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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/04/wikie-the-talking-whale-good-audience-stewart-lee
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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| How I became the king of cetacean comedy | How I became the king of cetacean comedy |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The revelation that a killer whale can talk took me back to my days improvising for an audience of dolphins | The revelation that a killer whale can talk took me back to my days improvising for an audience of dolphins |
| Sun 4 Feb 2018 10.00 GMT | Sun 4 Feb 2018 10.00 GMT |
| Last modified on Sun 4 Feb 2018 13.43 GMT | |
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| On my way to pick up fresh cat litter in the car on Wednesday, I suddenly heard the following snippet of radio news: “A hulking and senseless creature, driven only by instinct and self-interest, has nonetheless learned to emit recognisable human words through its blowhole.” | On my way to pick up fresh cat litter in the car on Wednesday, I suddenly heard the following snippet of radio news: “A hulking and senseless creature, driven only by instinct and self-interest, has nonetheless learned to emit recognisable human words through its blowhole.” |
| But I am sick of hearing about Boris Johnson all the time and quickly turned the radio off. When will people realise that it’s only by denying this lying Brexit oaf the oxygen of publicity that we can finally stem the flow of falsehood that seems to stream endlessly from his filthy blowhole, day after day after day? | But I am sick of hearing about Boris Johnson all the time and quickly turned the radio off. When will people realise that it’s only by denying this lying Brexit oaf the oxygen of publicity that we can finally stem the flow of falsehood that seems to stream endlessly from his filthy blowhole, day after day after day? |
| Back at home I realised LBC’s Nick Ferrari hadn’t been describing Boris Johnson at all, or even himself, but was in fact announcing the arrival on the world stage of Wikie, a sentient and apparently communicative killer whale, living in a French theme park. “Hello,” he says, and “one, two, three.” | Back at home I realised LBC’s Nick Ferrari hadn’t been describing Boris Johnson at all, or even himself, but was in fact announcing the arrival on the world stage of Wikie, a sentient and apparently communicative killer whale, living in a French theme park. “Hello,” he says, and “one, two, three.” |
| Oddly, despite being in France, the whale appears to have chosen to communicate in English, observing current EU negotiating protocol. Doubtless all European cetaceans will revert to their original regional dialects when our glorious independence from those Brussels bureaucrat fat cats is finally enacted, unless the traitors triumph. | Oddly, despite being in France, the whale appears to have chosen to communicate in English, observing current EU negotiating protocol. Doubtless all European cetaceans will revert to their original regional dialects when our glorious independence from those Brussels bureaucrat fat cats is finally enacted, unless the traitors triumph. |
| Your kitten playing the piano bit is still spoken of with reverence in the cetacean community | Your kitten playing the piano bit is still spoken of with reverence in the cetacean community |
| (Remember, though, we will have only our independent British selves to blame if, having capsized a catamaran off the Belgian coast, we are unable to convince local dolphins to tow us to safety, lacking the now requisite Flemish or Walloon.) | (Remember, though, we will have only our independent British selves to blame if, having capsized a catamaran off the Belgian coast, we are unable to convince local dolphins to tow us to safety, lacking the now requisite Flemish or Walloon.) |
| I have often suspected the cetacean community could understand us a lot better than they let on. In 1993, I began writing my first solo standup hour in the splendid isolation of a remote peat cutter’s bothy on the Isle of Lewis, not far from the Callanish III standing stones, where Ultravox filmed the video to their 1984 single, One Small Day. | I have often suspected the cetacean community could understand us a lot better than they let on. In 1993, I began writing my first solo standup hour in the splendid isolation of a remote peat cutter’s bothy on the Isle of Lewis, not far from the Callanish III standing stones, where Ultravox filmed the video to their 1984 single, One Small Day. |
| I had become fixated on the idea that although critics assumed standup audiences were laughing at an alternative comedian’s subject material – farts, periods, Thatcher etc – what was more profound was the extent to which they were actually subconsciously affected by changes in a comedian’s speech rhythms, which subtly tickled the laughter out of them, irrespective of content. | I had become fixated on the idea that although critics assumed standup audiences were laughing at an alternative comedian’s subject material – farts, periods, Thatcher etc – what was more profound was the extent to which they were actually subconsciously affected by changes in a comedian’s speech rhythms, which subtly tickled the laughter out of them, irrespective of content. |
| (If you’ve ever seen my standup act live and wondered why you found it quite so exciting, well, let me enlighten you. You, dear reader, have a subliminal awareness of how most comedy follows the regular rhythms drilled into us as foetuses by the beating of our mothers’ hearts. My own punchlines and asides, thrillingly, are falling just outside the beats where they might be expected to land, in the style of pioneering free jazz percussionists like Sunny Murray, Tony Oxley and Ronnie Verrell.) | (If you’ve ever seen my standup act live and wondered why you found it quite so exciting, well, let me enlighten you. You, dear reader, have a subliminal awareness of how most comedy follows the regular rhythms drilled into us as foetuses by the beating of our mothers’ hearts. My own punchlines and asides, thrillingly, are falling just outside the beats where they might be expected to land, in the style of pioneering free jazz percussionists like Sunny Murray, Tony Oxley and Ronnie Verrell.) |
| But, I wondered, would an audience of sentient, but not culturally literate, beings appreciate this strategy? I rowed out on to the midnight Minch and emptied a bucket of fish into the choppy waves to attract the dolphins, who soon gathered around my boat, already a more appreciative audience than can be found in, say, the entire city of Carlisle. | But, I wondered, would an audience of sentient, but not culturally literate, beings appreciate this strategy? I rowed out on to the midnight Minch and emptied a bucket of fish into the choppy waves to attract the dolphins, who soon gathered around my boat, already a more appreciative audience than can be found in, say, the entire city of Carlisle. |
| Through a purloined megaphone I performed two routines to the attentive sea creatures; the first a long story of being visited repeatedly by Jehovah’s Witnesses, which relied on the audience knowing who both the actor Robert Powell and the proto-grunge band the Jesus Lizard were; the second a shambling improvisation around a poster of a kitten playing the piano, the actual words largely irrelevant, the humour derived essentially from micro-managed tonal and rhythmical shifts. | Through a purloined megaphone I performed two routines to the attentive sea creatures; the first a long story of being visited repeatedly by Jehovah’s Witnesses, which relied on the audience knowing who both the actor Robert Powell and the proto-grunge band the Jesus Lizard were; the second a shambling improvisation around a poster of a kitten playing the piano, the actual words largely irrelevant, the humour derived essentially from micro-managed tonal and rhythmical shifts. |
| Needless to say, the patient cetaceans were left cold by the first bit, but clapped their flippers and clacked their tongues enthusiastically to the second, just as an audience of Scots at the Edinburgh fringe were to do the following summer, where, typically, I was overlooked for the main award as usual. Never mind. In the world of the dolphins I was a player. | Needless to say, the patient cetaceans were left cold by the first bit, but clapped their flippers and clacked their tongues enthusiastically to the second, just as an audience of Scots at the Edinburgh fringe were to do the following summer, where, typically, I was overlooked for the main award as usual. Never mind. In the world of the dolphins I was a player. |
| It is the killer whale, however, which has always been my favourite cetacean, ever since an ill-advisedly youthful exposure, at the age of nine, to Dino De Laurentiis’s violent and horrific eco-thriller Orca: The Killer Whale. I duly noted that the pornographic elements of Arthur Herzog’s source novel, which I had already read, were absent from the screen adaptation, but this was more than made up for by Richard Harris’s unexpectedly brilliant portrayal of a drunken Irish fisherman, surely a high-water mark in a career characterised by impossible and unpredictable versatility. | It is the killer whale, however, which has always been my favourite cetacean, ever since an ill-advisedly youthful exposure, at the age of nine, to Dino De Laurentiis’s violent and horrific eco-thriller Orca: The Killer Whale. I duly noted that the pornographic elements of Arthur Herzog’s source novel, which I had already read, were absent from the screen adaptation, but this was more than made up for by Richard Harris’s unexpectedly brilliant portrayal of a drunken Irish fisherman, surely a high-water mark in a career characterised by impossible and unpredictable versatility. |
| By Wednesday night on the day of the whale revelation, I was on a train to France, arriving at the animal park where Wikie was held at around 3am and soon scaling the typically weak French fence. I flopped on to the concrete by the side of his silent pool, my shadow cast against a bank of seating by a lone security spotlight, and suddenly the whale’s great black-and-white head rose from the water to greet me. | By Wednesday night on the day of the whale revelation, I was on a train to France, arriving at the animal park where Wikie was held at around 3am and soon scaling the typically weak French fence. I flopped on to the concrete by the side of his silent pool, my shadow cast against a bank of seating by a lone security spotlight, and suddenly the whale’s great black-and-white head rose from the water to greet me. |
| “You,” the whale Wikie intoned, the syllable echoing from his cavernous blowhole, “your Jehovah’s Witness routine was cheap shit, but your kitten playing the piano bit is still spoken of with reverence in the cetacean community. In the language of the cetaceans, you are called He Who Laughs At Kittens, or Ikky Ikky Ak Ak Bwaaa Auuuuuuk Ka Ka Ka Eeee Eeee Eee Pweeeee Pweeee Pweeeee Urk Urk Fweeeeeeeeeee.” | “You,” the whale Wikie intoned, the syllable echoing from his cavernous blowhole, “your Jehovah’s Witness routine was cheap shit, but your kitten playing the piano bit is still spoken of with reverence in the cetacean community. In the language of the cetaceans, you are called He Who Laughs At Kittens, or Ikky Ikky Ak Ak Bwaaa Auuuuuuk Ka Ka Ka Eeee Eeee Eee Pweeeee Pweeee Pweeeee Urk Urk Fweeeeeeeeeee.” |
| “You can speak,” I whispered in awed reverence. “And I think you always could. Has the proliferation of plastics finally forced you to break your silence? You could all speak, and understand us, all along, couldn’t you? Why did you never say anything before?” | “You can speak,” I whispered in awed reverence. “And I think you always could. Has the proliferation of plastics finally forced you to break your silence? You could all speak, and understand us, all along, couldn’t you? Why did you never say anything before?” |
| “Because,” replied the whale, after a thoughtful pause, “up until fairly recently, everything has been quite satisfactory. Now, if you please, the kitten piano bit.” I got up, stood before the enormous sentience and began. | “Because,” replied the whale, after a thoughtful pause, “up until fairly recently, everything has been quite satisfactory. Now, if you please, the kitten piano bit.” I got up, stood before the enormous sentience and began. |
| The jazz-noise album Bristol Fashion by capri-batterie with Stewart Lee is available to download at bandcamp.com. Content Provider continues to tour until April, when it finally resolves with three dates at the Royal Festival Hall | The jazz-noise album Bristol Fashion by capri-batterie with Stewart Lee is available to download at bandcamp.com. Content Provider continues to tour until April, when it finally resolves with three dates at the Royal Festival Hall |
| Cetaceans | Cetaceans |
| Opinion | Opinion |
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