Nudity, sex and misanthropy: Mike Stephenson reports on the world of alternative comedy.
Highlight (or Dingwalls as its veterans still insist) is quite the cultural Tardis. When you pass by the inconspicuous yard sheds in Camden Market it's easy to forget that some of them contain bling-laden function rooms. As a general stranger to large, three-tiered seating arrangements with fancy tabletops and trendy red urban lighting, I'm a little dazzled by the swank, so bear with me.
We're here to celebrate what was once described as alternative comedy (now back-formed into what we simply call, 'comedy') and one of its much missed late proponents, Malcolm Hardee. This is an atmosphere appropriately reminiscent of the eighties halcyon days of such pioneers as Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson and Alexei Sayle (to whom our cuddly host Bob Slayer bears a sparkling resemblance.)
Our first act is the winner of Edinburgh's Hardee Award for comic originality, Robert White, who gives a sardonically cranked up take on the once ubiquitous camp comedians of yore: the effeminate affectations replaced with unmistakable gay sex-pestering, and the double entendres scrapped in favour of blunt, unapologetically shrieked single entendres. With an invigoratingly dynamic range and some skilled yet nonchalant keyboard tomfoolery, he is probably the best received act.
On the other hand, winner of last year's Hardee Cunning Stunt award, Lewis Schaffer is, as he assures us, having a bit of an off day. For someone who has apparently been in Britain for ten years he seems determined to maintain a bravado ill suited outside his native Brooklyn: plenty of energy and wind but mostly without salient points to make, beyond the rather needlessly divisive inference of racial and national identities. It's a patchy mismatch of misanthropy and boisterousness, resulting in what we English like to call “sound and fury signifying nothing”.
One of Hardee's close cohorts, Arthur Smith, is the listed headliner. In all my years seeing and hearing him as a talking head, I've never seen him do stand-up until now. In fitting tribute to Hardee his act is wise and thick with charismatic cockney grit, but of course far from original. His is the sort of gravelly tenor that can make a lame duck of a kiddy joke sound strangely warm and comforting. He's unable to control the increasingly pie-eyed audience, but if anything can knock a crowd for six it's 'The Greatest Show on Legs'.
It wouldn't be a Malcolm Hardee tribute without a great deal of gratuitous full frontal nudity, in this case in the form of the Naked Balloon Dance, note for note and step for step as it was in its heyday (including the firework up the jacksie) and going on to descend into utter chaos, as loved up as it is aggressively embarrassing for everyone except the insane fellows on stage. Silly, yes. Dated, perhaps. But this isn't so much cutting edge performance art as it is a celebration of the origin of alternative comedy: the kind of comedy we take for granted, everything that is hats off and (ahem) balls out.
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