In defiance of its title, the most crucial moments of
Comedians depend on the utter
absence of laughter. During the second act, when the five acts from
Eddie Waters’ comedy class face try-out spots in a Mancunian club,
Gethin Price’s final piece must be all brutality and menace, and the
third-act post-mortem discussion between Price and Waters needs
likewise to ensure that the audience are given no opportunity to
relieve themselves with even an inappropriate giggle.
David Dawson and Matthew Kelly play the latter sequence masterfully:
not a snigger in evidence, and scarcely even a wince at Price’s
enumeration of what “truth” means (very Trevor Griffiths, very 1970s
earnest socialist-realist). Their exchange is deadly serious. Kelly has
left his days as a TV presenter far behind: he may not be an actor of
Chekhovian nuance, but he is one who unfailingly applies himself with
assiduity and conviction to whatever his role might be. As Waters, the
old-school music-hall comic who discovered a social awareness and
stopped laughing, he is a formidable presence, rumbling from behind his
walrus moustache. Dawson is less consistent. His Gethin is a malevolent
elf, which at times reminds us that the true elves of folklore are
beautiful, shimmering sadists, but at others takes the form of a
feyness that lets us off the hook too easily. Even the two or three
muted laughs during his spot are too many.
The second act is the pivot of the piece, when we see which of the
students remain true to Waters’ tutelage, which try to adapt their acts
to the lowest-common-denominator demands of the agents’ representative
sitting in judgement of them, and how successfully they do so: even
more excruciating in its way than Gethin’s routine is the double-act of
Phil and Ged Murray (played by a couple of other TV faces, Reece
Shearsmith and Mark Benton), one of whom attempts to switch tracks
whilst the other resists. Keith Allen is at his most astringent as the
agents’ man.
In the 35 years since
Comedians
premiered, the comedy club circuit has transformed out of all
recognition, and the play’s own argument served as a forerunner of the
alternative comedy movement of the 1980s. Arguably, though, we once
again need reminding of the vital importance of humour that subverts
our prejudices rather than indulging them.
Written for the Financial
Times.