Stage or Screen...

Dick Shadbolt ruminates on live stand-up versus TV

The lone comic steps up to the mike with nothing between him/her and the hostile audience but facial sweat. Don't worry, would be jokers - a life of punishing gigs and belligerent sods in the pit isn't the only way. Many a stand-up has been lucky enough to swap the rigours of the live show for the ease (and cash) of TV, and many of them have been successful. Virtually every comedian on television has started life as a struggling would-be stand-up, for some the transition to the small screen has taken years, for others decades. Stand-up and TV - What's the difference?

It's tempting to say nothing. What's funny is funny, be it on stage in a smoky pub or in front of a camera. Legends of the stage invariably go through a kind of transition where the boundaries are hazy - the 'live' video. Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, Eddie Izzard, Denis Leary, the Pythons, the list of performers who have tried to present a live show through the medium of video are endless. Although at first glance you can imagine the camera as simply an eye in the audience, relaying an exact replica of a live show direct to the screen, it's more complex than that. At a gig you get it warts and all, jokes that fall flat, hecklers, duff beer. The important thing in a live video is editing. You can get the best bits of a set over a week, splice them together and voila! The perfect gig. Steve Coogan's video 'The Man Who Thinks He's It' is an attempt to combine the two forms. The guy's live performance is interspersed with sketches purporting to be backstage incidents. The production values of TV are combined with the 'raw' live show.

On a weekly TV show it's even more un-spontaneous. Once you start adding elaborate props, other actors and an audience of nothing but fans, there is no resemblance to the live show. For example, a pal of mine is the world's biggest Harry Hill fan. He will travel the length and breadth of the country to see the man live. Faced with his TV series, however, he runs a mile. Horses for courses, I suppose.

There is a stage further down this path. Take Harry Enfield. From 'Loadsamoney' on stage to 'Loadsamoney' on Friday Night Live to Kevin and Perry on 'The Harry Enfield Show' to Kevin and Perry the motion picture. TV is seen as an expansion, an improvement from stand-up, and the movie is the final step -bigger and therefore better?

Perhaps, although there is nothing more cringeworthy than a good comedian failing to make it in TV, The move from stand-up is a positive one. It gains performers a far bigger audience, exposing non-punters to the fun. This demand for wider exposure means one thing. The public don't want comics on TV for nothing. Our best performers get this kind of coverage because they are good. 'Nuff said.

Read a response to this article

Do you agree with Dick ?
Could you write a better feature?
Why not e-mail us your views.