Thoughts On Comedy
Dec. 31st, 2005 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloComedy is a young person's game.
Ok, there are some comical old people out there, but I can't think of many.
Most comics lose it as they get older. Steve Martin anyone? A lot of the smarter ones retire or find something else to do. Michael Palin, for example, has reinvented himself as an "explorer".
Comedy works by surprising us. The longer a comedian is in business the less likely it is that we'll find his/her schtick surprising.
All comedy is subversive. Even the gentlest. It challenges things as they are. The older, more comfortable, more embedded in the establishment a comedian becomes the less unsettled and unsettling s/he's likely to be, the less in touch with the zeitgeist and the less essentially funny. Witness the career of Bob Hope.
The more you have to lose, the less willing you are to issue the challenge.
The comedians who last the longest are those who are funny by nature. Those who can't help it. Frankie Howerd for example. Frankie's comic longevity had nothing to do with his material and everything to do with who he was- that shamble, that long rubbery face, that unique combination of campness and misanthropic gloom.
The comedian is always a misfit. Out of kilter. Peculiar. Shamanic even.
Comedins lose it because they get scared. They get scared of the weirdness. They get scared of themselves.
Every great comic is a Yorick- that is to say, a death's head.
Ok, there are some comical old people out there, but I can't think of many.
Most comics lose it as they get older. Steve Martin anyone? A lot of the smarter ones retire or find something else to do. Michael Palin, for example, has reinvented himself as an "explorer".
Comedy works by surprising us. The longer a comedian is in business the less likely it is that we'll find his/her schtick surprising.
All comedy is subversive. Even the gentlest. It challenges things as they are. The older, more comfortable, more embedded in the establishment a comedian becomes the less unsettled and unsettling s/he's likely to be, the less in touch with the zeitgeist and the less essentially funny. Witness the career of Bob Hope.
The more you have to lose, the less willing you are to issue the challenge.
The comedians who last the longest are those who are funny by nature. Those who can't help it. Frankie Howerd for example. Frankie's comic longevity had nothing to do with his material and everything to do with who he was- that shamble, that long rubbery face, that unique combination of campness and misanthropic gloom.
The comedian is always a misfit. Out of kilter. Peculiar. Shamanic even.
Comedins lose it because they get scared. They get scared of the weirdness. They get scared of themselves.
Every great comic is a Yorick- that is to say, a death's head.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-01 03:06 am (UTC)Very true!
And of course the advantage of writing over performing live is that you can take days or weeks to think up the witty line and no one can tell just from reading the final draft. *g*
no subject
Date: 2006-01-01 03:14 am (UTC)Watching recent appearances by Norman Wisdom I've been astonished by how much energy he still seems to have. I guess I'd have to add him to my list of rare comics who keep going into old age. Actually, I think he's a lot funnier now than he was in the '50s.