The Punk Turn in Comedy

Masks of Anarchy

Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783319728414
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Popular Culture
• Index: Social Sciences

This book examines the interconnections between punk and alternative comedy (altcom). It explores how punk's tendency towards humour and parody influenced the trajectory taken by altcom in the UK, and the punk strategies introduced when altcom sought self-definition against dominant established trends. The Punk Turn in Comedy considers the early promise of punk-comedy convergence in Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's 'Derek and Clive', and discusses punk and altcom's attitudes towards dominant traditions. The chapters demonstrate how punk and altcom sought a direct approach for critique, one that rejected innuendo, while embracing the 'amateur' in style and experimenting with audience-performer interaction. Giappone argues that altcom tended to be more consistently politicised than punk, with a renewed emphasis on responsibility. The book is a timely exploration of the 'punk turn' in comedy history, and will speak to scholars of both comedy and punk studies.

© The Author(s) 2018

Krista Bonello Rutter GiapponeThe Punk Turn in ComedyPalgrave Studies in Comedyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72841-4_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone^{1, 2}

(1)

University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

(2)

University of Malta, Msida, Malta

End Abstract

Comedy is prey to an elusiveness that seems to defy framing. Critchley (2002, p. 2) notes that ‘humour is a nicely impossible object for a philosopher’; Bergson (1980, p. 61) describes it as ‘this little problem, which has a knack of baffling every effort, of slipping away and escaping only to bob up again’. Nancy (1993, p. 368) writes, ‘Laughter always bursts—and loses itself in its peals. As soon as it bursts out, it is lost to all appropriation, to all presentation.’ Lewis (1989, p. 156) outlines humour by refusing to define it: ‘humour is not one but many things’, among which ‘humour marks the boundaries of the real’; ‘serving as a weapon, an embrace, an evasion, a lesson, a puzzle and a game’. That most infamous of ‘lost’ texts, Aristotle’s Poetics of Comedy, continues to fascinate and elude, both structuring and escaping the literary labyrinth designed for its concealment in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (1998). The implications are that we can detect it at its play and interplay; but the following reservation qualifies our quest: there is something that escapes our attempts to theorise humour. That, perhaps, is its very essence: this is not simply to imply that it is its essence which escapes; but—rather, or additionally—that this very elusion, this missing link, is its essence, not merely of its essence (or a property thereof). ¹

Punk is similarly riddled with internal contradictions; ² it seems to spin its own origin myth(s), and subsequently refuses to be pinned down to it. In rejecting an origin in the past, punk is, paradoxically, both creator of its own myths and reference points on the one hand, and iconoclastic on the other. Punk, although characterised by a certain naïveté, ³ was not wholly lacking in awareness of the media’s power—swiftly acquired as that awareness was. Punk seemed to situate itself not simply in opposition to photographic stillness, but in the very space that opened up between photograph/record and performance—partly captured yet eluding, punk critically commented on both sides, refusing to come aground on either shore. Punk has been described as destined to fail, its very raison d’être its own death. ⁴ This fold however possesses a force of its own. Punk’s power could be said to arise from this ‘Romantic’ blaze, extinguished as soon as ignited—its extinction so fundamentally implied and inscribed in its own stance as a precondition that it could only be sustained as a virtual shadow of something that has laughingly absconded—its very force arising from its always already being deferred.

The disorientation of a constantly displaced ‘beginning’, and its attempted erasure, would seem to discourage the spinning of a structured narrative—or to be capable of spinning any such narrative around and turning it on its head. The attempt to trace (and, to a degree, reconstruct) alternative comedy (altcom) and punk’s respective lineages and identify points of intersection along the way is therefore fraught with paradox. The opposition of such ‘unbound’ moments to the fixity and stasis of an ‘establishment’ is not a simple one, and it might be suggested they (at least partly) succumbed to dominant ideology in their own turn. The surrounding ‘establishment’ scene in place at the time was not the only ‘tradition’ targeted. A radical break also seemed to entail a strongly declared rejection of the past and of these movements’ own influences, or the search for ‘alternative’, unexpected spheres of influence.

The outspoken attitudes towards the past evinced by both altcom and punk will be dealt with in greater detail in Chapters 3–5. Chapter 2 posits a common influence in Peter Cook , someone ostensibly detached from either scene—his association with them, on the surface, a casually flirtatious one. This will give us occasion to broach themes that will resurface in the course of the book. Though the quality of ‘liveness’ was valued for its promise of authenticity against ‘spectacle’, the scope of this discussion also takes in mass media coverage—this had a part to play, relatively early on, in the construction of ideas and perceptions of both punk and altcom, locating them at a point in postmodernism where the line between liveness/mediatisation is problematised.

For the most part, I accept the conventional view that ‘punk’ was at its height in 1975–1978, ⁵ taking the UK scene as my primary focus. Although my discussion will highlight certain moments, I am hesitant to pinpoint a single origin—this would be against the ‘spirit’ of punk: taking a strict view of the timescale of punk would limit recognition of its continued influence, as well as of its very fleetingness and the elusiveness of the ‘now’ it posits, coupled with the problematisation of anteriority and influences so crucial in punk. Its very historical specificity is characterised by a certain reservation in relation to context. The identification of shared traits between punk and altcom, and of differences between them, suggests a route towards constructing a sort of poetics of genre; however, my aim is not to fully encode the movements, nor is it to give the impression of related but essentially enclosed phenomena. ⁶ Moreover, questions of influence move the discussion beyond the narrow time-bracket of what is conventionally regarded as ‘punk’. The American punk scene is, likewise, not neglected—certain enlightening similarities, contrasts, and mutual influences are noted throughout. Rather than positing an ‘essence’ of punk therefore, the book examines its tendency to spawn various permutations and parodic transformations. Thus too, post-punk, ⁷ as another possible route in parallel with altcom, is taken into account when it highlights elements or develops some potential within punk, or departs from punk and altcom in revealing ways.

The origins of ‘altcom’ are, likewise, difficult to pinpoint, though associated with the rise of Thatcherism (see Connor 1990, p. 81; Cook 2001, p. 9). The debts owed to, on the one hand, popular comedy, and on the other, countercultural political theatre must be recognised, yet ‘definitions’ of punk and altcom are best derived by considering them in relation to what they define themselves against, a tactic that will be employed in Chapter 3: ‘The “Alternative.”’ ‘Alternative Cabaret’ (see Allen 2002, pp. 107, 116) and the opening of various spaces for the performance of the ‘new’ comedy (before its incursion into the mass media), seemingly coincided with the ‘end’ of punk—yet, as with the transition from punk to post-punk, the break is not a discrete one. Some punk performers, including punk performance poets such as Jenny Eclair , bridge the areas of performance—importing elements of one style into another. Some punk poets, such as John Cooper Clarke, Seething Wells, and Attila the Stockbroker, continued to straddle (or combine) the two modes. Keith Allen and Tony Allen both had direct connections with punk bands—Keith Allen fronting The Atoms, and Tony Allen occasionally performing alongside the Poison Girls. Norman Lovett (2002) supported punk bands, including The Clash and 999 , before taking his chances at the Comedy Store. Moreover, some early alternative comedians were drawn from the ranks of countercultural theatre: for example Andy de la Tour , who had been in the Belt and Braces Roadshow. The transition period saw punk bands, comedians, and punk performance poets sometimes sharing the same bill. This endured beyond what could be deemed a ‘transition period’, with performance poetry such as that of Henry Normal continuing to occupy a position in between music and comedy in the 1980s (see Double 1997, p. 238). Furthermore, there is of course the sense that altcom arose with a generation reared on, and attuned to, punk and post-punk. ⁸ Punk’s ‘threatening’ pervasiveness went beyond being considered a self-contained scene, and it could be remarked that it provided the soundtrack to altcom’s early years. ⁹ Later ‘waves’ of alternative (or even ‘post-alternative’) comedy will be considered; for the most part, they will feature in our discussion insofar as they appear to develop (sometimes significantly) the trends set by punk and/or early altcom.

My comparative study proceeds by examining punk and altcom alongside each other with reference to particular points of convergence or divergence. Chapters 3 and 4 ‘situate’ the movements within a cultural context and in relation to competing discourses, with additional regard to their attempted reconfiguration of the very terms of a temporal relation. This exploration of attitudes towards the past picks out notable ‘precursors’ in its tracing of an alternative counter-history, taking note of the mythologising impulse in punk and exploring this in relation to the discourse of the ‘impossibility’ of nostalgia and the demand for the ‘new’, as well as looking at the implications for the acknowledgement or rejection of influence. While Chapter 3 offers some contextualisation of punk and altcom in relation to influences and rejected traditions, Chapter 4 focuses more specifically on the attitudes and approaches to the past, the implications of these for the sense of the ‘future’, and the opening up of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Peter Cook: Missing Links
• 3. The ‘Alternative’
• 4. Attitudes Towards the Past
• 5. Styling the Amateur
• 6. The Role of the Audience
• 7. Modes of Dis-/Engagement
• 8. Power Play
• 9. ‘Style Without Affectation’: Honesty and Performance
• 10. Boundaries of the (Un)Said
• 11. Conclusion
• Back Matter