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Gay Comedy
By: Steve Bustin
Zoe Lyons Edinburgh
Zoe Lyons Edinburgh
According to tradition (or stereotype, depending on your point of view), we gays like a laugh.
"Gay audiences are definitely less easy to shock, so you can get away with an awful lot more"
From camp to kitsch, drag to general dolliness, apparently gay men and women have a great sense of humour. So when was the last time you saw a stand-up comic down your local gay establishment of choice, sandwiched between the sequins and the stripper?
Chances are, never, as for some reason stand-up comedy just doesn’t work on the gay scene. Believe me, I’ve tried. In my short and vainglorious career as a stand-up comic, I’ve given it a go on several occasions and each time ended up competing with a chatting crowd that are more interested in cruising than comedy. I’m not the only one. Simon Happily runs the incredibly successful gay comedy night, Comedy Camp, thinks he knows why.
“Comedy and cabaret are very different art forms. There aren’t a lot of gay nights where people coming in, sit down and focus on the performance, so if you try to do stand-up in a cabaret setting, it just doesn’t work. A lot of cabaret is designed around the fact that people are able to effectively continue their night out, so drag queens frequently punctuate their acts with songs, almost like chat breaks!”
Award-winning comedienne Zoe Lyons, who runs Brighton-based gay comedy night Bent Double and Brou Ha Ha at London’s Vauxhall Tavern, agrees.
“Stand-up isn’t in the tradition of what’s considered camp entertainment. Certainly through my experience doing Brou Ha Ha, gay audiences do prefer a more joiny-in atmosphere, so when I started the club I had to educate people about ‘I’m talking now – you don’t talk! I’ve done gigs in gay pubs where I end up thinking ‘I don’t know why I’m bothering – they don’t want to listen!”
It appears that the lack of opportunities to enjoy queer-friendly comedy isn’t just for practical reasons, either. Manchester-based comic and self-confessed ‘big bag of glitter’ Jonathan Mayor says a lot of gay and lesbian people don’t see comedy as ‘for them’ – and with some justification.
“Comedy isn’t part of their social lives as they don’t see it as ‘their’ genre,” he explains. “The straight white boys dominate the comedy circuit and, as Scott Capurro says, homosexuality is the last taboo that people can be really rude about. You can’t be rude, thank heavens, to disabled people, to black people or to women but you can still be quite offensive to gay people, so gay people don’t see themselves in the audience. I don’t see black people in the audience much, as they clearly don’t see it as their genre either.”
Simon Happily thinks the situation may be changing, although the lack of gay audience members was one of the reasons he set up Comedy Camp.
“When I started gigging in the late 90s I noticed that most lesbians and gay men had a sense of humour and enjoyed comedy but I didn’t see that many in the venues I was working at. I was shocked, however, at the amount of homophobic jokes I heard, so it’s no wonder really – why would someone in their right mind pay money to go and be offended?”
Zoe Lyons thinks the opposite may be true, and that gay people are just less shockable.
“Gay audiences are definitely less easy to shock, so you can get away with an awful lot more, so perhaps they see the ‘regular’ comedy scene as a bit tame?”
Zoe says that as a performer and club booker, she doesn’t like to differentiate between gay and straight comedy.
“What I like to concentrate on is that in general we have more in common than we have different and if you can find those common bonds between you and a straight audience then you’re on to a winner. Sometimes I’ve seen ‘gay’ material being done just because it’s gay material. If you’re telling me something about yourself and you’ve made it funny then fair enough but I do see gay jokes being done just for the sake of it.
“When I’m booking acts for Bent Double or Brou Ha Ha I’m not bothered if they’re gay or straight but just that they’re good!”
So with the success of gay comedy clubs like Comedy Camp and Bent Double, will we start to see an increasing number of gay and lesbian comics on the circuit? Jonathan Mayor thinks it may take a while.
“Lesbian and gay people don’t see that many examples of themselves on the stand-up circuit. They see drag queens, drag kings and other kinds of cabaret performers but stand-up seems like a really straight, mainstream thing to do. Apart from a few prominent names – the Scott Cappurros, Rhona Camerons and Graham Nortons of this world – there aren’t many examples for people to aspire to, which I think is very important.”
Simon Happily says more gay people should give stand-up a go.
“While some gay men may go down the drag route as a way to get up and entertain, I don’t think there’s exactly a shortage – they are out there, even if they’re not out in their act, so they may not be ‘on the radar!’ I get more emails from comics than I could possibly ever return so it’s not like there’s any barrier. People have the same chance to do what I did, go out and do open spots, free gigs to get the stage time and experience. You just need perseverance and drive!”
So could comedy be a tool for breaking down prejudice?
“Absolutely,” says Zoe. “In the right hands, of course it can, although it takes a very competent comedian to do it. I see comedy where I think they are just reinforcing the stereotypes about gay people or black people or whoever, but comedy can be an incredibly powerful tool.”
Simon agrees. “I can play around far more with a majority straight audience and play on prejudices and reverse them. I guess I love to be political with a small ‘p’ – that’s the power of comedy!”
To see some great LGBT-friendly comedy, check out:
Comedy Camp: comedycamp.co.uk
Brou HaHa: theroyalvauxhalltavern.co.uk/deta-brou
Bent Double: komedia.co.uk/brighton
Jonathan Mayor: myspace.com/jonathanmayor
Bright’n’Queer: brightnqueer.co.uk
