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| Why are comedians so sad? You asked Google – here’s the answer | Why are comedians so sad? You asked Google – here’s the answer |
| (5 months later) | |
| I’m a comedian but I don’t think I’m that sad. To be fair, I don’t think I’m that funny either, but that’s a whole other comments section under a whole other article called: “Do you have a receipt for that joke; if not, then I won’t be refunding your ticket.” | I’m a comedian but I don’t think I’m that sad. To be fair, I don’t think I’m that funny either, but that’s a whole other comments section under a whole other article called: “Do you have a receipt for that joke; if not, then I won’t be refunding your ticket.” |
| So why don’t I give refunds? Sorry, lost my train of thought there. Why are comedians so sad? Well, the majority I know aren’t. Sure, they’re unemployed, they lack sun and they spend far too long waiting to catch someone’s eye in the Soho theatre bar, but sad? Maybe, actually, by the sounds of that breakdown – no pun intended. But any more than anyone else? Surely it’s just that we hear them talk about it more than, say, a shepherd or a leading light in phlebotomy? | So why don’t I give refunds? Sorry, lost my train of thought there. Why are comedians so sad? Well, the majority I know aren’t. Sure, they’re unemployed, they lack sun and they spend far too long waiting to catch someone’s eye in the Soho theatre bar, but sad? Maybe, actually, by the sounds of that breakdown – no pun intended. But any more than anyone else? Surely it’s just that we hear them talk about it more than, say, a shepherd or a leading light in phlebotomy? |
| It’s not the comedy that makes me sad, it’s the comedy that makes me better. Live and let laugh, that’s what I say | It’s not the comedy that makes me sad, it’s the comedy that makes me better. Live and let laugh, that’s what I say |
| Now I’m not saying that I haven’t had my own moments of despair. Life is always there to smack you in the johnson right when you think you’ve got it nailed. But the sadness passed. It blew over. It wasn’t a symptom of anything more sinister. Besides, as a character comic, I use my job as a means of escape, as the one straight line when everything else seems jagged. Yes, I’ve looked in the mirror on my way out, baffled at the notion that I am about to become someone’s entertainment for the night But once I’m out there, working, it’s fine. I know who I am on a stage. I can leave the real world behind and assert some sort of control. | Now I’m not saying that I haven’t had my own moments of despair. Life is always there to smack you in the johnson right when you think you’ve got it nailed. But the sadness passed. It blew over. It wasn’t a symptom of anything more sinister. Besides, as a character comic, I use my job as a means of escape, as the one straight line when everything else seems jagged. Yes, I’ve looked in the mirror on my way out, baffled at the notion that I am about to become someone’s entertainment for the night But once I’m out there, working, it’s fine. I know who I am on a stage. I can leave the real world behind and assert some sort of control. |
| A standup comedian is encouraged to be more like themselves. People crave their honesty to hopefully provide a shock, some kinship or a fresh assault on some previously taboo boundary. But if they display such an extreme level of openness, does it come at a cost? Hannah Gadsby brilliantly raises this in her show Nanette, which explores the idea that offering something personal can lead to feelings of emptiness, dissatisfaction and anger. Chris Rock has spoken about hating the famous Chris Farley Chippendales sketch from Saturday Night Live because its central premise is, “We can’t hire you because you’re fat”. Given how much Farley wanted to be liked, he believes it’s one of the things that ultimately led him to take his own life. The pressure to please sometimes comes at the highest price. | A standup comedian is encouraged to be more like themselves. People crave their honesty to hopefully provide a shock, some kinship or a fresh assault on some previously taboo boundary. But if they display such an extreme level of openness, does it come at a cost? Hannah Gadsby brilliantly raises this in her show Nanette, which explores the idea that offering something personal can lead to feelings of emptiness, dissatisfaction and anger. Chris Rock has spoken about hating the famous Chris Farley Chippendales sketch from Saturday Night Live because its central premise is, “We can’t hire you because you’re fat”. Given how much Farley wanted to be liked, he believes it’s one of the things that ultimately led him to take his own life. The pressure to please sometimes comes at the highest price. |
| I often wonder how comedians such as Gadsby dare to take a step towards their darkness before finding a way to present it to an audience. Is it therapeutic for them to constantly revisit that pain? Does it soften? Do they always feel that original ire or do they sometimes have to recreate it? And, given that their honesty might be helping many others think and speak up about their own experiences, is the show always theirs? When do they feel able to stop performing it and move on to something else? Something a little lighter perhaps? With a dog? How honest can any performance actually be? | I often wonder how comedians such as Gadsby dare to take a step towards their darkness before finding a way to present it to an audience. Is it therapeutic for them to constantly revisit that pain? Does it soften? Do they always feel that original ire or do they sometimes have to recreate it? And, given that their honesty might be helping many others think and speak up about their own experiences, is the show always theirs? When do they feel able to stop performing it and move on to something else? Something a little lighter perhaps? With a dog? How honest can any performance actually be? |
| I’m really not equipped to produce work of this calibre, given that honesty is not something I peddle. The closest I ever came to professional catharsis was with Coach Coach, a live homage to American sports movies that I wrote and performed in 2015. It was conceived as a direct result of my father dying, as he and I both loved films such as Field of Dreams and Bull Durham, and I knew he would have got a real kick out of seeing our shared joy played out with me as the titular Coach. But you would never have known that by watching it. It was my secret, to me, about me. There was also that bit at the end of my last hour-long show where I asked audience members to feed me canned fish from a Clairol foot spa using only their feet. That was my tribute to feet. I’m being facetious, but the truth is dishonesty pays my bills. | I’m really not equipped to produce work of this calibre, given that honesty is not something I peddle. The closest I ever came to professional catharsis was with Coach Coach, a live homage to American sports movies that I wrote and performed in 2015. It was conceived as a direct result of my father dying, as he and I both loved films such as Field of Dreams and Bull Durham, and I knew he would have got a real kick out of seeing our shared joy played out with me as the titular Coach. But you would never have known that by watching it. It was my secret, to me, about me. There was also that bit at the end of my last hour-long show where I asked audience members to feed me canned fish from a Clairol foot spa using only their feet. That was my tribute to feet. I’m being facetious, but the truth is dishonesty pays my bills. |
| This makes sense, given my entire career was born out of a lie. Two lies, actually. The first was when I made up all my grades on my UCCA form to get into university. Ds to Bs, that kind of thing. The second was with a play I wrote that I thought was a taut, two-handed cat-and-mouse-style thriller, along the same lines as Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth. A dark and deadly study into the uncompromising world of blackmail, infidelity and Subbuteo. Trouble was, nobody else did and they laughed all the way through it. I was faced with a choice: to correct them and accuse them all of being philistines, or go with it and pretend that it had all been intentional? One swift application of Tipp-Ex later and my drama became a comedy, my Pinter became an Ernie Wise, and my wink became forever knowing. | This makes sense, given my entire career was born out of a lie. Two lies, actually. The first was when I made up all my grades on my UCCA form to get into university. Ds to Bs, that kind of thing. The second was with a play I wrote that I thought was a taut, two-handed cat-and-mouse-style thriller, along the same lines as Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth. A dark and deadly study into the uncompromising world of blackmail, infidelity and Subbuteo. Trouble was, nobody else did and they laughed all the way through it. I was faced with a choice: to correct them and accuse them all of being philistines, or go with it and pretend that it had all been intentional? One swift application of Tipp-Ex later and my drama became a comedy, my Pinter became an Ernie Wise, and my wink became forever knowing. |
| The deceit has continued into modern day too. I play a lot of alpha male characters who are nothing like me. Most, if not all, are horrifically enhanced tools taken to the nth degree. But audiences don’t know that, nor should they. | The deceit has continued into modern day too. I play a lot of alpha male characters who are nothing like me. Most, if not all, are horrifically enhanced tools taken to the nth degree. But audiences don’t know that, nor should they. |
| This possibly explains why some men have squared up to me, mid-show, to kindly offer to kick my head in. Brighton Guy, I’m talking to you and your inability to distinguish Sean Bean from me with a squint. I actually enjoy the enormous disconnect that exists between what I think I’m doing on a stage and what an audience thinks I’m doing. It keeps the reality at bay and makes sure I can separate my work from life. I can work a lot of things out behind a squint and I don’t want people to see who I really am. It’s none of their business. Also, were I to drop the facade and do a fully honest hour, I’d worry no one would care. Can you imagine getting a one-star review for your actual life? | This possibly explains why some men have squared up to me, mid-show, to kindly offer to kick my head in. Brighton Guy, I’m talking to you and your inability to distinguish Sean Bean from me with a squint. I actually enjoy the enormous disconnect that exists between what I think I’m doing on a stage and what an audience thinks I’m doing. It keeps the reality at bay and makes sure I can separate my work from life. I can work a lot of things out behind a squint and I don’t want people to see who I really am. It’s none of their business. Also, were I to drop the facade and do a fully honest hour, I’d worry no one would care. Can you imagine getting a one-star review for your actual life? |
| Once again, I can look back to note the exact moment I knew “the real Adam” would never appear on stage. I was five and my mother and grandmother had entered me into the village fancy dress contest. They thought, given my name was Adam, I should go as Adam, the first man. Their thinking being that the sheer toddler-sized balls of it all would surely have proved enough to destroy whatever chances next door’s pink fairy would have had. Turns out toddler-sized balls were a running theme as the “costume” they had “designed” for me proved to be nothing more than a tiny green crepe-paper leaf. Just one. No token arse leaf. Sure, I had a rubber snake dangled over my shoulder and a green apple with a bite taken out of it to add a degree of biblical accuracy, but aside from that, I was the original commando. I came second, by the way, to a kid dressed as an old man. | Once again, I can look back to note the exact moment I knew “the real Adam” would never appear on stage. I was five and my mother and grandmother had entered me into the village fancy dress contest. They thought, given my name was Adam, I should go as Adam, the first man. Their thinking being that the sheer toddler-sized balls of it all would surely have proved enough to destroy whatever chances next door’s pink fairy would have had. Turns out toddler-sized balls were a running theme as the “costume” they had “designed” for me proved to be nothing more than a tiny green crepe-paper leaf. Just one. No token arse leaf. Sure, I had a rubber snake dangled over my shoulder and a green apple with a bite taken out of it to add a degree of biblical accuracy, but aside from that, I was the original commando. I came second, by the way, to a kid dressed as an old man. |
| Lies, Tipp-Ex, humiliation … am I sad? Remarkably, no. Troubled? Hell, yes. But you do what you do to get by, however it comes out, don’t you? We all wear a mask. We’re all a mess. Who out there isn’t all they appear to be, all of the time? But it’s not the comedy that makes me sad, it’s the comedy that makes me better. Live and let laugh, that’s what I say. Oh, and always wear an arse leaf. | Lies, Tipp-Ex, humiliation … am I sad? Remarkably, no. Troubled? Hell, yes. But you do what you do to get by, however it comes out, don’t you? We all wear a mask. We’re all a mess. Who out there isn’t all they appear to be, all of the time? But it’s not the comedy that makes me sad, it’s the comedy that makes me better. Live and let laugh, that’s what I say. Oh, and always wear an arse leaf. |
| • Adam Riches is a comedian and winner of the 2011 Foster’s Edinburgh comedy award. He is performing for five nights at the Vault festival, 28 February to 4 March. | • Adam Riches is a comedian and winner of the 2011 Foster’s Edinburgh comedy award. He is performing for five nights at the Vault festival, 28 February to 4 March. |
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