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Pimp My Pot Plant
Mark Watson's Crap At The Environment wants to stem the big problem of climate change in a small way. But can comedy change the world? Georgie Hobbs finds out
Mark Watson believes in people power. For three years now, he's relied on people he's never previously met to shape his marathon comedy shows. More sixties style 'happenings' than straight stand-up, Watson found his 24-hour long Edinburgh 2004 show forged a new familiarity between comic and audience. And he kind of liked it. So in 2005, he upped the ante to 33 hours. Then in 2006, he racked up 36 frenzied hours in front of a hardcore crowd.
And he put them through their paces, relying on their ideas for fast-paced improv as well as tapping into comedians all over the world via the internet.
But the mega marathon was not all that Watson offered last year. There was the relatively straight observational stand-up show, I'm Worried That I'm Beginning To Hate Everyone In The World and the more unusual Mark Watson and his Audience Write A Novel. Though this novel never surfaced, a cult following did and Watson walked away with the first ever if.comeddie Panel prize for capturing the festival's spirit. But the former Cambridge footlighter isn't resting on his laurels. No, these days, he's more likely to grow some. Yup, Watson's got a new scheme to tap his fans' brains and this time it's green.
Motivating Lethargic Lefties
Crap At The Environment is Watson's new initiative, aimed at helping those with a smidgen of social conscience to start showing it. Realising that Al Gore's a bit of a bore and that most right-minded people want to save the planet (but not sacrifice their social lives), Hodder publishers turned to Watson to write a book to motivate lethargic lefties. Watson gamely agreed.
Crap At The Environment, or CATE, as she's known, is a gentle giant. Watson wants it to be a national movement supported by green-fingered guerrilla factions hosting individual events under his 'umbrella'. And it's not going too badly so far. CATE began life on 28 February 2007 and made over 500 MySpace friends within a week.
One member, Catherine, runs new blog 'Carrying on Carriers' to chart the number of plastic bags she saves each week. Another member, Clare, has begun a recycled clothes initiative ("Wear Me I Used To Be Something Else"). Her friend Miriam is planning a Green Foot disco with prizes for the best recycled costumes. Lily has started 'TED' ('The Environment's Disgusting') to encourage people to think about waste disposal. And Nicola has begun a 'pimp your plant pot and garden patch' scheme. She has already hand-delivered plants, ceramic pots and seed potatoes to around 100 CATE members throughout London. They will then decorate them and blog about their progress.
Watson aims to use these low-key organic enterprises to fill his eventual book. He also plans to theme this year's Edinburgh show around his attempts to (sort of) save the environment. Of the enterprise, he says, "CATE isn't aimed at people who want to join Friends of the Earth. It's a watered-down version of environmentalism but, that's better than ignoring it entirely. There are so many groups who try to persuade people to live their lives differently who are ignored by most people, so I'm trying to use my leverage as a comedian to change that."
Serious Comedy
Outside of CATE's scope, Watson hopes other comedians will broach equally serious topics. He cites Daniel Kitson and Phil Nichol as good examples of successful comics who can be silly but nevertheless strive to say something worthwhile. He thinks Nichol's anti-war focus in his award-winning Naked Racist show is exactly what attracts so many erudite comedy fans.
"Nichol does piss around an awful lot," Watson begins. "But my wife liked his show, though she doesn't really enjoy his puerile sex jokes. So it just goes to show that by delving into politics a little bit, it actually made someone like him more palatable for her. And there are a lot of people, especially in Edinburgh, who'd rather see someone try and grapple with issues, even if not very well."
Watson is well aware that he's been just as crap as the majority of Guardian-reading, Coca-Cola guzzling urbanites, hence he's keen to highlight his own ineptitude. Part of his fight against sounding facetious takes the form of self-deprecation, he says. "I've tried to come clean from the start that I'm an outsider to this subject. Part of the challenge for me is to try and mobilise things in a smaller way because I can't do something like Live Aid," he explains.
A Modest Effort
Indeed, modesty looms large over CATE's MySpace blogs. In his inaugural tongue-in-cheek post, Watson writes, "this is not a call to arms" and ends; "just to mention one more time, what I've got in mind is fun; plus if we do save the planet, it will look pretty smart on all our CVs."
But while Brits appreciate self-deprecation more than most, isn't Watson concerned that all of this is too, well, wet a response to the seriousness of climate change? He disagrees. "My CV comment is just the sort of thing that would probably really infuriate genuine environmentalists and understandably so. But I genuinely believe that if I don't take advantage of the fact I'm a comedian, there's no point me doing what someone better qualified might as well do." Does he aspire to be a bit like Bob Geldof then? "I suppose I'm like a tiny, tiny, version of Geldof, but I haven't contacted Chris Martin yet," he laughs, before admitting his distaste for Coldplay.
Whatever detractors might say about CATE's cuteness, Watson says there is no getting away from the superficiality of all benefit gigs. It's a simple fact that they will always have to be feel-good exercises before anyone pays attention to the issue behind them. "To be honest, while Make Poverty History was massively successful, a lot of it was just a propaganda exercise for the idea of charity, you know? And I hope it might be possible to use a similarly superficial tactic as a platform to do more important stuff," he says. "I mean, the environment is a really intimidating and horrible subject for people, so if I can sweeten the pill a bit by trying to make it a little tame then I think it's worth it. I'm just trying to use a little bit of humour in what is, for the most part, quite a po-faced field."
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