There was a point in time where all we had to occupy our minds was chit-chat. The couch potato of the past spent his days huddled around campfires and hearths with his friends and family. There were no televisions, no video games, and no cinema. And books? These too are a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of the Homo sapien. The printing press was only invented about six hundred years ago – a blink of an eye relative to the time our species has actually spent on this planet. Before that, knowledge was mostly passed on through conversation.
As communities grew out of early human settlements, tales of previous generations were passed down from decade to decade, century to century. Myths and superstitions sprung up right alongside facts and certitudes. Ultimately, public speaking was as much an expression of one’s beliefs as poetry and music. As languages evolved, the patterns and rhythms of the modern narrative emerged. The European folk tales collected by academics like the Brothers Grimm formed the basis for many of the most persistent tales of the modern era, from Little Red Riding Hood to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
Here in Ireland, the oral storytelling tradition continues to hold a special place in our lives. For centuries, our national heritage was preserved by the seanchaithe – servants to the most powerful families and clans in the land. These men kept track of laws and genealogies for the rest of their kin. But when British rule supplanted the old Gaelic hierarchy, their formal role in society came to an end. Amateur folklorists took their place, a new breed of seanchaithe, ordinary people with the gift of the gab.
Meanwhile, the colonial administration of the country was cemented by the dominance of the English language. As a result, the day to day use of Irish fell into a slow but not altogether fatal decline. Sadly, it is no longer the most prevalent vernacular in the country. However, the grammar and syntax of our mother-tongue continue to make themselves known in our daily chat and gossip. Hiberno-English has emerged as a unique dialect in and of itself, an outsider’s repurposing of a language forced upon them – not unlike the blend of Yiddish and English that flourished amongst Jewish communities in America. From this great wellspring, generations of world-renowned Irish authors have emerged. Writers like James Joyce and Flann O’Brien helped to redefine the novel while it was still in its infancy, putting pen to paper as no one else had done before.
Less recognised is the impact our oral tradition has had on comedy all across the globe. Jokes have always been an important form of communication. At their best, they are short, snappy, memorable, and insightful. They can spread like wildfire, changing and evolving from one telling to another, just as in a game of Chinese whispers. But many jokes have only a short life span before they lose their potency. By their very nature, they are impersonal. We don’t always know why the chicken crossed the road but it certainly won’t involve the joke-teller in any substantial way. A good joke belongs to everybody — and so ultimately, it belongs to nobody.
Stories, on the other hand, lend themselves to more interpretation. Observation and experience take precedence over brevity or memorability. It is the point of view of the storyteller that matters, not the punchline. Nowadays, we may take such a notion for granted. Indeed, most modern stand-ups perform narrative and anecdote based material rather than trading in one-liners or stock quips. But this was not always the case.
In the heyday of the old American vaudeville circuit, there were all sorts of acts to be seen on stage; singers, dancers, pantomime artists, and every possible combination of animal and performer. Theatre bills in the early years of the twentieth century listed prestigious dramatic monologists right alongside the most hackneyed of joke-tellers. But for a long time, nobody thought to combine the structural body of the former with the humorous intentions of the latter.
With this in mind, it’s fair to say that the Irish-American comedian Frank Fay did something truly ground-breaking. He didn’t make any funny faces, he didn’t take any pratfalls, and he didn’t get hit with any custard pies — he just stood up and talked to the audience. Revolutionary? Surprisingly, yes. Fay’s off-the-cuff style of delivery helped to usher in a more informal style of comedy throughout the United States. Famous performers like Jack Benny and Bob Hope took their cue from Fay’s carefully plotted patter and followed in his footsteps with their own finely-honed material.
Though largely forgotten now, Fay was a huge star in the 1920s. He was the resident emcee of the Palace Theatre in New York for much of that decade, introducing each act before they came on stage and warming the audience up whenever their interest began to wane. He earned up to eighteen thousand dollars a week doing this, a huge sum of money then as now.
The public loved Fay but when he was hidden from view in the wings, he had a huge ego that brought him into conflict with many of his contemporaries. Worse still, he held deeply fascist and anti-semitic beliefs. In retrospect, it seems inevitable that his time in the spotlight would end in controversy. As the vaudeville era came to a slow halt with the growth of the cinema, Fay’s performances in other mediums were sporadic and limited. He did not have the same success in radio and film as he had in his live appearances. He must have found it hard to make friends in Hollywood with so many enemies waiting there for him to fail.
Fay’s one success in the later years of his career came in 1944 with the lead role in the Broadway play ‘Harvey’. But when the play was adapted into a feature film, it was James Stewart who appeared in the comedian’s part – and won an Oscar for doing so. Shockingly, Fay had blown his chance at a big comeback with his support for the Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco and the American Nazi Party. When he took to the stage at Madison Square Garden in January 1946, it was not to amuse an audience, but to appear as the guest of honour at a fringe event hosted by far-right agitators.
Meanwhile, his ex-wife Barbara Stanwyck had risen to become one of the most famous actors in the world. His failure stood in stark contrast to her success and their relationship was said to have been the basis for ‘A Star is Born’, perhaps the greatest show biz tale ever to grace the silver screen.
Frank Fay was a bigot. Nobody can argue with that. But his influence on American comedy is also undeniable. His work paved the way for the rise of charismatic performers like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin. Conversational storytelling became the primary method of delivery for nightclub comics in the US. But across the Atlantic, the stand-up artform was evolving at a slower pace. Right through to the late 1970s, traditional joke-tellers continued to dominate the touring circuit in Britain.
In the notorious working men’s clubs, lager flowed like water and cigar smoke clouded the ceilings. Dressed to kill with a variety of garish neckties and bow ties, a plethora of male comics worshipped at the altar of Bernard Manning. They made their living telling sexist and racist gags to small crowds of rowdy men. And when the TV cameras rolled, this ugly humour was broadcast into homes all across the UK. To roars of laughter, the old-fashioned gag-merchants plastered fake smiles on their faces and told cheap jokes portraying the Irish as thick Paddys and violent thugs.
Unfortunately, things were not much better at home in Ireland. Before the pioneering heyday of the Dublin Comedy Cellar, Irish stand-ups were mostly seen by the public opening for showbands or performing in hotel cabaret acts. These old-fashioned comedians dominated the scene from the early 1960s right through to the late 1980s. Performers like Hal Roach, Sil Fox, and Noel V. Ginnity embraced the most outlandish of the myths surrounding our nation.
Dressed in shamrock green and shimmering gold, they jigged their way into the spotlight and courted visiting tourists from America. Much of their undeniable talent was wasted on delivering recycled jokes and affecting broad diddly-aye characteristics. Sadly, their material lacked depth and shared just a thin relationship with the reality of 20th century Irish life. Their style of humour was inoffensive and served only to reaffirm the conservative status quo left in place by Eamon De Valera.
With the Catholic Church at the height of their influence in the country, none of them were willing to poke fun at any of the nation’s sacred cows. Indeed, Hal Roach boasted that nuns and priests could attend his shows without fear of embarrassment. Like Las Vegas entertainers, these comedians were simply not interested in exploring their own lives on stage. Of course, it’s worth remembering that Brendan Grace was somewhat of an outlier at this time. Like Billy Connolly, he came out of the folk music scene and he performed more autobiographical material along with the usual stock jokes.
Ultimately, there was one comedian who stood out head and shoulders above the competition at this time. While the average comedian was content to bombard the audience with endless mother-in-law jokes, Dublin-born Dave Allen performed in a style closer to contemporary American stand-ups. As a child, he had grown up enthralled by the stories and anecdotes told by his father, a prominent journalist at The Irish Times. He learned to appreciate a good yarn at an early age, something that stood him well when he began a career in show business in Britain.
More hip and modern than any of his rivals, Allen hosted The Beatles first real tour of England, compèring a bill headlined by the pop singer Helen Shaprio in 1962. He is best remembered today for his BBC series Dave Allen At Large. Sat atop a high stool and speaking in a relaxed manner, Allen appeared to have a glass of whiskey at hand at all times. In reality, he was often drinking ginger ale.
Fueled by alcohol or not, Allen’s delivery of his material reflected the conversational intimacy that the best Irish pubs have always been renowned for. His monologues were observational and they were often daring in subject matter. He even poked fun at the authority of the Catholic Church. As a result, he was banned from appearing on RTÉ. Nevertheless, the comedian persisted, refusing to give in to his critics. His suave style earned him many admirers and his work was hugely innovative.
One thing that Dave Allen rarely addressed was his private life. Even with the birth of alternative comedy in the 1980s, confessional material remained largely unheard of in Britain and Ireland. But that would soon change forever. In August 1990, Sean Hughes took to the stage at the Gilded Balloon for an intimate run of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. ‘A One Night Stand With Sean Hughes’ was stand-up comedy as it had never quite existed before. Hughes performed his material surrounded by theatrical scenery recreating a small bed-sit. More importantly, the show was not just a series of short jokes and routines haphazardly strung together. It had an actual narrative – a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Hughes’ bare-all style of comedy was not unlike that of his hero Richard Pryor. But it had a shape and a structure all its own. With this innovative show, the comedian became the youngest ever winner of the famous Perrier Award, the first stand-up ever to claim the accolade. It was a turning point for the Fringe and the festival was soon filled with comedians telling tightly-woven, call-back-centric, personal stories. Hughes created what we now know as the Edinburgh Hour, perhaps the dominant form of stand-up comedy in the modern world. He laid the foundation for everyone from Stewart Lee, to Hannah Gadsby, to Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
Thanks to performers like Sean Hughes, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has become something of a Mecca for comedians and comedy fans. It is a place where amateurs and professionals and everything in between can be seen on stage and under the spotlight. It is by all accounts a fantastic place to test new jokes and work out material. It is also a terribly public forum to make a mistake — an awful place to bomb on stage. One year there was a particularly cocky young comedian performing at the festival – his name long forgotten – and he was surprised to find that his best material was eliciting absolutely no laughter whatsoever. In desperation, he tried to interact with the crowd and picked out an older man from the audience, asking him his name. The older man replied that his name was Dave Allen. To the shock of the rest of the audience, the young comedian on stage did not recognise who he had just singled out. Embarrassingly, he continued his line of questioning and asked Dave Allen what it was he did for a living. Allen stared back at the young man, took a beat, and then delivered the fatal blow.
“I’m a comedian,” he replied, “what do you do?”
