Something old, something new

I want to tell you a little bit about my dad. Or my girlfriend. Or my kids. Or the fact I had kids with my girlfriend and am now a dad. If that sounds like the harbinger of tired gags to you, consider Mike Wozniak. This year he’s going turbo-hack with a show about his mother-in-law.

“The reason I’ve been driven to it is just life and circumstance," he says. "I live with my mother-in-law, which was not Plan A.” He’s momentarily drowned out by his child screaming down the house he currently shares with his wife, the aforementioned toddler and his wife’s parents. He's been there for the past year. 

This cosy arrangement has forced Wozniak to perform what he acknowledges to be “an hour-long mother-in-law gag.” But while Les Dawson associations have occurred to him (“I bloody love Les Dawson,” he deadpans – it's hard to tell if he's serious), he’s not fazed: “There are certain kinds of hack that are still prevalent. Differences between men and women are still always being talked about – it’s less about the subject, more about what you’re doing with it.”

Tom Rosenthal (as seen on Friday Night Dinner and Plebs) agrees that it’s all about the approach. In fact, he originally intended to do a show about religion, and the way it’s become an easy target for lazy comedians peddling “Hey, I gave up my imaginary friend when I was six” gags.

“Religion is hack, but that’s only because we see the same shit about it all the time,” he says. “I thought I’d write about the benefits of religion, and how it contributes to society but everyone would still roll their eyes and go ‘Oh, you’re doing a religion show. How... interesting’.”

It turns out that, after filming Plebs in Bulgaria, the country affected him to such an extent he couldn’t write about anything else. All thoughts of exploding the religion show stereotype vanished, and Blagodarya (this year’s offering which translates as “thanks” in Bulgarian) became, broadly speaking, observations on travelling abroad. On paper, it sounds less ambitious and perhaps open to similar assumptions — but in execution, it's full of potential.

“It’s not about the material, but the way you treat it,” he reiterates. “Of course I was worried about things being hack, because I suppose some people would say a storytelling show is hack. Provided you’re not telling jokes you’ve heard before, or copying someone’s style directly, what you add to the story skeleton can still be exciting, original or creative.”

Young comics can get bogged down agonising over originality, but the adage “write what you know” holds true. And Rosenthal knows about Bulgaria. “I did go to Bulgaria and it was amazing. So that’s what I’m going to talk about.” Fair enough. 

Nish Kumar points out that, at a glance, even the most respected standups can sound like nothing special: “Louis CK just talks about being older and having kids." His show Nish Kumar is a Comedian is comprised largely of anecdotes revolving around the fact he’s British-Asian. Again, such a description doesn’t do his style of sharply articulate standup justice. Thing is, he does it from a unique vantage point – his own.

"Obviously originality occurs to you when you’re talking about race as a non-white comedian, but I try to avoid the broad brushstrokes of ‘oh, Asian people do this, white people do this’ because I have nothing interesting new or funny to add.”

He cites Goodness Gracious Me as having that market cornered, so focuses on offence (often anchored in race, but not exclusively) and how people tend to deal with it, while staying as personal as possible. “I recently found out I’d become an internet meme, which isn’t something most people can talk about," he says, referring to an old flyer photo of him that somehow started doing the rounds on social media under the (ill-informed) legend "confused Muslim". "It’s all about giving your own perspective — if it’s located at such a specific point, it’s impossible to be hack or generic.”

By the same token, Wozniak’s mother-in-law can’t be pigeonholed as the typical mother-in-law trope. “It’s original because it’s based on what is actually happening, rather than a sort of imagined dragon. Which she isn’t. She’s her own unique entity and has her own special way of causing chaos.” His feelings towards her add to the originality: “I love this woman, she’s incredible. But I also often have murderous intentions towards her.”

Rosenthal was worried about stereotyping—especially considering he’s mining comic generalisations of Bulgarians at times—but, by grounding it in a more intelligent context he escapes appearing tired. Or, y’know, racist.

“Everyone stereotypes, and I acknowledge this in the conclusion. Yes, I went to Bulgaria and made some generalisations. But they’re my generalisations, and I’m using it to show how we all can’t help but paint people in a broad way at first – if I'd stayed longer, I'd probably have picked up on more of the nuances.”

It’s not rocket science: a hack topic is “done” because it’s so relatable that lazy comedians rely on its familiarity alone to generate laughter. Imaginative comedians don’t; we’ve all got a weird family member, we’ve all travelled abroad and been fascinated by another culture, and we all know what a delicate subject race can be, but nobody’s telling it quite like they are.

As Rosenthal puts it: "I think good comedy comes from deep feeling rather than the topic you’re discussing." Wozniak remembers, as a younger comic, worrying unduly about being hack and experimenting unsuccessfully with different styles of comedy in an attempt to avoid it. At this stage in his career, he doesn’t really care about finding untouched territory, and why should he? Last year two silent clowns (Doctor Brown and The Boy With Tape On His Face) won two of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards and another trained clown, Daniel Simonsen, bagged Best Newcomer. Living proof that, when all's said and done, it's just about being funny. 

“I used to try all sorts of things that weren’t really me,” Wozniak says. “I tried that observational stuff but I was pretty crap. I went through a one-liner stage, but was crap at that, too – I can only come up with one good one-liner a year. I tried not to write about my mother-in-law, but have not succeeded.” And what was his great one-liner of 2013? “I don’t have one. But last year’s was: “Why should you not put fruit in a potato gun? Because it jams.” Thank god for the hour-long mother-in-law gag.