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Bridget Christie: ‘I don’t do jokes about my personal life. Just my husband, my kids and my polyps’

March 1, 2018TheGuardian

The comedian Louise Reay is being sued for allegedly defaming her estranged husband on stage. So should standups keep their private lives to themselves?

I’m not a confessional standup. I don’t know what I am. On the whole, I haven’t mined my personal life or relationships for comedy. Yet. Who knows what direction my work will take in the future? There is still time. I am only 46.

Not that I don’t love confessional standup. I do. It’s given us some of the most groundbreaking, pioneering comedy we’ve had and it’s hard to imagine what standup would look like now if Richard Pryor had never existed. It’s just not something I’ve felt hugely comfortable doing. I’ve told the odd routine about my “husband”, “children” or “upbringing”, but they’ve generally been lighthearted, hugely exaggerated, or untrue, and even then it makes me feel uneasy and anxious.

We should be able to express opinions however we choose – through words, mime, origami or baking

When I stumbled across Naked Attraction and saw six vaginas on display, I knew I was out of step with the modern world

Griff Rhys Jones: Where Was I? review – humiliations of a hapless traveller

February 28, 2018TheGuardian

The Old Market, Brighton
There’s no shortage of self-depreciating chatter as the comic looks back on a life of globetrotting in his touring show

‘I’m going to talk about my holidays, then I’m going to show you some slides.” No one can accuse Griff Rhys Jones of overselling his solo show, Where Was I?, an Audience With-style evening in which he reflects on a life of TV travel. The jokes at his own expense come faster than the rapids on the River Tay, just one of Jones’s adventures in the name of professional globetrotting. It’s as if this most blitheringly English of Welshmen is trying to excuse himself for having been paid to travel the world.

If judged by his account here, Jones brought no particular skill to his telly peregrinations, just a dose of pluck and a readiness to play the fall guy over and over again. Frequently, his efforts to climb a sheer rockface, tightrope-walk on a mountain ridge or dangle from the roof of a 30-storey building (even the clip gives you vertigo) are maligned by his director or outdone by a far braver cameraman. A running joke is made of our hapless, bruised or sodden presenter being asked “Griff, can you give us a look of triumph?” when at a humiliatingly low ebb.

Comedians say case of sued performer is threat to the art

February 23, 2018TheGuardian

Standups say outcome of Louise Reay case could stop people talking about personal lives

Leading comedians, including David Baddiel, have said the Louise Reay case, in which she is being sued by her estranged husband for allegedly defaming him on stage, should not restrict standups from using personal material.

In what has been described as a test case, Reay, whose real surname is Beamont, is being sued for references to her marriage in her show, Hard Mode, at the Edinburgh Fringe and in London last year.

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Bridget Christie: ‘I am a white, able-bodied, heterosexual woman. Do I have a right to be angry? Yes!’

February 23, 2018TheGuardian

The world’s anxieties are bleeding into her personal life, but the comedian is done with political despair. Ahead of her new tour, she explains why it’s time to bring something new to the table

In Bridget Christie’s first standup comedy routine about feminism, she appeared dressed as an ant. It was 2010. “At that time, it was really quite a hard sell, doing feminism on stage. I came on dressed as an ant, going: ‘Oh no, not another ant, going on about jam and the division of labour.’ And comics would understand what that was. But the audience were like: ‘What’s she going on about? There aren’t any ant comedians.’ And then I dropped the ant costume and went on as a woman, which was much more alienating.”

If it’s no longer a hot-button issue that there’s a woman on stage, talking, there are still frames of perception that are peculiar to women: not unlike the early days of the female novelist, say, in which their work was assumed to be autobiographical. This week, the comedian Louise Reay was sued by her ex-husband for talking publicly about their relationship. This isn’t a women’s issue, for Christie. “A lot of comedians have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about divulging. I’m quite a private person. I might talk about how I’m feeling, but I wouldn’t tell anything that wasn’t my story to tell. I’d be constantly running things past people, if I wanted to do that. I make a lot of stuff up, though. And then people will come up and go: ‘I didn’t know your son did that,’ when he didn’t.”

Bridget Christie: ‘I am a white, able-bodied, heterosexual woman. Do I have a right to be angry? Yes!’

February 23, 2018TheGuardian

The world’s anxieties are bleeding into her personal life, but the comedian is done with political despair. Ahead of her new tour, she explains why it’s time to bring something new to the table

In Bridget Christie’s first standup comedy routine about feminism, she appeared dressed as an ant. It was 2010. “At that time, it was really quite a hard sell, doing feminism on stage. I came on dressed as an ant, going: ‘Oh no, not another ant, going on about jam and the division of labour.’ And comics would understand what that was. But the audience were like: ‘What’s she going on about? There aren’t any ant comedians.’ And then I dropped the ant costume and went on as a woman, which was much more alienating.”

If it’s no longer a hot-button issue that there’s a woman on stage, talking, there are still frames of perception that are peculiar to women: not unlike the early days of the female novelist, say, in which their work was assumed to be autobiographical. This week, the comedian Louise Reay was sued by her ex-husband for talking publicly about their relationship. This isn’t a women’s issue, for Christie. “A lot of comedians have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about divulging. I’m quite a private person. I might talk about how I’m feeling, but I wouldn’t tell anything that wasn’t my story to tell. I’d be constantly running things past people, if I wanted to do that. I make a lot of stuff up, though. And then people will come up and go: ‘I didn’t know your son did that,’ when he didn’t.”

Sandra Bernhard review – swagger, songs and starry stories

February 23, 2018TheGuardian

Ronnie Scott’s, London
The standup and singer has stellar personality, and a few neat lines, but not all of her material lands with a London audience

“If I looked at a crib sheet that much during my show,” I heard one punter complain on leaving Sandra Bernhard’s gig, “I wouldn’t have a career.” Ah yes, one might reply – but you’re not Sandra Bernhard, who is here to sell not her craft, but her charisma. Movie star, singer and raconteur, Bernhard is one of those acts – her compatriot Kathy Griffin, a recent visitor to these shores, is another – who trades less on any one skill than on force of stellar personality. That, and a four-decade career’s worth of names to drop. I give you a typical line from tonight’s show: “Recently both Diane Keaton and Lily Tomlin commented on my height … ” When such names can be rallied to boost your stature, why bother learning lines?

Tom Allen: ‘Well this is all very well but we still haven’t had our soup!’

February 23, 2018TheGuardian

The comedian, actor and writer on the things that make him laugh the most

Maria Bamford. I was at Montreal comedy festival in 2006 and was totally intimidated by all the loud comics. I was on a bill with this comic who showed she wasn’t afraid to be humble and insecure, and suddenly I didn’t feel alone! I think that’s what comedy is: making people feel less alone.

Why are comedians so sad? You asked Google – here’s the answer | Adam Riches

February 21, 2018TheGuardian

Every day millions of people ask Google life’s most difficult questions. Our writers answer some of the commonest queries

I’m a comedian but I don’t think I’m that sad. To be fair, I don’t think I’m that funny either, but that’s a whole other comments section under a whole other article called: “Do you have a receipt for that joke; if not, then I won’t be refunding your ticket.”

So why don’t I give refunds? Sorry, lost my train of thought there. Why are comedians so sad? Well, the majority I know aren’t. Sure, they’re unemployed, they lack sun and they spend far too long waiting to catch someone’s eye in the Soho theatre bar, but sad? Maybe, actually, by the sounds of that breakdown – no pun intended. But any more than anyone else? Surely it’s just that we hear them talk about it more than, say, a shepherd or a leading light in phlebotomy?

It’s not the comedy that makes me sad, it’s the comedy that makes me better. Live and let laugh, that’s what I say

Why are comedians so sad? You asked Google – here’s the answer | Adam Riches

February 21, 2018TheGuardian

Every day millions of people ask Google life’s most difficult questions. Our writers answer some of the commonest queries

I’m a comedian but I don’t think I’m that sad. To be fair, I don’t think I’m that funny either, but that’s a whole other comments section under a whole other article called: “Do you have a receipt for that joke; if not, then I won’t be refunding your ticket.”

So why don’t I give refunds? Sorry, lost my train of thought there. Why are comedians so sad? Well, the majority I know aren’t. Sure, they’re unemployed, they lack sun and they spend far too long waiting to catch someone’s eye in the Soho theatre bar, but sad? Maybe, actually, by the sounds of that breakdown – no pun intended. But any more than anyone else? Surely it’s just that we hear them talk about it more than, say, a shepherd or a leading light in phlebotomy?

It’s not the comedy that makes me sad, it’s the comedy that makes me better. Live and let laugh, that’s what I say

Standups on tour: ‘Why have I left my kids to stay in a rat-infested garret?’

February 20, 2018TheGuardian

How do comics survive life on the road? They rob their minibars, turn roadies into bird-watchers – and read The Da Vinci Code

I once played in a tiny little school hall in a tiny little village called Drumnadrochit, on the shores of Loch Ness. After the gig, the manager came in and said the audience were refusing to leave. When I asked why, she said they were all expecting a raffle. So I had to go back out and conduct the raffle.

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