'We can’t love comics’ (From The Northern Echo)

'We can’t love comics’

11:54am Thursday 19th November 2009

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It’s a comic’s job to be controversial, Marcus Brigstocke tells Viv Hardwick, as he reveals the worst night of his life in connection to stand-up and why he won’t criticise Frankie Boyle, Jimmy Carr or Jonathan Ross about their comedy targets.

EARLY in his career, comedian Marcus Brigstocke used to leave the stage to the words “and I just want to say before I go, no matter how you live your life… never forget Noel Edmonds killed a man…” until the night a youngster introduced himself as the son of Michael Lush, the hod carrier who died while rehearsing a stunt for BBC1’s Late Late Breakfast Show in 1986.

“It was a weird, cheap-shot observation which always made me laugh. And it came out of nowhere and reminded people of the Late Late Breakfast Show bungee jump thing. It always got a laugh.

“Then one night I was at a gig in Windsor and this kid came up to me and said ‘it was my dad’ and I went ‘what!’. I went cold and thought ‘oh my God’ and I wanted the ground to open and swallow me up,” says Brigstocke who bought the son a drink and said he seemed to leave him on good terms.

“But it reminds us that jokes are not entirely victimless. I wished I hadn’t said that, but then repeating it to you just now made me laugh and I haven’t said it for years. The material I was doing about the Iraq War before it started was hilarious and loved by audiences until the day after it started and then 95 per cent of it became unacceptable,” he says.

It’s hardly surprising to discover that Brigstoke’s establishment-challenging style of comedy means that he’s not that critical of the infamous on-air phone call stunt of Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand.

“I wouldn’t have rung someone up like that because it doesn’t interest me, but I wouldn’t not do it as a point of principle.

If I thought that something was worthwhile, and as it happens I didn’t think this was, then I would (make the call). Mitch Benn who I work with on the Now Show (BBC Radio 4) came up with the most brilliant description of the mistake that people make with the BBC.

“He said ‘people think it’s a taxi, it’s not, it’s a bus’. The BBC is a bus, you pay your fare and you get on it and there are other people on it. If you’re lucky the bus with go somewhere near where you want it to go, but it’s not a taxi, you don’t get in and tell it where you want it to go, then pay your fare and get out. That is incredibly arrogant and it’s not what the licence fee is, it’s a bus. Yes, there might be something on Radio 2 that you might not want to listen to, but perhaps there is on Radio 4 or Radio 3 or Five Live or a local radio station. I think a lot of people expect that every channel should cater to them 24 hours a day regardless of their age, sex, politics and all the rest of it. But it just doesn’t work like that. So I hope that people are offended, not to piss them off, but because offence is good. That’s how you know you’re alive,” says Brigstocke who argues that being offended means you have a belief system, a value system, which is capable of being rocked.

“I read things and say ‘No, that’s not okay’ but it doesn’t mean necessarily that I think those things should be stopped. It tells me I’m discriminating, that it’s not something that I want to read.”

HE jokes that our conversation, which also features some of his lengthy thoughts about the failings and merits of religion, isn’t perhaps the lightweight chat expected from a comic who is about to tour God Collar to Middlesbrough Theatre on Tuesday and Newcastle Journal Tyne Theatre on Wednesday.

So I ask him if he’d be prepared to tour with David Blaine, who he has dubbed Git Wizard and Freakdangle.

“Of course, he’s an amazing magician… actually, no, with him no. I absolutely love Derren Brown which displays the central hypocrisy of my life. I can’t really explain it, he’s not that different from Blaine. I’m not that discriminating really, just random areas of hatred,” he jokes.

As a regular on TV and radio, Brigstocke feels that comedy is entering interesting times.

“In the UK we are very, very lucky in that we have the most vibrant live comedy scene in the world. If you look at the tour listings at the moment you’ve got a huge number of very good comics to chose from. Obviously, people should choose me.

“In almost every major town you got one or two or more comedy clubs and tons of comedy on TV,” he adds, although he is fascinated by the growing division between comics and the media.

“I think that’s quite good. I think it’s about the acceptability of the most famous comedians – at the moment its Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr in the news. I don’t think that they should be liked by the Daily Mail. I’m not depressed by the idea that a few thousand people who read the Mail are offended by Jimmy or Jonathan Ross. That’s as it should be. If we were acceptable to all of the media all of the time how rubbish would we be. You can’t engineer it, you just have to go with what there is,” Brigstocke argues.

Asked about his own favourite moments of mirth, he points to BBC political satire The Thick Of It. “I’ve always enjoyed Jon Stewart and The Daily Show (Channel 4) and (HBO’s) Real Time with Bill Maher.

There’s a brilliant podcast called The Bugle, by John Oliver and Andy Zalzmando, which I absolutely love listening to.

“The News Quiz and Have I Got New For you are brilliant. It’s tough if you decided to compete with the likes of Paul Merton and Ian Hislop. For me every time I get asked to do that show it’s the biggest privilege and pleasure to go and do. You’re sitting with people who have done the show for 15 years. Basically you play keepie-uppie with the joke. You’re looking to get the ball and put it in the air to see how long you can keep it up there. If you’re lucky you get it batted in your direction and you can bounce it back.

That’s as thrilling as it gets. That’s why Argumental (on Dave) is such fun because Rufus Hound and I get to put the ball up first and that’s good fun,” he says.

His guide to creating his show is that if it makes him laugh the first time he writes it then it becomes a joke worth using.

“God is definitely into comedy… have you seen the platypus.”

■ Marcus Brigstocke appears at Middlesbrough Theatre on Tuesday.

Tickets: £15. Box Office: 01642-729-729 middlesbrough.gov.uk Wednesday, Newcastle Journal Tyne Theatre, 0844-493-9999 thejournaltynetheatre.co.uk

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