THE RIGHT KIND OF CONFIDENCE IN COMEDY

First off, I’d like to apologize for the lack of a newsletter last week. I’m not going to trot out any false dog illnesses or the like, I simply didn’t get around to it. It was a week where a lot of things Were Happening, both on a micro, personal level as well as on a macro, “we are at war in the Middle East for what feels like it’s going to be a significant chunk of my life yet again” level.

If on the off chance you too are feeling immense mental weight, I do have at least one thing that brightened last week for me and therefore can hopefully brighten this week for you. Good news? No, of course not. In this economy? What I can offer is a recommendation for a show that had me literally in tears and coughing in a way my dog found concerning: season two of “Last One Laughing”, a british comedy show available, unfortunately, on Amazon Prime.

It’s a British show where a smattering of usual suspects from British comedy are locked in a room with a simple rule: do not laugh. One laugh nets them a yellow card from the host, famous foppish marionette Jimmy Carr (who, to his credit, I have heard is a lovely guy and great boss.) A second laugh results in their ejection from the emotionless room in question.

It doesn’t hurt that the cast is an absolute murderer’s row, or “murderer’s queue” as I suppose the British would call it. David Mitchell, Diane Morgan of Cunk fame, Bob Mortimer, and a recent big-time fave of mine, Australian import Sam Campbell. From there, there’s not much to sell specifically, beyond saying that filling a room with funny people, get this, results in comedy.

I’m on record with a mixture of deep appreciation and jealousy for the amount of televised creative outlets afforded to comics in the UK. I’m sure this is an incredibly sugar-coated view, and I’m sure that there’s an incredibly buffet of shit to be eaten in the comedy business no matter where you are. What I think the United States comedy scene is sorely lacking is the panel shows that not only provide screentime to comedians, but do so while asking nothing of them than to be funny in the way that they naturally are.

What I think is so centrally appealing and pays such dividends across the cornucopia of these sorts of shows is that they are, by nature, only the loosest of constraints. What Britain seems to have when it comes to their comedians that America could bear to develop is any sort of confidence in their ability to be funny. Whether it’s QI or Would I Lie To You or any number of so-and-so countdowns, it’s all nothing more than a springboard for the talent to, well, actually display their talent.

In the U.S., it feels like the entertainment industry has no idea what to do with somebody who’s funny. Unless they’re already a cardboard cutout easily propped in the back of a mediocre sitcom and fed a catchphrase to parrot, they’re inscrutable as to their usage. Watching the U.S. try to capitalize on homegrown comedic talent is like peering into a kitchen that refuses to make anything but Chicken Parmesan, regardless of whether the groceries available to them include chicken or parmesan cheese.

It’s strange. You’d think an industry looking to produce comedic content would see the value in someone who has proven they can do so without more than a brain and a mouth that are connected. Instead, they’re out here trying to figure out how they can jam every up-and-coming peg into the single square hole that’s worked for them before. For NFL fans, it’s the entertainment equivalent of watching a coach make Caleb Williams drop back under center as a pocket passer until he’s bonemeal in a Bears uniform.

The evidence is there in spades, too, that letting someone funny make something they think is funny often resonates. I Think You Should Leave, which rose from word-of-mouth Netflix cult classic to cultural phenomenon referenced in a million Hinge profiles, was built off the back of sketches Tim Robinson was told wouldn’t work. I hold as well that the pattern of “surprise box-office” smash movies in the Marvel vein, like Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool, benefited from the fact that their expected imminent flop meant they didn’t have executives flying to hover on set and castrate anything that wasn’t shaped like a classic blockbuster.

I think there’s a form of delusion that rises amongst producers who suddenly think it’s their magic touch that’s making things good. I think there’s a level of required humility to realize that you’re an enabler. Which I do not mean in a negative sense! Cultivating and supporting talent is an important and laudable part of the equation! At the same time, to stick with the restaurant example from a couple paragraphs ago, it can feel like a restaurant owner confusing themselves into thinking they know how to cook, and suddenly taking it upon themselves to toss handfuls of spices that “people really like” into every dish the chef is working on.

The meddling is squarely visible in the repeated failed attempts to bring these sorts of successful British panel shows to American audiences. Watching Taskmaster, I repeatedly asked myself why there’d been no American spinoff, before realizing that there was, indeed, an attempt made. But, when assembling the cast for a show that is entirely based around creation of humor in real time, they decided that one of the flaws in the original and successful British version was placing that task in the hands of comedians. 

Instead, in what must have been a nervous hedge at name recognition or broad appeal, they brought in Dillon Francis and Freddie Highmore. Both very talented and successful in their own right, but with respect, no one’s ever been laughing in a conversation and gone, “the only thing that could make this funnier is the star of The Good Doctor.” It’s an irresistible urge to tinker that brings the recognizable stink of a seven P.M. “URGENT” boss e-mail to our entertainment.

Of course, this may all not be worth worrying about, since we’re probably a month out from a Kevin Hart DraftKings ad being spun off into a half-hour sitcom.