Guest Blog: End the Apparent Apartheid in Comedy!

Chris said “When I was growing up, working class comedians with broad
appeal ruled ok! People like Les Dawson, Tommy Cooper, Morecambe and
Wise and Benny Hill were always on TV. The comedy wasn’t high brow,
there were no long words, you didn’t have to think about it to ‘get
it’, it was just funny and funny is funny whatever your social
background. But since the rise of the facism known as political
correctness, which is ever more choking free speech and expression and
since the rise of alternative comedy in the 80s, working class
comedians have been forced out and replaced with middle class and
university educated comedians. Consequently, comedy in this Country has
become completely dominated by the middle classes. The British public
is force fed middle class and university educated comedy by TV
producers, agents and bookers who are middle class and university
educated themselves which, in a lot of instances, simply isn’t funny.
They only promote or push the style of comedy and comedians that
appeals to them, as opposed to promoting comedians with a far broader
appeal. As such, a comedy ‘closed shop’ has been created whereby in
almost all cases, if you aren’t a middle class comedian, or if you
aren’t a university educated comedian, then it is virtually impossible
to get a break, get on TV or be accepted on the comedy club circuit.
This comedy elitism and what can only be described as bigotry really,
is displayed nowhere more than at The Edinburgh Festival. It’s unfair
and it simply has to stop”.

Chris went on to say: “An article appeared in Chortle recently that
echoed the struggles that a lot of working class comedians or comedians
from the mainstream circuit have had, in trying to get recognition or
be accepted by those people who control comedy in this country today.
The article stated quite rightly that the old inverted middle class
snobbery or middle class bigotry argument is churned out and used to
shoot down anyone who even dares to suggest that ‘Britcom’ has become
dominated by the middle classes, but the fact is that it has.”

Chris added, “As it states in the article and as I have discovered
myself, have you ever considered what it must be like for an
uneducated, naturally gifted comedian/comic actor to catch a break
these days?”

I can tell you, virtually impossible.

I have been a professional comedian for twenty years and played to all
types of audiences in all types of venues. I have successfully played
the comedy circuit in Hollywood, played on one of the biggest shows
there with a US comedy superstar, Dane Cook, was offered a fifty date
tour of the states by TV comedian Bobby Lee and yet in my own country,
despite having done all that under my own steam and without any big
fanfare or hype, I am still ignored and shut out over here on the
comedy club circuit and in the main, have only been offered unpaid,
open mic spots or unpaid spots on gong shows. It’s almost like you have
to try and be, and speak like, a middle class comedian to get on
because the powers that be deem working class comedy as beneath them
because to them, it’s not intellectually challenging enough. I have
found that you have to talk about things that appeal to the middle
classes, in a style that appeals to them, in order to be accepted”.

Another article that was written following Sam Friedman’s study on
comedy showed that whilst middle class interviewees who took part in
the study would not directly mention comedians such as Bernard Manning,
Chubby Brown or Jim Davidson as working class, they often made strong
negative judgments about their fans as “bigoted” or “thick”.

Chris said “This is also very true and I have experienced this first
hand too. However, though I haven’t been to university I am far from
‘thick’, or uneducated. At the end of the day you don’t take on, oppose
for six years and defeat in the highest court in the land, a
multi-million pound local authority and the biggest housing developer
in the country if you’re thick or uneducated do you? I’m not ignorant
or racist either, which you also get branded as if you so much as bring
race into your act. I think middle class comedians like Peter Cook and
Eddie Izzard are very funny yet I find these working class comedians,
in particular the late Bernard Manning, very funny too. People say that
Manning and Brown are racist or offensive, but they were/are doing the
same type of humour as Jim Jeffries or Frankie Boyle only thirty years
before them! Why is it then that working class comedians like Manning
or Brown are classed as bigotted or racist and are castigated and
ostracized, yet middle class comedians like Jeffries or Boyle who do
the same type of material are classed as daring or ironic and are
applauded and accepted? The hypocrisy is staggering”.

Chris went on “It’s about time that this comedy elitism and the
mainstream/alternative categorization of comedy, by those in control of
comedy in this country stopped, because categorising comedy in this
manner is creating a comedy apartheid, and it is so small minded and
ridiculous. Comedy has become so narrow, there is such little
variation. Comedians have become clones of each other. In the main they
all sound the same, have the same kind of accents, same kind of
delivery, have very similar styles, talk about similar things and
because they all seem to be shooting from the same direction, working
class comedians have now become alternative! Middle class comedy has
its place but it shouldn’t be the only comedy that
is foisted on the huge number, dare I say it majority of people in this
country, who haven’t been to university or aren’t middle class. I aim
to go to Edinburgh as a working class comedian who is proud to be so. I
hope that people come to see me not to judge me or seek some kind of
high brow comedy lesson that flies over the heads of the majority, but
just to let themselves go and have a laugh without having to think too
much”

– Chris McGlade

Chris McGlade is back doing stand-up after beating his local authority and Persimmon Homes in the Supreme Court and changing British law in the process. In 2004, after playing the Rock Comedy show with US comedian Dane Cook, the Hollywood comedy circuit beckoned but Chris fought the system in the North East of England for six years instead.

You can catch Chris’ free show Chris McGlade… The Bad Lad Lands at Edinburgh Football Club, 5-17 August at 19.15.