Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once…
I’ve been delighted by the reaction to the last edition of my Comfort Blanket podcast, about long-running BBC resistance-com Allo Allo. When guest Tom Price suggested talking about it, I double checked he wasn’t joking. “Seriously?” And I was thrilled to discover he was thoroughly serious, and that the critically much-maligned yet publicly much-loved WW2 farce was not only his go-to comfort choice, but that he’d like to talk about it properly, to allow the thing its own dignity and space.
Just because something is silly, doesn’t mean it isn’t worth taking seriously.
I was touched by Tom’s observation in the podcast chat, about the different approaches on-set to performing comedy and drama. (Tom has done both, as an accomplished comedian and as a dramatic performer in the high-stakes fantasy of Torchwood).
Before a camera take in a serious drama, Tom observed, the cast are often mucking about, making each other laugh, lightening the mood, smoothing the long, demanding process with larking about. Then the director barks ‘Action’ and everyone goes serious.
But when making a comedy, especially an ensemble piece, where the comic machine is complex and requires total focus, everyone is sometimes so rehearsed, drilled, and aware of the consequences of missing a beat, that they are tensed like a spring, conserving their energy, aware of their precision role in the comic production line. The moment the camera rolls, they start mucking about, like wild acrobats, pratfalling and mugging and doing vocal gymnastics. But professionally. And between the on-camera play, you can sense that this is very much skilled work.
That’s what actors are talking about when they say ‘comedy is hard’, but we ignore them and only give them prizes when they transcend comedy and start crying on camera. We forget that, as an audience, we only see what the camera captures. But if someone is messing about on film, that doesn’t mean they were messing about the rest of the time. We shouldn’t think that’s the whole process.
I noticed this week that the new instalment of the sci-fi epic Dune is being trailed in my timeline with two videos. One is the official trailer - all gnashing teeth, dynastic brooding, sub-bass growling, furrowed brows, its foundation of hard grit seemingly baked dry-as-sand, any oases of humour evaporated by the relentless galactic sun.
And the other video is a behind-the-scenes montage of Zendaya and Timothy Chalomet goofing about between takes and cracking one another up, all smiles. Hey! That’s more like it. (I suspect this is the marketing thinking…) Now I like those guys. Genuinely, I’m interested in the film those guys made, way more than the growly sandpeople, because they looked fun in the promo reel. As a human, this looks like a welcoming tribe to be part of…
It’s a good demonstration of Tom’s observation that if you make humans entirely serious, they mess about when you’re not watching, because that’s essential to the team’s bonding on this crazy, intense mission.
And that conversely if you make mucking about into a performance science on camera, it requires a shitload of focus between the play sessions. Maybe you’d promote Allo Allo with the videos the other way round. “Don’t worry. This nonsense was made by focused experts…”
Anyway, this is all in the service of saying that Be Funny Or Die, my new book on the craft and science of comedy - and why humans do it and need it - is published in a week or so. If this stuff interests you, do buy a copy. It’d be nice to get a book on taking comedy seriously into the hardback charts at a time when it is so under threat as an art form that Ofcom has categorised it as an ‘at risk’ genre for, I believe, the sixth year running.
Narrative and character jokes are an endangered artistic species (though we all love comedy as much as we do any other endangered species with big doe eyes that mirrors our own expressions). Comedy is a loveable, playful, furry creature that needs reservations and safe spaces within our culture. The book is a howl in defence of the human need for our most sophisticated giggly invention (as well as all that award-winning angst and tension.)
And if you want more of This Sort Of Thing, here are the Comfort Blanket episodes in which we talk about the beautiful art of comedy at length.
Dive in and enjoy. It’s good for you.
Friends (with Larry Rickard) PART ONE
Friends (with Larry Rickard) PART TWO
Withnail & I (with Jim Howick)
The Good Place (with Bec Hill)
Laurel & Hardy (with Andrew Male) PART ONE
Laurel & Hardy (with Andrew Male) PART TWO
Bridget Jones’s Diary (with Daisy Buchanan)
Monty Python Series 4 (with Michael Spicer)
Ronald Searle, St Trinian’s & Molesworth (with Jo Neary)
The Goon Show (with Mike Wozniak)
Ripping Yarns (with Professor Sophie Scott) PART ONE
Ripping Yarns (with Professor Sophie Scott) PART TWO
Muriel’s Wedding (with Sarah Kendall)