I am writing one of those little booklets that turn up in the Guardian every now and again, which is ever so slightly thrilling given my obsession with this newspaper. My one is about how to write comedy. The deadline is essentially the start of the Fringe. I am in the interesting position of trying to get some actual comedy and this guide to comedy finished by the same time. If I was so great at writing comedy surely I would have got my show written already.
I didn't have a Headmaster gig tonight (was recording ten minutes for Paramount's "Edinburgh and Beyond", which went pretty well - should be on in September), so thought I would make a start on my booklet, giving the world the benefit of my comedic knowledge.
It's a lot harder than I thought it would be.
The essential problems with the guide is that comedy is generally something that you can either do or you can't (to what extent can it be taught?) and also that it is by its very nature without rules. Although there are formulas and structures to jokes, these very formulas often mean that something will not be funny, because it is too predictable, but also you can get just as big laughs from subverting or totally ignoring the rules. Like every comedian I secretly fear that if I examine why I can make people laugh too closely, that I will break my funniness and no longer be able to do it. Part of being funny is not quite knowing why you are funny. It's instinctive. As Barry Cryer is found of quoting "Analysing comedy is like dissecting a frog - nobody laughs and the frog dies."
I started trying to write about non-comedians general disbelief at comedians ability to create material. As a comedian the question I am most often asked (after "Have you done anything on TV that I might have seen?" which when I tell them what I've done they say "No, never seen it") is "Where do you get your crazy ideas from?" I decided I would attempt to discuss (if not answer) this in the introductory page. Because the true answer is that I am not entirely sure where most of the stuff comes from. It mainly comes about by accident rather than design. Though you can occasionally sit down and "write" jokes, the best ones come about when you're not expecting it, often via the collision of two idle thoughts or events. Dara O’Briain explained it well in Time Out recently when he said, ‘There’s a great description in a Douglas Adams book, when Arthur Dent discovers how to fly. Apparently the way to do it is to fall and then get distracted. At which point you forget you’ve just fallen and take off. That essentially, whether he meant it or not, is the best description of writing jokes – you trigger yourself to not think about something and then something comes out. If you think about a gag too heavily it’ll end up being really predictable.’ So I'll be putting that in the article - if only Dara had opened up a bit more I could maybe have copied the whole thing off him.
On the subject of where comedians get their crazy ideas from though, I was reminded of the time back in 2004, where the Guardian gave some UK based comedians the chance to send a written question to Richard Pryor. Thinking he would get the joke of being asked the most hackneyed question a comedian gets asked by another comedian, I wrote "Where do you get your crazy ideas from?" But alas either he didn't see the joke or thought it was a stupid one as he merely replied "I got my ideas from life." It was,
as I recognised at the time, a wasted opportunity. The stand up genius had only a year to live. I had one minute of his limited time and I threw it away on a joke that failed to hit. Still not as disastrously as
Jason Byrne did. What was he thinking?
Pryor's advice after a better question from someone else is to be truthful and then funny will come. Which isn't bad advice. But then again, you can be truthful and exceptionally unfunny and also you can just make up a load of stupid shit and be hilarious - look at Harry Hill's escalating surreal routines, like the amazing one about making his mum's mash scoop bigger every night - "to be honest with you, it was too much mash" (
discussed and precised here), which is one of my favourite all time comedy bits and which I presume was fictional.
I guess this entry shows that I have a fair amount to talk about on the subject and that admitting that comedy is a slippery frog that often eludes dissection is as good a point to make as any.
Luckily I am fascinated by the craft of my profession and it's cool that I have been chosen for this tricky, but interesting task. Hopefully it will help rather than hinder the progress of my actual new comedy show. I think it will be rather apt when I inevitably end up writing both show and booklet on the last possible day left to me. That's the main lesson I have for the comedy writer. Pay no attention to deadlines.
