that the last time I’d seen her, only a couple of months ago, she was introducing Eddie Izzard onstage at the Hackney Empire where he was doing a benefit for her charity. And on the day of Robin Cook’s funeral in Edinburgh last week a comic bemoaning his poor ticket sales remarked that “he’s dead and he’s getting bigger audiences than me.”
In the middle of his excellent, laid-back show Martin told a story about injuring his neck. He found that he could only look at someone by his side by turning his whole body to face them. As he result he recalled how even the most friendly offhand remark seemed threatening when accompanied by this pose – try it, it’s true.
As the punchline nestled in my head it seemed to hook up with a story told by Natalie Haynes (Pleasance) about going up to do a gig in York after putting her back out, which meant she was OK driving in a straight line but stuffed if she had to turn a corner.
This gag segued seamlessly into a one-liner told by Tim Vine (Pleasance) about asking a friend what music he should listen to when he was driving from London to Newcastle. “Bjork,” said his friend. “No, B’Durham,” replied Vine.
This made me think of Joanna Neary (Underbelly) whose quickfire character comedy show this year repeats some of the highlights of last year’s show but annoyingly not her brilliantly deranged Bjork impression.
Neary does, however, do a freakishly funny impersonation of an adolescent deer, all antlers and embarrassed shuffles. Luckily this made me think of a forthcoming documentary on Taxidermy called Stuff The World, which goes out on BBC2 this Wednesday. I’ve seen it and it’s great. And best of all, thinking about it helped me to stop thinking about comedy for a few minutes.
Even the sad, untimely demise of great politicians seems to link back to comedy at the moment. Mo Mowlam’s death reminded me that the last time I’d seen her, only a couple of months ago, she was introducing Eddie Izzard onstage at the Hackney Empire where he was doing a benefit for her charity. And on the day of Robin Cook’s funeral in Edinburgh last week a comic bemoaning his poor ticket sales remarked that “he’s dead and he’s getting bigger audiences than me.”
posted by Bruce Dessau @ 3:29 PM
1 Comments:
At 10:18 PM,
jo neary said…
hi Bruce, thanks for the nice comments. Best thing this festival is a girl came up to me and said her dad bought a Bjork album after seeing my show last year. how good is that?! I've been enjoying doing my show. Hopefully not more than the audience has enjoyed it. My diary is on joneary.co.uk I can't remember if you're on it. I think you are. I'm very tired. Best wishes Jo Neary
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