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Situations, Happenings, Gatherings, Laughter Emergent British Stand-Up Comedy in Sociopolitical Context Broderick D.V. Chow The “Weather Vane” As we analyze stand-up comedy, it is important we remember that it is a “popular” form, perhaps from some perspectives a “low” form. It is, by definition, entertaining. Stand-up comedy may be edifying, challenging, subversive, or educative, but it need not be any of these things. What it needs to be is funny. There is great value in a cultural form with such entertainment appeal yet that frequently contains all the above secondary characteristics. Cultural historians trace the direct roots of the modern form of stand-up comedy to commercial entertainment (vaudeville and music-hall),1 yet even in the infancy of the form comedians were already using the potential of direct address to tackle social or political issues, to express rage or affection for their society, in short, to give reason to the laughter. This can be seen in the existence of the “chitlin circuit” alongside the mainstream in America, in which black comedians had license to say what was otherwise forbidden, or the resentful bigotry of many working men’s club comics in 1970s Britain. British audiences, in particular, have seen the rise of alternative comedy, a highly politicized incarnation of the form. Far from being “mere entertainment,” standup comedians are fully aware of the power of their art form and strive to do justice to what Tony Allen (the oft-labeled “Grandfather of Alternative Comedy”) cites as their anthropological forebears: the Fool, the Jester, the Shaman.2 Because the form places the performer as both writer and medium in a central position, stand-up comedy acts as a so- 122 B R O D E R I C K D . V . C H O W cial and political weather vane; the comedian’s art is located in the reception by an audience of what Christopher Ritchie describes as a comic’s “Micro-World,” a unique and personal point of view of the world expressed through a series of jokes.3 In this essay I detail a specific cultural shift in British stand-up comedy: the popularization of late 1970s to 1980s alternative comedy, a politically charged form of comedy emerging in the early days of Margaret Thatcher’s administration, the diffusion of its radical aspects, and the emergence of a new form with a different but no less important political utility—the growth of performer-centric, comedian-generated clubs that embody a do-it-yourself ethic. For ease of use, I will refer to this newer genre as “Do-It-Yourself” (or DIY) comedy for its aesthetic, as well as its relationship to other movements aimed at reclaiming or creating one’s own cultural experience. My theoretical framework for discussing this emergent form’s political function is “relational art” and Nicholas Bourriard’s theory of relational aesthetics.4 I begin with a definition of DIY comedy as an alternative to the mainstream, in contrast to “alternative comedy” as a period-specific genre of stand-up. I then detail the theory of relational aesthetics and situate the functional aspects of stand-up within that theory. My purpose is to show that the proliferation of DIY events in comedy is analogous to the wider range of relational/situational events created in response to a social sphere ailing through the dominance of global capitalism and that DIY comedy represents an exemplary form of response to these events. Two caveats must be considered. The first is location. My research is focused entirely on London’s comedy circuit, which, due to its size and pluralist nature, allows enough like-minded individuals to come together to form legitimate “scenes.” The project provides, however, a methodology of analysis applicable to other cultural milieus, such as similar emergent scenes in New York or Los Angeles. The second caveat is my own position within the project. I began as a surveyor, outlining a cultural process and a theoretical framework. Because, however, I am a comedian performing on London’s circuit, my own practice and insights thereof must be brought to bear. The first part of the essay investigates what is happening and the second how...

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