Alright, so let us now begin to compile a comprehensive explanation of comedy, garnered from our many collective years of rigourous research and dedicated study. In time, we may indeed produce the definitive resource for future students of funny.
Scholars, feel free to add an A to Z topic of your choosing, so as to illuminate the ignorant to the history of japery...
'A' is for Audience
If a man tells a joke in a forest and there is no-one around to hear it, is it still funny?
The answer, of course, is no. That man needs an audience. The man who believes that a joke without an audience is funny, must be deluded. He is what is known as a) a comedy writer, or b) Tom O'Connor.
Comedy audiences first originated during Roman times, when between gladitorial battles light relief would be provided by the comedian or stand-up, so called because of his ability to talk whilst standing up. This is also the verified birthplace of observational comedy (see Desperate Shite), when a young Eric Sykes ventured "Have you ever noticed how the lions always seem to win?". The audience reaction to comedy during this harsh times would often seal the fate of unfortunate comedian, who could be thrown the lions on the turn of a drunken Emperor's thumb. (As the Emperor was usually compere-ing the gig and hated to be upstaged, few survived.) Despite this often bloody fate there was always huge competition for the 5 minute Open Spots.
Moving forward to the time of Shakespeare and the comedy audience expectations of what was funny had radically changed. Working alongside a now more mature Eric Sykes, the great Bard created characters and situations which defined what an audience still today considers great comedy. A man who's turned into a donkey with a West Country accent (see Justin Lee Collins); a pompous official who doesn't realise he's the joke (see Brent, David); a misunderstanding about the ownership of a handkerchief leading to the downfall of a negro and a tragic murder (see 70's ITV sitcoms; and a man with a poisonous, interferring, mad-as-a-hatter wife (see Sitcoms, general principles of).
Audiences of this period would show their appreciation of the tremendous hilarity of the playwright's imagination by forcing out exaggerated laughter to fairly ropey slapstick; and guffawing knowingly in places where there is no apparent joke whatsoever. This pattern of audience behaviour continues to this very day (see also Oscar Wilde, Being in the audience during a play by).
What we consider the archetype of a modern-day comedy audience most likely began in the large and vibrant arenas of the late Victorian and early 20th century music halls. Audiences of several hundred thousand would eagerly squash into these cramped auditoriums, in the hope of seeing the pioneers of stand-up comedy. Popular comedians of the day were Tommy 'Don't cry rape!' Sugden, Flanders & Swann & Jordan, Harry Wallington and his Gay Sauna, Millie 'Don't Leave That Hanging About!' Whitehouse and the late Ken Dodd.
Unlike the stand-up bills of today (the considered form being one comedian you've heard of; one comedian you've seen before and who was shit, one comedian who appears to be have genuinely serious mental problems; one comedian who after not getting a laugh from their opening "killer" gag, proceeds to apologise for every bad gag thereafter - asking whether he should just get off now, yet never seeming to actually fulfil that threat; one comedian who gets into a long-running and ultimately futile battle of wills with the first person to heckle him; and one comedian who is really funny and you come away wondering why he's not on TV - not privvy to the fact the reason he's not is because he's nicked every single f**king gag he's ever performed and would be lynched if he tried), music hall line-ups would often consist of several thousand acts, with each comedian ending with a song followed by God Save The King (which in those days was sung to the alternative tune, very similar sounding to the Washing Machines Live Longer With Calgon jingle. It could therefore take several months for a performance to be completed. The next day's matinee would, necessarily in order to finish on schedule, have to start somewhere into the 3rd or 4th act of the evening performance: leading to two acts on stage at the same time and great confusion about who was laughing at what.
Audiences would be made of hardier stuff than comedy audiences of today and would bring provisions to the theatre to see them through the performance. It was commonplace for families to experience births, deaths and marriages during the performance. Christmas and other festivals would be observed, with the comics adjusting their topical material based on whatever had happened to them and the audience in the last month. ("Is it just me or have you noticed how the TB outbreak always seems to start in the dress circle?" D.Norden)
With the events of first World War I and the subsequent (and therefore conveniently-named) World War II, comedy audience's expectations of the standard of material required to make them laugh (like satanic cattle) dipped remarkably. After the horrors of the First World War, the comic often only needed to walk on stage to get a laugh. The audience were overcome with hysterical relief that someone could walk on stage apparently alive, with intact limbs and no evidence of shell shock. What's more, they the audience were alive too! It was a classic combination of circumstances leading to big laughs. (see Charles Chaplin; walking around with limbs intact; the success of).
With the advent of radio comedy, the BBC had a responsibility to ensure that the voices heard on radio comedy were suitable and appropriate, mindful of the safety of their listeners. Therefore audience members for radio comedy recordings were strictly vetted by the suitability of their laughter. Guffaws were considered too working-class, giggles frivolous and not in keeping with Reithian principles. Anyone who was noted to have laughed beyond the requisite 5 seconds was suspected of probable communist leanings. A laugh was properly announciated as 'A-ha-ha-ha' in those days. Anything resembling the whoops and cheers associated with American comedy audiences would (in those days) have been considered vulgar, childish and a sign of mental insufficiency.
With no visual picture to limit it, radio comedy could let its imagination run riot and set comedy in all sorts of wild and exotic places. Therefore listeners were treated to a comedy set on a battleship, a comedy in the Navy, a comedy set on a Naval battleship and many more wacky scenarios.
This "golden age" of radio comedy (see BBC; auto-felatio by the) led British audiences to begin their ongoing romance with comedic "catch-phrases" (see Audiences; dead-eyed, souless braying of). Much research has been done into what is the quintessential appeal of a catchphrase to the comedy audience. The findings suggest that a part of a comedy audience member's brain known as Charlie Higson's Bossom is triggered by the stimulus of an appropriate banality. The ideal comedy catchphrase should ideally a) be facile enough that a parrot could be trained to deliver it with as much comedy value, b) cause the amusement of recognition, even if it were delivered as the last words of a dying loved one, c) strike particular resonance because it's something, you know, people really do say, I never realised that before (see Dennis Nilson; how very dare you!), and d) distracts from the fact that any surrounding dialogue has no intrinsic merit in itself other than to service said catchphrase (see Nelson Mandela; I'm free!; the history of apartheid, the ANC and.
Popular catchphrases of this age included ITMA!'s (It's That Melanoma Again!) "Between you, me and Debbie McGee..."; ITMA?'s (Is That Man Absailing?) "I'll give you something to hang it on!" and ITMA!'s (It's Those Melancholic Angels!) "Am I consternated? Does this face look consternated to you?" - led eventually to the anarchic audience hit, the post-WWII entertainment troupe who went on to become 'The Goons' (written by "crazy" Herman Goerring, performed with Albert Speer, Michael Bentine and Eccles Cake), the comedy audience's favourite being the famous "lost episode" set during the Nuremberg Trials (ECCLES CAKE: I've fallen off the scaffold!).
With the advent of the popular medium of television, comedy audiences were now in a position to actually see the hilarity as well as hear it. The move to TV came at a cost to some performers, however. Famously the puppeteer star of Educating Archie was left somewhat exposed to criticism, when TV revealed that Archie was actually unable to speak without his master moving his lips. Even in more trusting times, comedy audiences could smell a rat. A top-secret memo to the then Head Of BBC Comedy (see Impotence; chagrin, silent hatred and cheerful ignorance leading to) was leaked to press, in which a senior producer voiced concern that "the public, despite limited education, may be seeing through this facade. After conducting a six-month consultation exercise, we have grave concerns that this performer's blatant use of his lips to provide Archie's voice may not be construed as 'ventriloquism'. It might well be considered as the less-than-impressive ability to 'talk'. The concensus is that this show should be considered for de-commission after a further 57 episodes".
For one unlucky performer, Roy Thicket, the transition to TV was even more difficult. A very popular "impressionist of notable persons in society, not so as to cause offence, but of a gentle ribald nature" (Radio Times) his television career was cut short after a mere thirteen series. The audience was unsettled by the mere physical appearance of Roy (which did not suit his impersonations - he was 2ft tall and 18 stone), but also the fact that whilst performing his routine of mimicking the powerful and famous, he would simultaneously insert various varieties of potato into his rectum, take them out, sniff them, then throw them at the audience. (A broken man, Roy claimed in his autobiography (Potato-Blighted) that he only did this offensive part of his act because a producer had advised him that this would be "original, ground-breaking, fresh - a showcase for new comedy!".)
However, for comedy audiences, the 60's became a golden age for television sitcom. Shows such as Hancock were so popular that it was said that when it was on, the pubs would be empty. One has to allow for the fact that BBC scheduling problems meant that it was broadcast for many years at 3.27am (just before The Larry Sanders Show). When demand forced the BBC to air the show in a "primetime" viewing slot (where it replaced 'How Clean Is Your Empire Day Memorial Spoon?', the pubs were almost empty, and the brothels less than two-thirds full.
This pattern of slavish audience worship continued with many classic shows. To get home in time to watch Steptoe & Son, evening-shift workers would often threaten their bosses with scrotal nailing and garotting if they didn't let them off early. Doctors and nurses would leave critically injured patients in the A&E to go and watch, with most of the patients sympathetic - "You go ahead, doc, I've already split my sides, now it's your turn!". Many Britons went completely unaware of the Cuban Missile Crisis and impending nuclear armageddon when fearful BBC bosses refused to interrupt an episode: the one where Harold tries to inject Albert with liquid mercury in a bid to collect his life insurance and defect to Russia with Mabel, the transsexual Tiller girl.
But how does a comedy audience work? In TV, it's simple. The audience is performed the show after a "warm-up guy" (see Cocaine habit; jobs to feed a), who gets them in the mood by telling them that "the more you laugh the better the show will be", completely aware that the converse of this statement is actually the honest truth. So the comedy audience sits through the show scene-by-scene, laughing very hard to the point of self-delusion at jokes the first time they see them. Then they force themselves to laugh again and again at the same joke for another 37 takes. This is done quite willingly and without threat of physical violence from the production team (see Butterflies; scandal of BBC using tear-gas threats against audience of sitcom) to the point that somehow the audience member continuing to laugh is forced to enter a world of delusion. Whereby he thinks that somehow he, the audience, the actors and the production team are in on some amazingly secret joke that the viewing public will never understand. Keep laughing, the voice says, just keep laughing.
TV critics bemoan the use of "canned" laughter in sitcoms they hate, many of which they have seen. This makes comedy people very angry, as canned laughter (see type of laughter which should be stock-piled in case of threat of nuclear or natural disaster) is an American invention, popularised in the early days of sitcom, when it was considered more cost-effective and beneficial to use recorded laughter samples rather than have a live studio audience.
Of course, as every comedy audience member who has been at a recording of a British sitcom knows, canned laughter is not used in this country. If you don't believe this, try and track down audiences members who attended recordings of 'Coming Of Age'. Show them the tape and they will be forced to admit, of their own free will, that - yes - they and the rest of the audience laughed just like that, at those jokes.
The use of electrical currents running through seats to encourage audiences to laugh in the correct places was discontinued in the 1990's, after a spate of nylon fires occurring during filming of Birds Of A Feather.
For the live comedian and his audience, of course, the dynamic is very different. The modern day stand-up comedian's audience is only vaguely aware that what they are watching in front of them is human flesh and blood and not still the television. However, that vital difference can lead to what is known as comedy audience heckling (orig. to heckle - verb. to shout "Tell us a f**king joke!" after downing 15 Aftershocks).
The audience may not only simply ignore the comedian (with difficulty, they do keep going on); they cannot only refuse to laugh (which is often a superior form of entertainment for the audience member himself - especially if situated in the front row, directly in the eye-line of the sweating lust-driven bankrupt/comedian); but they also have the opportunity to heckle.
Traditional heckles an audience member may employ and their explanations as to their cruel and mocking effects...
"Cab for [insert stand-up's name]!" - the joke here is two-fold - the suggestion that the comic may need a taxi - heightened by the bluff that the heckler has not as yet ordered any such vehicle.
"Why are you wearing [insert an item of clothing for ridicule]?" "Did you go to [insert name of heckler's old school]?" - known as examples of the random heckle - carefully crafted by the drunken heckler to suddenly draw attention to the fact that the comedian is wearing clothes or went to a school. There is no known retort or rejoinder available to the comedian.
"At least he's funny!" or "He's funnier than you!" - this heckle may be deployed when the comedian has made the error of mentioning literally any other f**king living human being in his act. The prompt for the heckler could be the mention of the Pope, Charles Manson, William Hague, Gerry or Kate McCann... this list is literally endless.
"[random cheer]" - favoured by the heckler who fancies themselves as a bit of a c**t and doesn't know who cares. If ignored by comedian, best repeated until friends of the heckler look embarrassed.
"I'm from [insert place name]" or "My name's [insert name]" or "My girlfriend" - this is what's known as the non-heckle. What the comedian has done here is deliberately engaged with the comedy audience (see Stand-up; things usually best not done in). He has asked a question and the non-heckler has given an answer. Herein lies the dilemma of consulting the audience. The comedian almost instantly realises that by engaging the audience member he has effectively heckled them for his own comedic purposes. Usually the stand-up is short on material that causes laughter and is relying on their experience of improvisation (though this has been gleaned mainly from watching DVDs of Ross Noble et al). The comedian is relying on the audience member to furnish him with a comedic starting point for upwards of 15 minutes of off-the-cuff material. He finds that audience member is politely answering the questions and that the comedian begins to basically repeat the audience member's answers... "Where are you from?" "Swansea" "Swansea. What do you do?" "I'm unemployed" "Unemployed? Wow! You're unemployed? Is that unusual in Swansea? What does your wife think about you being unemployed?" "I'm not married" "You're not married? Who's that with you then?" "My sister" "Your sister? Well in Swansea that could be the same thing, couldn't it" "What?" "Your sister. Like your wife... You're a dead weird bunch tonight, aren't you!!!!???"... The comedian will then tend to get more aggressive as he becomes ever more lost in the foul world that he himself has just created, and will start to take on all-comers from the audience - until he is effectively challenging the entire room to some sort-of weird metaphorical cock-fight after the gig... The comedian has made the mistake of becoming the heckler when he is meant to be heckled - the c**tee has transmutated into the c**t.
The comedy audience should always be warned on the subject of heckling that they face years of experience when they dare to challenge the stand-up. He may employ the crushing blow of a stand-up's "put-down". Woe betide the comedy audience member who is on the receiving end of one of these zingers. A skilled comic's witty rejoinder can lead to depression, substance abuse, even thoughts of suicide in the hapless fool who dared cross him.
Ask yourself how would you cope with the following put-downs...?
"I don't come to where you work and [insert inference of sexual act involving homosexuality, incest, bestiality, paedophilia, necrophilia etc.], you c**t!" - this tradional put-down should by law receive a huge laugh and a respectful round of applause from non-heckling audience members.
"First night out, is it?" "It's a great night out for you, isn't it? Shit night for your friends, you c**t" "Has it ever crossed your mind that there's a reason I'm up here and you're not? You c**t." - all these are fine examples of put-downs which will easily fool the heckler-hating majority of the audience. But obviously under closer scrutiny they don't contain any truth or wisdom. "First night out, is it?" From what? Presumably the comic means prison, or a mental institution, so by inference the comic is implying that the type of punter who would come to see him is either a sociopath, depressed, or psychotic in some way. What does that say about him? "It's a great night out for you, isn't it? Shit night for your friends." This quite often is a fairly hollow assertion, the comic conveniently ignoring the fact that his friends are proud of their mate calling this comic a prick, indeed most of them are telling the comic to f**k off also. "Has it ever crossed you mind that there's a reason I'm up here and you're not?" This is the riskiest put-down of them all, as one could make a fairly insightful and extensive list of all the possible reasons the comic is up there ("the one with the microphone") performing for usually very little money, to a crowd of drunks who don't like him and are hoping he dies a cold, lonely death. One might point out that the comic was likely bullied, an only child, craving of adoration, sexually immature, emotionally immature, educationally subnormal... There are any number of reasons that the comic is up there and the heckler is not.
We come full circle to the comedy audience of the Roman arenas and the peasant comedians pathetically trying to make them laugh...
"You c**t." Simple, effective put-down. But if you're not a comedian don't try it at home. Remember these guys have put years and years in on the road in order to know how this put-down works.
"The best heckle I ever had... [insert story]". This is known as the distraction put-down. When a comic is heckled, why should he waste valuable mental processing time coming-up with a devastatingly clever put-down (when his mind is already occupied calculating how much Rohypnol he can afford)? Far better to distract the comedy audience from the fact that he has no response, by launching into some "spontaneous" anecdote about the best-ever heckled he received. This, of course, will not be true ("this woman accused me of blowing her late grandfather whilst wearing her Super Ted slippers"). If perchance the story is true, it will not be his, he will have nicked from another comic, who will have nicked it from another comic, who will..... Studies have shown that in 2008 there were actually only 3 "best ever heckle I had" stories being told amongst the 2.3 million regular stand-up comedians in the UK.
So, that's audiences in comedy. Well, it isn't, but there you are.
(I don't expect every entry to be this long. I didn't expect this entry to be this long.)
