Comedy news: Such Small Portions's blog

Asking people to pick a favourite is always a contentious affair. Whether it is a film, a song, or even something as banal as a laundry detergent, people's opinions on what they hold dear can be tetchy affairs.

So it comes as no surprise that when Channel 4 announced that it is to rehash its list of 'The Top 100 Comedians of All Time' there would be a heated debate over whoever would be crowned the winner.

Check out Channel 4's list of top 100 comic's here

However what Channel 4 couldn't have expected is that they would be inundated with a furore before voting had even started. The TV channel has managed to spark the ire of fans and comedians alike after it was revealed that the channel had cherry-picked the comedians which would be included in the poll.

Since the competition was announced earlier this week the bulletin board for the poll has been bombarded by fans asking why many top contemporary stand-ups haven't been included on the bill.

An example of how glaring the omissions are is the fact that four Edinburgh Comedy Award winner's; Brendan Burns, Phil Nichol and Rich Hall and David O'Doherty don't even make it onto the list.

Speaking to Such Small Portions, Burns said: “It's difficult to comment on things like this without looking like you harbour sour grapes, but I won an Eddie (Edinburgh Comedy Award) for live stand up so I feel it's a shame that Britain seems to hold it's own award in such contempt.

"By omitting me and every other winner in that time frame and including people that have barely performed live in years (excluding dead legends of course) just sends out such a loud signal of "Fuck you. Don't bother" To everyone that busts their arse writing and honing their art year in/year out and it saddens me."

"It can be easy to dismiss the list as 'just another list' but there is no doubt that 'top ten's' or 'best five's' or 'top 100' lists are popular with the public and industry alike. With this in mind there is more than just reputation at stake and whether they like it or not comedians do pay attention; Stewart Lee even based a show - 41st best stand up in the world – on the previous list that Channel 4 produced and even though he may have mocked the very idea of being on the list, Lee vindicated it by devoting enough attention to it to make a show on it.

With this in mind, the fact that Channel 4 issued a closed list of nominated comedians (there are only 106 on the nominated list) for it's rehashed version of the Top Comedian's poll becomes more striking for the potential effect it can have on those who are / are-not on it.

The problem I have with Channel 4's list is the issue of control. From start to finish I get the impression that the public have very little real say in the decision making as, even though a particular comedian may win the popular vote, the actual decision rests with the panel of judges that the channel have hired to make the final decision. As far as I can tell, no-one knows who these judges are, they are just 'experts'.

The way the list is being structured makes me suspicious that - if one was so inclined - it would be easy to push an agenda onto the public which may allow a 'TV friendly' or other type of comedian a chance to take a prominent place on the list, enjoy some generous air-time on a prime-time TV channel - and enjoy all the industry benefits that this would bring. The commerical pressure for manipulating this list is enourmous - which is why it is vital that it is unbiased and as transparent as possible.

What I would hope is that Channel 4 make the list open and restore confidence in their own poll by allowing talent to get voted through without being subjected to an ill-thought-out screening process in the first place.

Tim Clark

Hello again! Well we've said goodbye to cloudy Whistler as the comedy tour moved deeper into the Rockies and we make our way across from Vancouver to Calgary. On Wednesday the quartet played the town of Penticton where Craig Campbell spent some of his youth.

Despite the fact that Penticton is set amid semi-desert, the town comes across as one of those places which can allow you to entertain the notion of packing up and living the ex-pat life - well at least briefly.

The town is set in a bowl between the mountains and due to the unique way the micro-climate works, Penticton is known as one of the hottest places in Canada. Summer temperatures can reach up to 38C and there is even a small wine industry based in the valley – which I am told produces an exceptional vintage.

Yet in the winter Penticton is also a short drive from the excellent skiing spot of Apex Alpine. Though small, Apex is perfectly formed, with enough to do to keep advanced skiers busy for at least a day, which is what we did, though as some of us found out, the runs that are blue aren't as easy as they seem (for reasons we're not sure we can explain)

Penticton, as Campbell told us, is also home of the Penticton Peach Riot. Food based civil unrest is pretty uncommon in any country but in Canada, mass riots are even rarer. So to have thousands of people taking to the streets – and rolling a giant peach stand into the town's lake was a massive event in the towns history.

Campbell, who witnessed the riot as a teenager added in a short skit during his live set that night about how he saw out the riot on the roof of a police patrol vehicle.

If anything, Campbell is the storyteller of the group. A lot of his set is based on life experiences and is rich in personal history. With this in mind, it has been interesting to see how comic's take ordinary stories and turn them into material and the reaction when those stories have resonance with the public they are performing to.

In theory, by talking about the riot Campbell managed to open up a wound in the collective consciousness of the audience, but the way he did this meant that instead of taking the Peach Riot story and making it into something serious, his retelling had more of a soothing effect, allowing the audience to laugh about an event which is, in theory, a dark moment in the towns history.

The tour has moved in to the shows in Kamloops and Prince George before arriving in Banff last night. More blogs and galleries up soon. Until then adios,

Tim

So, the show is on the road at last! The quartet of comedians who make up the Snowed In Comedy Tour managed to get their first gig under their on Tuesday night and, though the gig was to a group of roudy ski kids in a packed-out ski bar, the general consensus is that it was a resounding success.

The idea of a first gig is an interesting one, it obviously acts like an ice-breaker for the rest of the tour. Until this marker has been passed there isn't can't be any celebration, achievement or shared experience upon which to focus the rest of the tour on. This kind of stress does affect the acts.

“I felt like a caged animal, cooped up in a room with a lack of sleep” Craig Campbell said after the first gig had finished. Though all the comedians on the tour have years of live experience under their belt I've become aware over the last few days that comedians themselves need regular gigs if only to retain their sharpnmess. Like in football, a lack of regular action can sometimes lead to a loss of form - or an anxiety that they may have lost form. Constant gigs are a good thing.

These thoughts occupied both Wool and Quinn in the build up to the show at the GLC. Wool, who has recently moved back to the West Coast of the U.S. hadn't had a gig for five weeks, (Which gave rise to a cheeky jab by Byrne, 'so, it's great to hear that America is working out for you') and Quinn hasn't gigged for a month.

The true story is that they took time out over the festive season so that they could avoid the shit audiences that come seeking comedy in the run up to Christmas. It seems that the chav-style drunken heckle is as prominent feature of the office Christmas do in the America as it is in Britain.

The tour next moves on into the Rockies and to the town of Penticton, which was once home to a peach riot (i'll let Campbell help me explain in the next blog post) which will be up on the site soon.

Tim

The Canadian Rockies have filled map screen. Admittedly, it is only a few inches wide, but looking at the unbroken mass of rock that is beneath me has had an alarming effect. I have to make my way through that?

Unknown towns dot the screen, Prince George, Kamloops, Kelowna; places that, by the end of the week, I will be much more familiar with but at the moment seem eerily unknown.

The reason I am starting a comedy blog with a geographic description at 30,000 feet is that I am on my way to Vancouver, Canada, to spend a week following a comedy tour of the Canadian Rockies.

When I heard that veteran comic Craig Campbell as heading back to his native Canada for a series of shows I managed to empty the SSP travel fund of everything it had to buy an airline ticket and head West.

I am here to find out what it's like to follow a comedy tour. From what is involved in planning it, to how you keep your act fresh to life on the road to what inspires comedians to come up with new material from their experiences. I am joining Craig Campbell, Ed Byrne, Glenn Wool and Dan Quinn to document the trip as we make our way through the Canadian Rockies to Calgary.

Comedians live possibly one of the most varied lives of any artist. From flying to Hong Kong or Dubai to play a single night at one of the handful of rich expat comedy clubs around the globe to dropping into hospitals and schools, a comedian's life is more varied than the simple 45-minute standard set.

And as a solo performer they are regularly able to cover more gigs in a night than their musical equivalents could, which is known as 'doubling up'.

In this respect comedians by the nature of their work are able to experience and handle vastly different audiences in the space of an hour, but comedians are more versatile than that.

Like Cameleons they can adapt to make their sets suit where they are and can quickly bond with an audience by extending a comedy angle on everyday experiences whether it is being stuck in traffic or boarding down a ski slope.

Snowed In Comedy Tour is essentially about four comedians who realised they had a shared passion for winter sports and a sense of adventure. This passion has led them drive across Canada, where this passion will lead them next who knows (I heard last night about a similar adventure, but this time with kayaks).

By Ali Plumb, Podcast critic, Such Small Portions

Hello and welcome to what is already being called the first column ever written by me for Such Small Portions.

As it’s the opening article in what will probably be large number of snobby, critical, increasingly unfunny ones, I thought I’d start off with discussing some comedy I love, rather than picking apart the past week’s comedy quiz shows / podcasts  / radio broadcasts, which is what I’ll be doing normally. You can look forward to that next week, you lucky little buggers.

And don’t worry, like everything you’ll ever read of mine, it’ll be under-researched, rambling and nigh-on pointless. Just the way you like it.

So, to start this comedy charm parade; Adam and Joe. They’re bloody great, aren’t they? Answer: ‘Yes, they are.’ If your mental response is anything other than ‘Yes’ or something equally positive, then it’s probably best you leave. Close down your browser, open up iTunes (other podcast download services are available, but are undoubtedly shitter), and start downloading as many Adam and Joe 6 Music shows as you can, as quick as you can.

That’s an order; Go.

If you already know about just how brilliant they are, then great, chances are we’d be good friends and get along very well. Here’s my twitter twitter.com/AlastairPlumb. Let’s bond, new media-style. If you don’t, well boo to you.

Though Adam and Joe are useless disc jockeys, often forgetting to mention what track they’ve just played or even to play anything at all, besides coming up with some of the clunkiest links known to man (though they’re getting better now, to be fair), their features, regulars and weird conversations give them an amazing ability to induce chuckles on the regular.

What makes them work is their sheer amiability. They’re both charming and a little bit nuts, and seem to attract listeners that aren’t loud mouthed idiotholes, who offer up funny, original, ideas each and every week. I could go on for days about just how they manage it, and just why they’re so good, but the podcast itself will explain that better than I can.

Instead, here’s a couple of the features they do:

Song Wars – though this hasn’t been done for a good long while, the premise is that they come up with a theme to write ludicrous songs to and then both submit their attempts for an audience vote the week after. Crackers so far include their Quantum Of Solace songs, Joe's Antiques Roadshow tune and Adam’s ‘Nutty Room’ masterpiece.

Made-up Jokes – Um, made-up jokes. Sent in my listeners. They get Googled for their uniqueness, the emphasis being that the more stretched and forced the gag is, the better.
Popappropriation – suggestions for songs you sing to yourself (with altered lyrics) as you go about daily life.

Text The Nation – their main feature, which is guaranteed to appear every week. It’s basically a “Here’s a thought, text in your ideas” number, which appears everywhere on every show – but in their blundering yet brilliant hands, is a guaranteed winner every week.

You get the idea… two odd men who once hosted a late night TV show in the nineties (Hunt down the ‘Best Of’ DVD if you can, it’s well worth it) trundling along into the next millennium, getting better all the time. It’s just a damn shame they’ve not got more attention in the media, but to be honest, I kind of like it. It’s like they’re my mates. Sort of. Maybe. Maybe that's what they want it to be.

For a thoroughly thorough guide to the show, check out this fan-made PDF here:

For a selection of their Song Wars songs, go to youtube and good ‘song wars adam and joe’ – I would do it for you, but I don’t want you getting lazy.

Here’s their 2009 brief Best Of (according to them)

So yes. They are amazing, and should serve as a clear example of what I find funny. I.e. funny stuff. Come back next week for a genuine piece of actual journalism, where I’ll be acerbic (and possibly hilarious) about people who are paid a lot of money to be acerbic (and possibly hilarious) on the TV / radio / internet.

Loveyoubye!

P.S. STEPHEN!