Magna Laughter: An Experimental Comedy night with historical characters

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My blog today is about something a little bit different. It is less of a ‘blog’ but it is like an ‘informal yet somewhat academic discussion about comedy’. Blog is easier to say by far, unless I abbreviate it to “IYSADAC”. And it is going to be somewhat like an exploration of some ideas which I have experimented with on stage and my reflection of so. It’s like a relaxed academic paper about a specific performance. But what EXACTLY am I waffling on about?

Magna Laughter:

On Monday 23^rd November, I organised a one-night special comedy night. It was sold as an experimental comedy night where stand-up comedians would dress up as Historical figures and perform Stand-up comedy as them. The was plan was to try and establish something different in the world of comedy. I wanted to give the comedians the chance to do something different and the audience a chance to witness something either genius or downright weird. Or both.

It would be called: Magna Laughter. *

(*Well not for very long. For legal reasons – I can’t call the event Magna Laughter anymore. Apparently English Heritage have an event with the same name, and have politely asked me not to call any further events Magna Laughter anymore. I’m infamous. I’m a renegade. I’m a MAVERICK).

The Experiment:

So what was I experimenting with? Answer: Many things – both as a performer and a promoter. My main idea, however was: Can you negotiate with an audience with a potentially offensive subject? And if the experiment went well, I was interested in seeing the flip-side: Could I get them to like the potentially offensive subject?

So the experiment was something that had intrigued me as both an academic concept and from a performance perspective. My character in this, now bear with me, was somewhat (and intentionally) controversial.
I dressed up as Adolf Hitler and acted as the compere of the evening. It was like The Man In The High Castle, but in a room above a pub. It was like a Donald Trump speech.

As I said, I had several ideas which I really wanted to explore when performing as Hitler. Firstly, I wanted to give myself a challenge as an Mc. The role of a compere in normal comedy club circumstances is to build up energy in the room, warm up the audience and support the acts as much as possible. The compere’s primary goal is to maintain the audience and his secondary objective to be funny. Therefore I wanted to challenge that status, making it harder for the audience to get on board with the gig, as the first act they see is Hitler. The Mc acts as the transition from cold light of normal life to the temporary extended boundaries which the comedy club provides. Hitler would act as plunging them into the deep end. How would the audience cope with that sudden shock?

Secondly there was second level to Adolf Hitler. It wasn’t just me playing a dictator,  but I was playing Adolf Hitler, as if he wanted to be a Michael McIntyre-esque comedian. Hitler’s opening line is:

Hitler: So I tried art: That did not work. I tried politics: That did not work. So I’m trying Stand-up comedy to try and take over ze world.

This image will definitely not resurface on the internet to haunt me in years to come.

I did say bear with me. Apart from that opening line, I wanted Hitler to not acknowledge that he was Hitler or had any connotation that he was evil. In fact, I wanted him to have the least offensive material ever, creating a dichotomy between Material and Image. I wanted to play with the fact that I had volatile and potentially offensive exterior but have incredibly inoffensive material.  Just to top it off and give it that extra comedic wallop – I decided to make Hitler use the most Hack material going…            

   

Hitler: “So what is the deal with Airplane food?”

Hitler covered Tinder, Online Dating, Airplane food, the differences between men and women and “Then I got off the bus”. It was bound to be a fun night.

Character Comedy:

I actually realised that this is my first attempt at playing a different character onstage in front of a live audience.  I’ve toyed with a range of weird ideas and characters in some comedic workshops with friends, for example I had once played John Skelton: An unknown 16^th century court-poet who gets infuriated that he isn’t treated like a celebrity. Later in the month I played as Pasta Pete, a man who had pasta glued to his body and face and exclusively told Pasta Puns.That was a fun night FOR EVERYONE. 

Pasta Pete- A night to remember.

I also played a version of a character who was called David Britton, who was a 45 year old divorced Pub Quizmaster who tries to win his family back through Stand-up comedy, despite being quite awkward. Unfortunately David was just like me, but in 24 years’ time. Other than those, in a stand-up context, I’ve always played a relatively honest version of myself. So Adolf Hitler was my first time as a character in front of a paying audience. And Hitler is the first time I’ve tried an act out without any previous road testing. I thought if I wanted to conduct the experiment properly, it should be in front of a real and paying audience.

The performance:

Lights go down, I head to the tech desk. I top-up my marker pen moustache and I call my own intro:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the stage – your host”. And I emerged onto the stage.

There was a mixed reaction from the audience straight away. There were some who were confused and some laughed out of surprise. But the audience got on board. They began to warm to the act, as soon as they had cottoned onto the joke of “I’m doing this through a lens of irony” as opposed to “I’m just trying to hobble some cheap gags together”. I like to think the audience enjoyed the different perspective of Hitler. From what I gathered from my audience interaction, they seemed to enjoy the character of Hitler. My experiment seemed to go well. Then I introduced the acts onto the stage.

On the Bill we had:

MC Adolf Hitler
Henry VIII,
Winston Churchill,
Steve Jobs,
Caveman doing DefJam Comedy,
Julius Caesar
and Admiral Horacio Nelson

In my mind, the acts were to stay in character for the entirety of the night. The characters were meant to be naturalistic and entirely in character.  This did not quite go as planned. Irrationally, I believed that the Historical character would perform in total character, but since it was a strange night, the comedians felt inclined to comment upon the absurdity. It would also be worth mentioning that it would be a completely alien concept for the comedians to not acknowledge something happening in the room for a laugh- it’s second nature for stand-ups. So instincts came in on this occasion.

Fun fact: Andy Kaufman, a legendarily surreal American comedian, would turn up to a gig in full character and not break the character until he got back to his home. That’s astounding!

The acts danced around this line of narrative, which was sewn by Magna Laughter, and the comedians brought out their own personas on-stage (and once their own material) in an attempt to gain some additional laughs. It’s an incredibly rare and weird gig- the comedian would be unlikely to be in this situation again, ergo, they feel more inclined to play on the now, to the delight of the audience.

In particular, Adam Morrison-Jones who played Winston Churchill, made his act devoted to playing with this line – as when he had a hat on: he played a loud-mouthed and obnoxiously rude Winston Churchill, however he routinely took off the hat to explain the bit, existentially, as Adam Morrison-Jones. I believe he was riffing his act, but he has such a charm regardless, it paid off massively.

I believe that the acts broke character for a couple reasons. 1) It is a comedian’s reflex to address the “now”, to talk about what is happening in the room at that moment. 2) The venue is in the function room above a pub, which may have loosened the concept in a way, perhaps giving a licence to comedians to play around with the character. 3) The novelty of the gig. Also it probably didn’t help myself as I didn’t explicitly express this rule to the acts. But this was done nearly-on purpose as to let the acts have reign of their historical character.

This looks like a fascist version of Vernon Kay. Family Fortunes would be a vastly different game.

On a personal note, I believe I delivered one of my favourite “heckle put-downs” as Hitler. When Winston Churchill was being laddy and began (comically) shouting at my character. He got the audience to sing “HITLER HE’S ONLY GOT ONE BALL -THE OTHER IS IN ALBERT HALL”. And from my MC seat I shouted in response: “No – ze other one is in your mum!”.

 

But overall I believe the night was a success as an experiment. I was able to portray Hitler in a comedic light without offending anyone. On top of that I managed to piece together a successful gig with a great bunch of acts. The audience seemed to have really enjoyed themselves, but also admiring the weirdness of the gig. It was one of those nights which were weirdly good fun. I look forward to doing the next one.