Quote: Nat Wicks @ August 25 2012, 2:05 PM BSTI can think of one woman who plays an acoustic guitar and around 10 men.
Nooo!!! The world has officially gone mad. At least those 10 men won't be successful, so I should be thankful for small mercies.
Quote: Joyce @ August 25 2012, 2:06 PM BSTI'm old, so I remember Jasper Carrott and his guitar
I also remember this and remember not laughing. His advert piss takes were the best thing about his old show - loved those.
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ August 25 2012, 2:24 PM BSTNooo!!! The world has officially gone mad. At least those 10 men won't be successful, so I should be thankful for small mercies.
Tastes have changed then because so many people laughed at those guitar playing comics that they became famous, invented the sellout stadium gig, and made stand up comedy the ubercool thing it is today. The guitar was their symbol of new trendy liberally inclined comedy, their guitars were the things which helped kill off the besuited racist and sexist comic. So it does seem strange if they're seen as uncool today.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ August 25 2012, 2:39 PM BSTTastes have changed then because so many people laughed at those guitar playing comics that they became famous, invented the sellout stadium gig, and made stand up comedy the ubercool thing it is today. The guitar was their symbol of new trendy liberally inclined comedy, their guitars were the things which helped kill off the besuited racist and sexist comic. So it does seem strange if they're seen as uncool today.
Not all tastes have changed. A lot of my son's friends play the guitar and use music in their comedy. It adds a little extra. It comes back to the same thing. Different people find different things amusing.
Quote: Joyce @ August 25 2012, 2:56 PM BSTDifferent people find different things amusing.
That is definitely true and I have stated on this forum more then once that I, personally, don't like comedy songs and Victoria Wood in particular. My big problem with it is that I never bust out laughing during a comedy song, at most, I find them mildly amusing and hardly ever memorable.
If someone turned to me in a pub and said: 'Hey mate, do you want to hear a great joke?' and then pulled out a guitar, I'd scarper.
Ultimately, I just don't want another generation of 'The Midnight Beast' cluttering up the telly waves.
I think everyone looks at this "problem" the wrong way round, it's not that there's not enough women in comedy it's that there are far too many men.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ August 25 2012, 2:39 PM BSTSo it does seem strange if they're seen as uncool today.
They are not. RC is only speaking on his own feelings, which are not shared by your average live gig punter.
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ August 25 2012, 3:01 PM BSTThat is definitely true and I have stated on this forum more then once that I, personally, don't like comedy songs and Victoria Wood in particular. My big problem with it is that I never bust out laughing during a comedy song, at most, I find them mildly amusing and hardly ever memorable.
If someone turned to me in a pub and said: 'Hey mate, do you want to hear a great joke?' and then pulled out a guitar, I'd scarper.
Ultimately, I just don't want another generation of 'The Midnight Beast' cluttering up the telly waves.
...and there you are, you see...I loved Victoria Wood, still do...and I also love Julie Walters. I'd absolutely LOVE to write a part for her in one of my scripts.
Everyone's so different and that's a good thing. Otherwise, everything anyone ever did would all be the same and very boring.
Saying that, I do like to watch different types of comedy, because I'm always amazed at how different people's brains work. I love it. Not easy to please, but hard to disappoint.
Is there really discrimination against women in comedy in 2012?
Well, yes - if you're a woman at the bottom of the comedy ladder doing cheap/free gigs to low-life male audiences who think failing to heckle a woman comedian is tantamount to an admission of homosexuality.
The reason relatively few women succeed in comedy is perhaps that relatively few women go into comedy in the first place and also that women are usually more sensitive than men and so are more easily battered into submission by what can be a very stressful and sometimes exceedingly painful life.
The trick is to tough it out while climbing a couple of steps up the ladder.
At the more-civilised levels of performance, where men are usually accompanied by wives and girlfriends, women comedians are usually given something approaching a fair crack of the whip because the men in the audience are trying to behave in a politically correct fashion in the hope of deriving some gynaecologically-based rewards after the gig.
And at still-higher levels of performance, TV producers are desperate to cram female comedians onto our screens. This is proven by the high number of crap and mediocre women comedians that we're forced endure on the telly every week.
Seriously, girls - are you telling me that if you closed your eyes and threw a shoe into Dorothy Perkins, you wouldn't be bound to hit someone funnier than Andi Osho or Shappi Korshandi?
There are great opportunities for funny women in Britain today.
They should be seized with both hands.
(The opportunities, not the women!).
Quote: Nat Wicks @ August 25 2012, 1:46 PM BSTFemale centred comedy is a myth in all but the smallest examples. I don't know a single New act who does this. Not one.
But they do, in men's eyes. I think maybe what you see as general sexless comedy is infact what men see as distinctly female based material. Material about weight issues and body size, eating too much etc. is women talk, it's female comedy, not general genderless comedy. Practically every female comic I see on TV or YouTube has done this stuff. And sex. Men do sex jokes as well, but generally sex is a woman's core subject, they're much more at home with it.
Quote: Joyce @ August 25 2012, 2:06 PM BSTAhh...my son and his friend use guitars in everything they do (both standup nutcases) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUkwAFJCXro Yes this is them messing about, but the guitars are there!
As a responsible parent Joyce you really should stop your son from doing this kind of thing!!
Quote: Marc P @ August 26 2012, 10:52 AM BSTAs a responsible parent Joyce you really should stop your son from doing this kind of thing!!
I keep them alive until they're five...after that...it's up to them what they do. Anyway...who's been calling me a responsible parent?!
But the whole world shouldn't have to suffer lol 
Quote: Marc P @ August 27 2012, 10:08 AM BSTBut the whole world shouldn't have to suffer lol
If I have to suffer...then so does everyone else! I didn't have these kids just to suffer alone!
Incidentally, have you not seen the one where he sets fire to his sister's birthday cake? I think his laugh is enough to make you want to gouge your own ears out (preview during Adam's potato ring recipe when the word 'skewer' is mentioned). I don't know where he gets that from...<stifles riduculously insane laughter>. As I was saying...
I watched a bit in horror and then threw my laptop out of the window! It was like James Cotter doing improv in stereo!! Writers have a job for a reason!! 
Quote: Marc P @ August 27 2012, 10:52 AM BSTI watched a bit in horror and then threw my laptop out of the window! It was like James Cotter doing improv in stereo!! Writers have a job for a reason!!
Well...to be fair...nobody actually wrote the 'firework on the cake'...um 'sketch'. It's kind of what goes on here usually. My dining table looked like God knows what by the end of the day, what with the encrusted chocolate fondue set, a la Generation Game, one shoe and some trodden-in Wotsits, I was very pleased all round! It could have been worse!...and often is. Some creative types are a danger to themselves and others.
Anyway, as usual, you're going to get me spanked for going off topic again. I see what you're doing.