Q. What is brown and sticky? A. A stick. Humour is an unexpected twist to a familiar premise. It is a venture into the absurd, it is a new viewpoint carefully constructed to be understandable to us but with a surprising twist. The comedian’s craft is one of searching out alternative endings. It is carefully observing our world and our lives, developing a keen eye for what a society is sensitive to and presenting an alternative. By its nature, the craft is confronting. The comedian knows our insecurities and shortcomings, they can see injustice and absurdity. They can also see alternatives, and their art is in presenting alternatives that we can relate to. The comedian is a mercenary, a foot soldier living in the margins and fighting our battles for us at the front line of the socially acceptable. We encourage the comedian to explore and redefine the boundaries for us. We celebrate them when they get it right, and reward them with our laughs. We vilify them and turn our backs on them when they get it wrong. We learn from their triumphs and their mistakes. It is the art of presenting criticism, but with a sugar coating. It is pointing out a society’s shortcomings in a way that is not confronting to us. Thus, the skilled comedian thus lives a life of eternal conflict, being offered the privilege of alerting us to the errors of our ways for as long as they create a comfortable complacency about them. Humour is often a kind of denial. The comedian presents a straight face whilst portraying the laughable. They give the message that they see our absurdities but are unmoved by it. A comedian who laughs at their own jokes is a little bit, well, uncouth. A comedians joy is fleeting. The unexpected response is only unexpected once. The audience reacts, and is changed for hearing it. A comedian cannot rest on the laurels of a great joke told in the past. A comedian cannot release an album of greatest hits written back in their youth when they were young and creative. The comedian must keep observing, distorting, creating. Ironically, the craft is self-defeating. If the comedian does help us change for the better, they effectively kill off their material. Look at an old episode of “Love thy Neighbour”, or “Mind your Language” and the laughs are uncomfortable to us. We look down at the artists and their exaggerations of cultural differences, even though they were the ones who helped alert us to such absurdities in the first place. The comedian is the man in the mask. The one who sees and feels the best and the worst of this world, the one who wears our uncertainties and insecurities and frustrations and angers and disillusionment, and the one allowed to make comment because they can do so without actively trying to change us. And we entrust them with this honour because they wear a happy face. Robin, you first presented yourself to us as an alien, an observer from another planet. You drew humour from looking at the absurdities of our world from fresh eyes and painting them large. You put a credit card into the hands of an alien, who marvelled at this magic piece of plastic that you could use to collect any material possession you could ever want. You warned us of the folly of our ways, not by giving sermons but by making us laugh. As your craft was refined, your characters became more like us and your message became more subtle. But your caring for us never wavered. Robin, you always brought a smile to my face, but a tear to my eye. In your eyes I saw understanding of who we are, the kindness of someone wanting to change the world for the better, and the weariness of someone who had spent many years trying. In your art I saw a mind constantly searching for a better answer, a different solution, an alternative world. One that was a better place all for us, and one that was within grasp. But only if we could see what you could see. You seemed to be someone who saw that better world just around the corner. You did everything you could to lead us. And we laughed. RIP Robin. Thank you.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 01:18:16 +0000
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