Comic Timing

Here's something called Comic Timing

COMIC TIMING

I learnt the trade between the waves of rage

Which came and went across decades; they forced

and shaped and drove the laughs in deep.

I had the knack, so tracked the tricks of hacks

And clowns, of Connolly clones, each Smith, each Jones.

I worked so hard and made my mark on boards

In towns the edgy legends feared to tread.

I told good jokes. I told them well. The laugh

Was all, for what it’s worth; it’s worth it all.

I made good friends, we shared and praised, and saved

Our scorn for those that sneered but never tried

What we spent years perfecting to the point

It only went awry, on average, two

Or three times out of ten. And then? Fuck them!

I had no badge, and no one asked my view

On Blair and Hague beyond the aptly vague

But crisply uttered gags I planned and pinned.

Some TV - five “live” minutes from the Ap-

ollo, or best, some neutered panel show.

I had my niche, “it’s stag do chic”, I read

Some broadsheet once declaim, but not with rage.

The country changed, of course, you know. And so

New waves drew lines not heeded until then

(as is the way, new lines much like old lines),

The laugh itself was not enough for some,

though most, from Leicester Square via Sevenoaks

to all the different Stokes, were the same folks

as ever; comedy was their escape

Though slightly shocked by jokes on rape and race,

they, if the pause was placed just so, would know

no ill intent was meant, and let go their reserve.

And yet, from Edinburgh, the message came

That politics was once again to be

Intrinsic to this age of comedy –

Now, which side of the laugh lines was I on?

I tried a while to fit the mould - I had

a nice skit on Farage, though gallingly

I was once told by some tattooed old boy

From Fleet that it was time someone stood up

For Nige, not like those so-called comics. Ah,

In truth, my shame was just the gag mistook.

I was indifferent to the slight itself.

There were, at once, so many young firebrands

Whose currency in comedy was some

New righteous fury, that there really was

No space for me outside the smaller halls

I thought I was a long way past; my heart

Was not in rehashing Ben Elton gags

To shrugging men of Kent and Kentish men.

I knew what worked still worked. I knew my crowd

Who’d roared out loud for years without being told

They had no right. I’ll give them niche, I’ll serve

The hidden heart of England, drawing up

A new receipt of tailored targets, from

The liberal elite to … well, I’m no

Jim Davidson but this man’s got to eat.

And now I’m filling theatres and I’ve half

A million twitter followers. I’m “the real

Guerrilla comic” says some hitherto

Disdained Spectator columnist, who wouldn’t

Know comedy from cruelty.  I tell jokes

Which people like, I tell him guilessly.

The headline! He says. If you like, I say.