| Ref No | BSUCA/OD/1/44 |
| Collection | Oliver Double Collection |
| Title | Pappy's interviewed by Oliver Double |
| Name of creator | Double, Oliver, 1965- |
| Date | 29/02/2012 |
| Duration | 50 min. 09 sec. |
| Extent | 1 sound disc (MiniDisc) (80min) |
| 1 audio file Broadcast WAVE Format (BWF) |
| Description | Pappy's, comedy trio comprising of Ben Clark, Matthew Crosby and Tom Parry, interviewed by Oliver Double at Patisserie Valerie, Canterbury high street, 29th February 2012. This interview was conducted by Double for his book 'Getting the Joke: The Inner Workings of Stand-Up Comedy', 2nd Edition (2014) .
[Interview summary]
[0.36] Comedy on the Internet [6.36] Abuse on Twitter and Heckling [8.18] Pappy's Podcast (Flatshare Slamdown) and marketing. [17.01] "Panel Show" comedians versus "Indie" comedians and building audience. [22.15] Stadium comedy and Celebrity comedians. [27.39] The Origins of Pappy's. [32.04] Sketch nights and Stand-up Nights [35.08] Solo stand-up against Pappy's group work. [39.56] Onstage personas and Offstage lives. [44.50] Playing to different audiences. [50.09] Recording ends.
[Analysis by Matthew Hoss]
- The internet transforms comedy in some way- Twitter is an economical way of written comedy. "Certain words are really important"- Twitter shows the worth of every word in a joke. There is not the same "Call and Response" on Twitter as there is with stand-up: so there is a heavy focus on material.
- Public meets Private - Twitter is a portal for sending praise or abuse to comedians. It allows the comedians to interact with the audience before and after a gig- creating a sense of community.
- Self-deprecating humour onstage can allow some people to message a comedian in an abusive way - as they would like to be "in" on the joke.
- Podcasts are a true interpretation of a comedian's output but without using material. It is a self-commissioning performance (like Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast). "A very personal relationship to the listener".
- A fan-base grows gradually with each and every returning performance.
- There are certain shows filled with an audience which will not like you- but you cant blame them for it (as Mark Thomas says in the Linda Smith Lecture "You can't blame the audience even when it is their fault").
- Can a comedian whom is very successful discuss the "how expensive things are": Ben Elton, Jerry Seinfeld and John Bishop do, but does this make their comedy untrue?
- "The Bigger the venue- the less likely you are to have a bad gig" - Stadium Comedy: but it loses its intimacy.
- Sketch comedy and Stand-up comedy are different. You can be unfunny for longer at a Sketch night but you have to be immediately funny for Stand-up.
- You don't have to play to every audience - but give a performance 100% regardless. |
| Notes | 1 MiniDisc, digitised to LPCM wave 24 bit 44.1kHz. Digitised using Sony Minidisc Deck MDS-JE53; Roland Edirol UA-25; Audacity 2.1.0. 2015-05-20. |
| Category | Audio recordings |
| Access conditions | Available for consultation at the University of Kent's Special Collections & Archives reading room, Templeman Library, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NU. Access is available via digital listening copies. The University of Kent acknowledges the intellectual property rights of those named as contributors in this recording and the rights of those not identified. |
| Copyright | Oliver Double; Ben Clark, Matthew Crosby and Tom Parry |
| Level | Item |