Heard the one about the black standups?
08/05/13 08:25 Filed in: Information
What about us?
This month sees the reunion of a pioneering generation of comedians, the stars of a hit 1990s TV show. In a climate where standup is booming, you'd think this would be the hottest ticket in town. But The Originals – as the black comics performing at the Barbican in London next week are calling themselves – aren't taking anything for granted. "It's all, 'Black comedians: will it work?'" asks one of their number, Miles Crawford, in tones of mock horror. The event celebrates the first wave of black British standup, but Crawford's question points to how much remains to be achieved.
I meet Crawford and the show's co-producer, standup Angie Le Mar, in a dressing room whose movement-sensitive lights keep plunging us into darkness. We talk about their lowly beginnings. "I did gigs in working men's clubs," says Crawford, "where the compere would introduce me as Luther Vandross." "We didn't have anybody who went before us," says Le Mar. "The only one was Lenny Henry. But Lenny had to do certain things to get where he wanted to go." She doesn't say it, but I take this to be a reference to Henry's notorious appearance on the touring Black and White Minstrel Show in the 1970s. "Until us," says Le Mar, "nobody was speaking on stage in our voices."
In 2000, Le Mar became the first black female standup to sell out a West End theatre; Crawford presented variety show The 291 Club live from the Hackney Empire on ITV. In 1991, the BBC launched the sketch show The Real McCoy, which starred fellow Original Felix Dexter, alongside Junior Simpson, Rudi Lickwood and Meera Syal. "Everything was building," remembers Le Mar, "and then it stopped." After five years the show was cancelled, and many black comics felt they had nowhere to go. "I'm puzzled by that," says Le Mar. "I watched French and Saunders grow. I watched Jo Brand grow. But we had The Real McCoy and then we didn't get the spin-offs."
Nearly 20 years on, the situation has only fitfully improved. I remember Simpson telling me in 2002 that "at regular comedy nights in London, Manchester, Birmingham, it's still unusual to see a black performer on the bill". That is no longer the case, although "if we see two or three on the same bill," says Crawford, "it goes into the set. We'll make a joke about the gig being charity funded."
One of the trailblazers of this new visibility is Stephen K Amos, an Edinburgh fringe favourite who will soon star in his own BBC series. Like all the acts I speak to for this article, Amos is adamant that comedy should be colour-blind. "My experience growing up in London in the 1970s is very similar to everybody else's," he argues. "I have a slight twist on it because of my background. But it's still funny and accessible to everybody."
If you've seen Amos perform, you'll agree. If you haven't – well, that's where the problems start. According to Anglo-Nigerian comic Gina Yashere, now living and working in the US: "Unless they see you on TV, or they know you, white crowds won't go to a black comedy night because they think that nothing is going to relate to them." Comedy is, or is perceived to be, an art form rooted in recognition and shared cultural references. Its audiences – far more so than those for music, films or fiction – are wary of artists whose experiences may not resemble their own. This perception persists despite many exceptions that prove the rule: as Le Mar points out, the career of US comic Chris Rock proves that an act with what she describes as "very black material" can appeal to audiences across the racial spectrum.
Le Mar describes such prejudice as a form of "racist conditioning", and detects it in the workings of TV commissioners, too – frequently cited by black comics as a major barrier to success. "I once had a meeting with someone in commissioning land," says Amos. "And he said to me, 'Steve, you're so funny, you're ready now.' Then he points out of his window and goes, 'It's them out there. They're not ready for you.' But he has the power to put people on TV and see what happens – not just to make a blanket decision as to what people want or don't want to see."
As a result, black comedy on TV is severely rationed. "It's one in, one out," says Amos. "Richard Blackwood had his own show, then Jocelyn Jee Esien had hers [Little Miss Jocelyn]. But I can't remember when two black comics were ever on TV at the same time." BBC3's hidden camera show 3 Non-Blondes, featuring Esien, got two series in 2003 and 2004, as well as rave reviews; but its performers decided against a third series when they became too well known (the comedy depended on disguise). In his standup set, Amos jokes that he'll only ever get a TV show when Lenny Henry dies. ("We all have a version of that joke," says Crawford, ruefully.) Because there are so few black comics on TV, each performer shoulders the fortunes of the whole scene. So when 2004 series The Crouches flopped, "the BBC pulled back and said, 'We can't do black sitcom'," says Le Mar. "That's too much pressure. Why do we always have to be fantastic, or die?"
Yashere despaired of the UK scene two years ago and moved to California. "And in that time," she says, "I've been on the Jay Leno Show, the Tonight Show, become the first British comic on [iconic black TV show] Def Comedy Jam. I have my own comedy special, where I, by myself, am taking up an hour of primetime American television. In 13 years in Britain, I never achieved anything like that. I have never once been invited to the British Comedy awards. Besides Lenny Henry, I'm probably the most successful black comedian in the country. And I have never been invited to the Comedy awards."
Distance hasn't mellowed Yashere's anger. "Television is run by white middle-class people, and they want TV shows made by people like them," she says. "There were more black people on TV in the 1970s." Without TV exposure, it's hard to prosper on the mainstream live circuit. Small wonder Yashere prefers the US, where "you can become a millionaire just playing to black audiences". She cites the Kings of Comedy tour in 2000, filmed by Spike Lee. "Those comics – Cedric the Entertainer, Bernie Mac – the mainstream didn't know who they were. But they generated a multimillion-dollar national tour, playing massive stadiums to predominantly black audiences."
Britain has its own black comedy circuit, which exists beyond the mainstream and has its own superstars. I have been a comedy critic for 10 years and had never visited Kojo's Comedy Fun House in London until last weekend (thus demonstrating Yashere's point about the white middle-class bias of UK comedy). A three-time winner of the best male comedian at the Black Comedy Awards, Kojo spearheads a fast-growing circuit that's "giving our community a way to express themselves other than music", he tells me. His West End club night is broadcast on MTV; guests have included Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle. And it is to America, and not to his Real McCoy forebears, that Kojo looks for inspiration. "For me," he says, "New York is the mecca of comedy."
Last Sunday I watched Kojo and his guests Toju and Slim perform in the Def Comedy Jam style: streetwise, sassy and supremely self-assured. I seldom see black faces in the audience at mainstream comedy; here, there were few white faces. Despite his insistence that comedy should be colour-blind, Amos admits black audiences prefer the black circuit, where "you know the material isn't going to be racist or make you feel awkward, where you feel like you belong". There's certainly nothing awkward about tonight's crowd, which hoots its approval, and howls its dismay, at routines about rap music, black-on-white relationships and, that eternal standup standby, the sex war.
The performers are hugely charismatic, but the material is not sophisticated. This could be because tonight's acts are pitched at an excitable and very young crowd. Kojo points out that most, if not all, young black comics "have to perform in front of white audiences, black audiences, Asian audiences", simply to get by. "That's where mainstream comics are a bit weaker. They can stick to what they know and still progress".
Kojo would like to see this ability to work different audiences put to better use. "I would like to see black comics on Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow." (One out of 24 acts – Ava Vidal – in its first series was black.) "Or Live at the Apollo: there's hardly any representation of black comics there." He blames the larger talent agencies, whose acts populate those shows. "How many of those agencies have black talent on their books?" He has a point: of the 80 comic acts listed as clients on big-hitter Avalon's website, none are black; there is one Asian act. A call to the agency confirms this. "Those agencies have to sign at least one black person," Kojo argues. "Otherwise, we're playing the Comedy Store, but it never means anything and we never progress."
'The internet changed the game'
The alternative is clear, and unanimously agreed upon by everyone I speak to: black comics must take the means of production into their own hands. Le Mar has set up a production company. Crawford runs his own club night. "We need to build an establishment," says Le Mar. "When it comes to connections – like, your daddy owns LWT – we need to start building something. And that comes out of time and years and all having a similar goal."
Then there's the web, which many comics feel could make those obstructive middlemen redundant. Last year Canadian-Indian comic Russell Peters, a veteran of the black British circuit, set a UK record when he sold out the O2 to a mainly Asian audience. There was no conscious campaign; social networking and YouTube created an audience that wasn't there before. "I'm not on TV that often," says Peters."I'm not in many movies. But the internet changed the game. I'm a product of people saying, 'This is what we want.' The time is passing that the suits can say, 'This is what we're giving you.'"
Kojo is already putting that philosophy into practice. "As black comics, we've been raised not to rely on being funny on stage. I've written a film, I'm working on a cartoon series. Soon, we'll be doing our own DVDs and movies. We're not going to need the mainstream." And if the mainstream comes calling? "There's a market out there. Grime artists are at No 1. Movies like [Noel Clarke's] Adulthood are going to No 1. And that's not just black people supporting black people – it's everybody. The comedy industry has to catch up. We've got the talent. If they reach out to us, they'll get more than they bargain for."
This month sees the reunion of a pioneering generation of comedians, the stars of a hit 1990s TV show. In a climate where standup is booming, you'd think this would be the hottest ticket in town. But The Originals – as the black comics performing at the Barbican in London next week are calling themselves – aren't taking anything for granted. "It's all, 'Black comedians: will it work?'" asks one of their number, Miles Crawford, in tones of mock horror. The event celebrates the first wave of black British standup, but Crawford's question points to how much remains to be achieved.
I meet Crawford and the show's co-producer, standup Angie Le Mar, in a dressing room whose movement-sensitive lights keep plunging us into darkness. We talk about their lowly beginnings. "I did gigs in working men's clubs," says Crawford, "where the compere would introduce me as Luther Vandross." "We didn't have anybody who went before us," says Le Mar. "The only one was Lenny Henry. But Lenny had to do certain things to get where he wanted to go." She doesn't say it, but I take this to be a reference to Henry's notorious appearance on the touring Black and White Minstrel Show in the 1970s. "Until us," says Le Mar, "nobody was speaking on stage in our voices."
In 2000, Le Mar became the first black female standup to sell out a West End theatre; Crawford presented variety show The 291 Club live from the Hackney Empire on ITV. In 1991, the BBC launched the sketch show The Real McCoy, which starred fellow Original Felix Dexter, alongside Junior Simpson, Rudi Lickwood and Meera Syal. "Everything was building," remembers Le Mar, "and then it stopped." After five years the show was cancelled, and many black comics felt they had nowhere to go. "I'm puzzled by that," says Le Mar. "I watched French and Saunders grow. I watched Jo Brand grow. But we had The Real McCoy and then we didn't get the spin-offs."
Nearly 20 years on, the situation has only fitfully improved. I remember Simpson telling me in 2002 that "at regular comedy nights in London, Manchester, Birmingham, it's still unusual to see a black performer on the bill". That is no longer the case, although "if we see two or three on the same bill," says Crawford, "it goes into the set. We'll make a joke about the gig being charity funded."
One of the trailblazers of this new visibility is Stephen K Amos, an Edinburgh fringe favourite who will soon star in his own BBC series. Like all the acts I speak to for this article, Amos is adamant that comedy should be colour-blind. "My experience growing up in London in the 1970s is very similar to everybody else's," he argues. "I have a slight twist on it because of my background. But it's still funny and accessible to everybody."
If you've seen Amos perform, you'll agree. If you haven't – well, that's where the problems start. According to Anglo-Nigerian comic Gina Yashere, now living and working in the US: "Unless they see you on TV, or they know you, white crowds won't go to a black comedy night because they think that nothing is going to relate to them." Comedy is, or is perceived to be, an art form rooted in recognition and shared cultural references. Its audiences – far more so than those for music, films or fiction – are wary of artists whose experiences may not resemble their own. This perception persists despite many exceptions that prove the rule: as Le Mar points out, the career of US comic Chris Rock proves that an act with what she describes as "very black material" can appeal to audiences across the racial spectrum.
Le Mar describes such prejudice as a form of "racist conditioning", and detects it in the workings of TV commissioners, too – frequently cited by black comics as a major barrier to success. "I once had a meeting with someone in commissioning land," says Amos. "And he said to me, 'Steve, you're so funny, you're ready now.' Then he points out of his window and goes, 'It's them out there. They're not ready for you.' But he has the power to put people on TV and see what happens – not just to make a blanket decision as to what people want or don't want to see."
As a result, black comedy on TV is severely rationed. "It's one in, one out," says Amos. "Richard Blackwood had his own show, then Jocelyn Jee Esien had hers [Little Miss Jocelyn]. But I can't remember when two black comics were ever on TV at the same time." BBC3's hidden camera show 3 Non-Blondes, featuring Esien, got two series in 2003 and 2004, as well as rave reviews; but its performers decided against a third series when they became too well known (the comedy depended on disguise). In his standup set, Amos jokes that he'll only ever get a TV show when Lenny Henry dies. ("We all have a version of that joke," says Crawford, ruefully.) Because there are so few black comics on TV, each performer shoulders the fortunes of the whole scene. So when 2004 series The Crouches flopped, "the BBC pulled back and said, 'We can't do black sitcom'," says Le Mar. "That's too much pressure. Why do we always have to be fantastic, or die?"
Yashere despaired of the UK scene two years ago and moved to California. "And in that time," she says, "I've been on the Jay Leno Show, the Tonight Show, become the first British comic on [iconic black TV show] Def Comedy Jam. I have my own comedy special, where I, by myself, am taking up an hour of primetime American television. In 13 years in Britain, I never achieved anything like that. I have never once been invited to the British Comedy awards. Besides Lenny Henry, I'm probably the most successful black comedian in the country. And I have never been invited to the Comedy awards."
Distance hasn't mellowed Yashere's anger. "Television is run by white middle-class people, and they want TV shows made by people like them," she says. "There were more black people on TV in the 1970s." Without TV exposure, it's hard to prosper on the mainstream live circuit. Small wonder Yashere prefers the US, where "you can become a millionaire just playing to black audiences". She cites the Kings of Comedy tour in 2000, filmed by Spike Lee. "Those comics – Cedric the Entertainer, Bernie Mac – the mainstream didn't know who they were. But they generated a multimillion-dollar national tour, playing massive stadiums to predominantly black audiences."
Britain has its own black comedy circuit, which exists beyond the mainstream and has its own superstars. I have been a comedy critic for 10 years and had never visited Kojo's Comedy Fun House in London until last weekend (thus demonstrating Yashere's point about the white middle-class bias of UK comedy). A three-time winner of the best male comedian at the Black Comedy Awards, Kojo spearheads a fast-growing circuit that's "giving our community a way to express themselves other than music", he tells me. His West End club night is broadcast on MTV; guests have included Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle. And it is to America, and not to his Real McCoy forebears, that Kojo looks for inspiration. "For me," he says, "New York is the mecca of comedy."
Last Sunday I watched Kojo and his guests Toju and Slim perform in the Def Comedy Jam style: streetwise, sassy and supremely self-assured. I seldom see black faces in the audience at mainstream comedy; here, there were few white faces. Despite his insistence that comedy should be colour-blind, Amos admits black audiences prefer the black circuit, where "you know the material isn't going to be racist or make you feel awkward, where you feel like you belong". There's certainly nothing awkward about tonight's crowd, which hoots its approval, and howls its dismay, at routines about rap music, black-on-white relationships and, that eternal standup standby, the sex war.
The performers are hugely charismatic, but the material is not sophisticated. This could be because tonight's acts are pitched at an excitable and very young crowd. Kojo points out that most, if not all, young black comics "have to perform in front of white audiences, black audiences, Asian audiences", simply to get by. "That's where mainstream comics are a bit weaker. They can stick to what they know and still progress".
Kojo would like to see this ability to work different audiences put to better use. "I would like to see black comics on Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow." (One out of 24 acts – Ava Vidal – in its first series was black.) "Or Live at the Apollo: there's hardly any representation of black comics there." He blames the larger talent agencies, whose acts populate those shows. "How many of those agencies have black talent on their books?" He has a point: of the 80 comic acts listed as clients on big-hitter Avalon's website, none are black; there is one Asian act. A call to the agency confirms this. "Those agencies have to sign at least one black person," Kojo argues. "Otherwise, we're playing the Comedy Store, but it never means anything and we never progress."
'The internet changed the game'
The alternative is clear, and unanimously agreed upon by everyone I speak to: black comics must take the means of production into their own hands. Le Mar has set up a production company. Crawford runs his own club night. "We need to build an establishment," says Le Mar. "When it comes to connections – like, your daddy owns LWT – we need to start building something. And that comes out of time and years and all having a similar goal."
Then there's the web, which many comics feel could make those obstructive middlemen redundant. Last year Canadian-Indian comic Russell Peters, a veteran of the black British circuit, set a UK record when he sold out the O2 to a mainly Asian audience. There was no conscious campaign; social networking and YouTube created an audience that wasn't there before. "I'm not on TV that often," says Peters."I'm not in many movies. But the internet changed the game. I'm a product of people saying, 'This is what we want.' The time is passing that the suits can say, 'This is what we're giving you.'"
Kojo is already putting that philosophy into practice. "As black comics, we've been raised not to rely on being funny on stage. I've written a film, I'm working on a cartoon series. Soon, we'll be doing our own DVDs and movies. We're not going to need the mainstream." And if the mainstream comes calling? "There's a market out there. Grime artists are at No 1. Movies like [Noel Clarke's] Adulthood are going to No 1. And that's not just black people supporting black people – it's everybody. The comedy industry has to catch up. We've got the talent. If they reach out to us, they'll get more than they bargain for."