Bitchin' About Comedy

I suppose comedy, like all other forms of entertainment, is a matter of taste. I remember distinctly being invited by my old neighbours Celine and Don to watch Bottom with them on TV - they had just got it on DVD. I couldn't imagine anything worse but accepted the invitation out of curiosity to see if there was anything I was missing. There wasn't. Despite the dubious comic talents of the late Rik Mayall, Bottom to me it was a 'lowest common denominator' comedy. A burlesque of fart jokes and violence that simply didn't appeal in the slightest.

To Celine and Don, who were French and Dutch respectively, it was the funniest thing on TV. Bizarre. The point is that comedy is invariably different things to different people and much the same is true of comedy plays. When I first heard that the next Above The Stag play was Alright Bitches, I felt that I knew exactly what that might entail. In truth, anyone might guess the measure of a play entitled Alright Bitches and I wasn't far wrong in my assumption. Martin Blackburn's debut play may not break any new ground but it does make me laugh. A stream of bitchy one-liners inhabits a fairly thin plot and while its structure, journey and resolution are sound, it's all a little formulaic.

 

This is however Blackburn's first play and to be honest, he has a gift for snappy comic dialogue. There are plenty of new plays out there that drudge on incessantly down an enlightening road of misery but just because the subject matter is an issue worth addressing, doesn't make it a good play. I see plenty of new drama every year, some of it thrilling, some of it less so. The new comedies I see each year you can count on one hand. It's one of the reasons I embraced Jon Bradfield and Martin Hooper's annual pantomimes Above The Stag. Those guys have a talent for intelligent comedy that I really wish they would explore more often than once a year. It's all a matter of taste of course and I know that some people may approach Alright Bitches as a piece of fluff writing. I beg to differ and resign myself to the fact that this may be the only new piece of new comedy writing I see until I get to Edinburgh.