Dons of Comedy (WYP, 09/10/11)

basics...

Last Sunday I was supposed to be volunteering in the cloakroom at the Playhouse but once there found they weren't going to open it, so instead I just stayed and watched the show. As part of Black History Month, the show Dons of Comedy was on for a one-off performance. It was a stand up comedy show with compere and the following acts: Felicity Ethnic, Curtis Walker, Felix Dexter, and Slim.

bah...

Clockwise from top left: Walker, Ethnic, Dexter, & Slim

The only act I'd heard of previously was Dexter, who had been in Bellamy's People and on a couple of panel shows, so I was looking forward to him. He was funny, but nothing particularly special. The best of the acts was Walker, he was more consistently funny. My problem with the first three acts was that skin colour was a massive part of it, which I suppose is understandable. It's like gay comedians who do a majority of gay jokes, it's funny for a spell, but you wonder whether without that edge/difference from the mostly straight, white (male) stand up scene is enough to sustain an act. And I also wonder how progressive a black or gay comedian is when they continually use their difference to get laughs - comedy should transcend these labels. I had particular trouble at this night with Felicity Ethnic, who we were warned by the compere, would be speaking in Jamaican patois. Turns out he wasn't joking. I felt like I was watching a Shakespeare play I didn't know, trying to understand the language and catching a few words hear and there. This didn't seem fair to an audience that although predominantly black had ticket-buying white audience members who I'd imagine struggled to understand as well. At least I could tell what the others were saying. I was pleased to note that the final comedian, Slim, didn't appear to be doing the whole 'black people do this' routine, and was telling non-racially motivated jokes. Unfortunately they weren't very funny, and a very long, supposedly true tale about him breaking his cock during sex went on far too long and had no punchline. The strangest thing was that members of the audience were hooting and hollering and going into paroxysms of laughter over this stuff!

briefly...

I was clearly the wrong target audience for this show, however I did enjoy what I could relate to and understand.