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Britain's Worst Standups

Started by Mark Steels Stockbroker, January 16, 2019, 11:43:10 AM

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Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Dusty Substance on February 06, 2020, 06:05:42 PM
I just thought of a truly terrible British stand-up, but according to his Wiki page Richard Blackwood doesn't even seem to be listed as a "comedian" any more (actor, rapper, presenter https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Richard_Blackwood).

Dunno how much proper stand up he'd done when he first arrived on our screens in the 90s but his whole image seemed to have been manufactured to have been the British Will Smith, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy etc. Even as a teenager who would laugh at pretty much anything if it was presented as comedy, I could tell his whole persona had been cynically created.

He was absolutely terrible and didn't have 1% of the likability factor that Will Smith or Chris Rock had at that time.

Seems like he's had a rough time after his 15 minutes of fame, which is a shame, but doesn't make up for his terrible comedy*

(*The funniest thing he ever did, of course, was getting hoaxed on Brass Eye).

I was never a fan of Blackwood's comedy but I saw him in the one man play Typical at the Soho Theatre last year and have to say he really was excellent. Unfortunately rather than sticking with theatre he's joining the cast of Hollyoaks though, which means he'll probably be rubbish once again very soon.

DrGreggles

Quote from: An Actual Propeller on February 06, 2020, 09:28:14 PM
About ten years ago one of my mates tried to book Russ Abbot for our self-indulgent arts project thing, thinking it'll be like a few hundred quid or something, but my mate was quoted a price of 125k. I was like, fuck me, 125 grand? He hasn't been on the telly in years, how can he justify that? And my mate replies, well, if he only does two or three corporate gigs a year he's got it made. And maybe every few months there's a office of some megacorp with a mid-50s secretary who remembers C U Jimmy with fondness and books him for a comms event, I dunno.

Hasn't Abbot been doing mostly theatre (rather successfully) for about 20 years?
Don't think he's on his arse just yet.

125k sounds like a "I don't fancy doing it - quote a stupid amount".

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: An Actual Propeller on February 06, 2020, 09:28:14 PM
About ten years ago one of my mates tried to book Russ Abbot for our self-indulgent arts project thing, thinking it'll be like a few hundred quid or something, but my mate was quoted a price of 125k. I was like, fuck me, 125 grand? He hasn't been on the telly in years, how can he justify that? And my mate replies, well, if he only does two or three corporate gigs a year he's got it made. And maybe every few months there's a office of some megacorp with a mid-50s secretary who remembers C U Jimmy with fondness and books him for a comms event, I dunno.

If memory serves, Blackwood was commanding something like £40K a gig and doing half a dozen or so gigs a year. 

There's an ENORMOUS scale, from a few hundred, right up to something like £250K at the very very top end, which is where the likes of Jonathan Ross and Jimmy Carr hover.  I went to a business partner's end of year party 11 years ago at the motorcycle museum in Birmingham and they had Ross for that and I know they paid £200K for him, and for that they got him doing two 45 minute sets of his own stuff (which was mostly showbiz anecdotes), and then about 90 minutes of handing out awards and doing speeches for upcoming retirees and that, mixed in with basic MC stuff (general announcements and that).  But there's also an enormous scale of what you get for that money - there is one well known comedian (and I honestly forget who it is now) who does their 90 minute comedy act and that's it, nothing else for your money.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: DrGreggles on February 06, 2020, 09:52:34 PM
125k sounds like a "I don't fancy doing it - quote a stupid amount".

Pocket money for a lot of these big companies.  The company in my example above had an annual marketing budget ten times what they spent on Ross.

turnstyle

#274
Some years ago, when Frankie Boyle was riding high on the fame afforded him by Mock the Week, and was seen as 'Scotland's Answer to Bill Hicks' (probably), me and Mrs Turnstyle ambled along to one of those fancy London shows that they have, to partake in an evening of swearing-based whimsy.

Boyle was ok, although the most entertaining bit was probably him getting heckled by the audience for telling the same gags he told on Mock the Week.

However, the support was totally dire. I can't remember his name, but he was a lardy Irish fella. I think he might have had a beard? I had already cracked open the exorbitantly-priced Minstrels at this point so was slightly distracted. Anyway, his whole 'shtick' seemed to be being as offensive as possible, which I guess the audience was prepared for, what with this being a Boyle gig (Scotland's answer to Bill Hicks, remember), but there was just no context for it. Most of his set has been lost down the back of the sofa of my memory, but I remember him talking to a couple on the front row who were expecting (a baby that is), and he went on a massive riff about how it might be a black baby. Cos couple were white, see. And the wife was a slag? Or maybe the guy could fire out black baby sperm? Christ, I dunno. It was well shit. He just went off calling people cunts and what-not. In fact, was he the support, or just a pissed up homeless who had wondered onto the stage? The fact that this was some years ago and I've not seen him since leads me to believe he never made it in the biz, which is some comfort.

Hold up, I actually posted about him on this very forum in 2008:

QuoteThe warm up guy though...hmmm. Just Googled him, Martin Mor. He basically was Mr Sweary McSwear, and abused the audience for his set. One 'hilarious' bit was a when he spotted a pregnant woman on the front row, and after musing on the fact that the baby would be able to hear what he was saying, shouted 'CUNNNNTT!!' at the woman. He then went on to say how funny it would be if that was the baby's first word. After this he said to the boyfriend 'I bet you're praying that little baby isn't black'.

Later on he did the usual 'where is everyone from bit', and after some very dull stereotypes about Scots, Irish, Welsh and English the following exchange came up:

Martin Mor: We had some fella from Zimbabwe in last night. You don't look very happy about that on the front row my friend.
Man on front row: '......'
MM: What's the problem pal?
Man on front row '........'
MM: What's that? You don't like darkies? Only joking ladies and gents *beat*, he called them n**gers.

As I was watching this, I was trying to work out what the difference was between this routine and one Jim Davidson might have knocked out 25 years ago. The audience were loving it, but to me it just seemed very out-dated, lazy and dumb.

steve98

Quote from: Bronzy on January 20, 2019, 03:50:20 AM
Janey Godley.

https://twitter.com/bbcscotland/status/1063875166889865216

This video basically sums up why I hate a lot of Scottish comedy, thank god Limmy evens it up a little.

I didn't know the Godley woman was that bad.

Scottish comedy's always produced more than its fair share of shit. I've been an extra for years and I've been in most of the worst of it: Snoddy, The Karen Dunbar Show, Dear Green Place,  Mrs fuckin' Brown (On location on Loch Lomond) recently, the fucking lot. Complete fuckin' garbage.

Ian Drunken Smurf

Quote from: kalowski on February 04, 2020, 09:47:31 PM
I think I've met Silky, mentioned briefly in the blog.

I was at uni with Silky and he had a thing for my flatmate

Ian Drunken Smurf

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on February 05, 2020, 09:37:58 AM


Surely Rob Beckett must have been mentioned by now? The very definition of a shit, bland, shit, ordinary, shit, hacky, shit comedian.

Is he hasn't am amazed he hasn't. Similarly, Jethro.

gatchamandave

Now, now, the Scottish Government has apologised on numerous occasions for Karen Dunbar.

vainsharpdad

Quote from: idunnosomename on February 04, 2020, 10:46:44 PM
christ Lloyd Langford. when the BBC gets scuppered for good there will be a mass exodus of shit comedians from Radio 4 gigs, for sure

The poor man's Elis James

BeardFaceMan

Spencer Jones, if he does the type of stuff onstage that he does on 8 out of 10 Cats. He may be the first person I've seen that has actually made me angry at how shit he is.

olliebean

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on February 15, 2020, 01:22:26 PM
Spencer Jones, if he does the type of stuff onstage that he does on 8 out of 10 Cats. He may be the first person I've seen that has actually made me angry at how shit he is.

I never even tried watching his iPlayer thing because that picture of him with Coco Pops all over his face made me so furious.

Bronzy

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on February 15, 2020, 01:22:26 PM
Spencer Jones, if he does the type of stuff onstage that he does on 8 out of 10 Cats. He may be the first person I've seen that has actually made me angry at how shit he is.

QuoteJones plays Shakespearean actor William Kempe in the sitcom Upstart Crow, which was broadcast on BBC Two beginning in May 2016. Jones plays the character as a parody of Ricky Gervais using his manner and speech patterns. He was asked to play the character this way to draw a comparison between Kempe, a popular comic actor of the 16th century, and Gervais in the present day; according to the show's producer Gareth Edwards, "what we tried to show was that every era has its own maverick comedy guy who's slightly ahead of his time and is following the beat of a slightly different drum".


DrGreggles

Spencer Jones is fantastic. Seen his last 4 shows - all brilliant.

BeardFaceMan

If drawing a face on your stomach or standing on something that vibrates so that your willy jiggles about is comedy thats ahead of its time, I'm glad I'm stuck in the present.

lipsink

#285
Paddy McGuinness. Would you call him a standup? I mean fair enough he's a TV host and all. But he does have a few filmed standup which are available in full to watch on YouTube. My God, they're shocking. The shows are an hour long (I had to watch them for a project) and they usually have about 20 minutes of material. One of his shows towards the end he says: "Who wants to watch me new ad for Greggs?" and then shows the ad. After that he finishes by singing the Minder theme tune in full with no jokes or changed lyrics. You can even sense his audience are like "WTF? We paid for this?"

Glitch King

Yeah if he has DVDs of him performing standup then he definitely counts, pull down his trousers and get him to walk over here.

Glitch King!


Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on February 15, 2020, 03:09:33 PM
If drawing a face on your stomach or standing on something that vibrates so that your willy jiggles about is comedy thats ahead of its time, I'm glad I'm stuck in the present.

I'm a big fan of Spencer's as well, and at least when it comes to his most recent show there's a lot more to it than the physical / prop comedy.

mippy

RB plays a lot of shows around South London, on bills of comedians that I'm too white and/or Northern to have heard of. He seems to still be pretty popular on the (urgh, I don;t know how else to put this, forgive me) Afro-Caribbean circut.

turnstyle

Quote from: mippy on February 18, 2020, 01:22:18 PM
RB plays a lot of shows around South London, on bills of comedians that I'm too white and/or Northern to have heard of. He seems to still be pretty popular on the (urgh, I don;t know how else to put this, forgive me) Afro-Caribbean circut.
[/b]

That's it mate, you're CANCELLED.

mippy

Man, I wish I could find online one of the posters I see around where I live so I could come up with a better description! Like Blouse And Skirt but on stage somewhere in Croydon, y'know?  Although searching has shown me that Marcel LuCont is still going, so there's that.

notjosh

Quote from: Dusty Substance on February 06, 2020, 06:05:42 PM
I just thought of a truly terrible British stand-up, but according to his Wiki page Richard Blackwood doesn't even seem to be listed as a "comedian" any more (actor, rapper, presenter https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Richard_Blackwood).

Dunno how much proper stand up he'd done when he first arrived on our screens in the 90s but his whole image seemed to have been manufactured to have been the British Will Smith, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy etc. Even as a teenager who would laugh at pretty much anything if it was presented as comedy, I could tell his whole persona had been cynically created.

Or as Viz described him - "the least famous man in Britain".

Rizla

Quote from: steve98 on February 07, 2020, 03:16:23 PM

Scottish comedy's always produced more than its fair share of shit. I've been an extra for years and I've been in most of the worst of it: Snoddy, The Karen Dunbar Show, Dear Green Place,  Mrs fuckin' Brown (On location on Loch Lomond) recently, the fucking lot. Complete fuckin' garbage.

Karen Dunbar's show had some good stuff - the club singer character was good, and this one still makes me laugh- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPqATSosIuw

The current comedy output on the BBC Scotland channel is utter fucking shite though. Designed to fail imo.

mippy

The Rob Florence led sketch show is particularly disappointing.

robhug

Richard Blackwood's career never recovered from that Channel 4 detox program where he had 18 litres of cold coffee propelled into his arse, then sieving through the resultant shit with an expert nodding along to every interesting find they came across.

Or when he joined EastEnders

Quote from: lipsink on February 15, 2020, 03:15:25 PM
Paddy McGuinness. Would you call him a standup? I mean fair enough he's a TV host and all. But he does have a few filmed standup which are available in full to watch on YouTube. My God, they're shocking. The shows are an hour long (I had to watch them for a project)
I also had to watch some of his stuff for a project, and started off thinking "well he's not really my thing, but I'm sure he'll have something about him" to "...why is this adult man consistently doing and saying these things for no clear reason?"