Sure, I can do it, just change a few lines here and there. The stuff about the Germans, that is old-fashioned. First heard that joke in 1942, and he said he's heard it in 1915... jokes go in and out of fashion... I remember this one started with 'God Bless Mrs Thatcher' then later changed to 'that bastard Thatcher.' I like to move with the times. Got to keep your finger on the pulse. One time, it was all set up, punchline, set up, punchline, then it was observational... isn't it funny how men are different to women, or how something happened at the post-office.
They don't make them like that anymore. He could bring the house down with a catch-phrase. All he needed. Vaudeville was a tough crude, they had to bring on the children to calm down the crowd some nights. Dancing children. Only thing to calm the heaving breast.
But those vaudeville performers. So versatile. I don't think Beckett would have been a success with them. They got his absurdism, right off the bat. Coming from Working Men's Clubs, you kind of understand what it means to be in a harsh world devoid of meaning.
I've studied the art. Right back to the Greeks. Aristophanes - now, he had a way with the dick joke. A
saucy aside, a quick chuckle at the Spartans, then an undercurrent of conservative political thought. Like Benny Hill. Genius. To this day, people start laughing when you play his theme tune. On the internet, set anything to Yakety Sax and you are guaranteed a million hits. Even car crashes are funny.
But I don't really hold with that sick humour... it doesn't make it okay if you just ask 'too soon?' afterwards. No. Say what you like, we were never nasty. Like Chekhov... okay, so it is never clear whether it is meant to be a tragedy or a comedy but... there's a compassion there. You can't say Uncle Vanya, or Sonia, or anyone, are bad people. I mean, they all want a bit on the side, their share of the action, but they are not malicious. Except when he gets the gun out, I suppose. But what's Chekhov without a gun, eh?
It's like Michael Emans told me - Chekhov thought he was writing for laughs, but his director Stanislavski had them as weepies. Nice guy, Emans, does a bit of populist theatre - he did Vanya as a broad Scottish comedy with little Jimmy Chisholm. Vaudeville roots, see. It's about the way you play him, or translate him. And if you really want the comedy, overplay the romance. Sound stupid if you put your heart into it...
Then again, it's about the audience, too... what do they think they are going to get. Like that time I did a benefit for the miners... never should have gone with the Falklands routine. Funny how the working man changed in those years. But if you have a posh audience in a fancy proscenium arch, they want the tragedy... they probably belong to the same social class as Chekhov's characters, give or take a century and a different country.
It's like Shakespeare said - I'm paraphrasing, because stand-ups aren't good at learning lines - nothing is hilarious or melancholic but thinking makes it so. And he'd know... his comedies are comedies just because they have happy endings. It is up to the actors to get the puns from the pentameters...
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