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Beyond The Joke: Where theatre and stand-up meet

By TW Editorial | Published on Thursday 10 January 2013

This week Camden People’s Theatre play host to a new festival called Beyond The Joke, which promises performances that fall into a hitherto dark and murky corner where stand up and theatre collide.

Which sounds like an event that will be packed with just the sort of things we like to see, so, eager to find out more, we put a few questions to CPT and Beyond A Joke directors Jenny Paton and Brian Logan.

CM: How did you come up with the idea of the Beyond The Joke Festival?
J+B: We came up with the idea last autumn. Partly because it seemed like a good way to present Rachel Mars’ terrific show ‘The Way You Tell Them’, which we had developed in the spring and which now headlines the festival. And partly because the volume of exciting work happening in the area between stand-up and theatre seemed to demand, for the first time ever, a festival of its own.

CM: What sort of events can we expect to see?
J+B: It’s got theatre-makers whose work resembles stand-up – ie informal, often funny, often solo and with a direct, honest relationship to the audience. And it’s got stand-ups whose work resembles or is branching out into theatre – because they want not only to make people laugh, but to say something meaningful about the world too. It also includes shows that are neither one thing nor the other, by artists whose work can’t be pigeon-holed into either category. Most of the shows in the festival are new; and most of the artists are trying stuff out that they haven’t done before.

CM: How did you select the people and acts involved? Has it all come together easily or was it a slog?
J+B: We knew several shows that almost programmed themselves, they fitted so neatly into the concept. Otherwise, we invited stand-ups who we knew had theatre work up their sleeves, or whose style was already tending to the theatrical. And we kept our eyes peeled for other artists and performers who were likewise treading that line between the two art forms. The programme came together fairly easily, with the main frustration being the acts who weren’t available this time around and the great shows we weren’t able to squeeze in.

CM: Do you think the fact that lots of comedians are moving into the theatrical sphere, whilst other comedians are making their stand-up more theatrical, is a result of different times and different attitudes, or the recent boom in mainstream stand-up?
J+B: A lot of young comedians are reacting against the formulaic nature of traditional stand-up, and of TV comedy formats. It used to be the case that doing comedy was itself a rebellious or offbeat thing to do. But now comedy is so mainstream and corporate, so the interesting artists within it are looking for new space within the art form, in which to experiment and make new things happen.

Modern comedy is also, at the top end, dominated by the TV-friendly, motormouth-at-a-microphone style – and the tendency among younger comics to get theatrical is a justified reaction against that. It’s also the case that the comedy industry is just much, much bigger than it’s ever been before and can allow for a wider range of comedy styles than it ever accommodated previously.

CM: Do you think this movement is reflected in other media like TV, film and literature?
J+B: Yes, it seems we’re generally living through a cultural moment when the traditional and often spurious boundaries between art forms are breaking down. I shouldn’t imagine they’ll go back up again.

CM: Do you think these sorts of cross-over pieces might be a good way to entice comedy fans into the theatre, and vice versa?
J+B: We think comedy fans are often underestimated. You often hear comedians excuse their lack of artistic ambition by saying that the audience only want jokes, and get impatient if there aren’t laughs every 20 seconds. We believe audiences are probably more open-minded than that.

So yes, we certainly hope to attract culturally curious comedy fans to Beyond The Joke, and also hope that our regular audience check out some comedy names that they hadn’t previously associated with “adventurous theatre” – which is what CPT specialises in.

CM: Are there any Beyond The Joke events that you are particularly looking forward to?
J+B: We’re really looking forward to the finished version of Rachel Mars’ show, which we’ve nurtured from early work-in-progress stage onwards (it was awesome even then). We’ve got an exciting special guest this Thursday night, after Sara Pascoe’s show, which we also can’t wait to see. But we want to see them all – that’s why they’re in the festival!

CM: Is Beyond The Joke likely to become a regular event?
J+B: We would love it to. I think there are the shows and the artists out there to justify it, and no one else is drawing attention to this particular area of work. But let’s make this festival go with a swing first, and then we’ll take it from there…

Beyond The Joke runs until 27 Jan. For more information and listings, see the Beyond The Joke blog here or the Camden People’s Theatre website. You can also follow their updates on Twitter here. 

LINKS: beyondthejoke.wordpress.com | www.cptheatre.co.uk | twitter.com/camdenpt