The surreal comic berates the current stand-up 'boom' and tells Rupert Uzzell about his 2011 Edinburgh Fringe show.
Tony Law could potentially come across as quite moody and bitter when reading this interview. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Unfortunately, I can’t convey in the text the amount of laughter, play-acting and charm that featured throughout his responses to my questions, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. Here, he discusses his career so far, his views of the current comedy circuit, and his profound new Edinburgh show, the stand-up comedy equivalent of Terence Malick’s The Tree of Life.
How’s the new Edinburgh show coming along?
Pretty good actually. Shows usually write themselves during the previews, and I’ve done a few recently where it’s got 100% better.
The tagline for the show reads, “Is Tony Law a way of doing comedy?” What do you mean by that?
The question is whether I have a valid way of doing comedy, and the answer is yes, but only to the right type of people. It’s not for other people; they should just shut up and go watch something else. (And they probably will.)
You’ve said in the past that your gigs either go brilliantly well, or you die really badly. Is that still the case?
Yes, it depends on the right environment. If people are open-minded, it usually goes really well, but I’ve also had more deaths than average. The last few years I’ve smartened up and stopped playing places I know probably aren’t right for me, like Jongleurs. As a result, my hit rate has gone way up.
No more playing to hen parties then?
Exactly, or to people who want whatever the fuck it is they want; I forget. It’s like when someone goes to a restaurant in the mood for some pie, but then the waiter comes out and gives them apples. Or they’ve gone to the horse races, and one of the horses is a dog. Or a winged horse. People have expectations, and are disappointed if they’re not met.
Do you handle dying well?
Well, the gig fatality rate started to take its toll. Comedy’s become such a big business now, and everyone’s got similar styles. I think Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow has a lot to do with that. Fortunately, there’s an alternative circuit emerging again.
Some alternative comics prove palatable enough to transfer over to a mainstream audience, such as Milton Jones. Do you think that could happen to you?
Milton has more of a crossover formula, because it’s a lot of short jokes. People are like, “Well, it’s a bit nutty for me, but I understand what’s happening.” Whereas if someone like Simon Munnery went on, they’d go, “No, he’s approached this from completely the wrong angle. He started in the middle of the joke… In fact, I’m not sure there’s even a joke in there. This is more like art, and art has no place in comedy!”
You talk about the show as art in your publicity material. Is this something you’ll be discussing onstage?
No, I just tried to remember what people like Seann Walsh (or any other comedian who’s doing quite well) had written about their shows, and I wrote the exact opposite. I find it hard to sum up without sounding like a wanker, but it’s an arty little show. It’s not a guy noticing shit about M&S, but if you overtly say in the show’s description, “This isn’t a show where a guy notices shit about M&S”, it sounds like you’re having a dig at people.
Do you worry about sounding like a comedy snob?
Yes…Well, I am a snob, but you don’t want to sound that way. The thing is that I, like many people, have watched a huge amount of comedy, and so certain things aren’t enough for us anymore. You watch some stand-ups and think, “Well, fuck me, I made those jokes this morning with my friends at work.”
What sort of stuff do you talk about in your new show then?
I’m revealing what I am as real person, only I’m not. I do some philosophy about the world, and talk about how we make choices in life; how you can go right or you can go left. I break the world down into really simplistic terms, in a way that is mocking certain other shows, but really I’m not doing that, but actually I am…It’s a bunch of nonsense basically… but actually it’s not.
Why do you think there are less alternative comics like yourself around now?
Well, when I started out, I was lied to. I remember the first time I went to Edinburgh, all the shows nominated for the main award were really unusual, and so I thought “Ah, the key is to be original.” Then, once I started pursuing that path, everything changed and the world passed me by. But things will change again. There are only so many times a comic can get away with saying: “You guys are like this! You people are like that! You guys like drinking! We’re all like this!” Eventually, fatigue sets in.
Would you ever do Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow?
I’d love to, if only to have the producers say to me, “Well, a lot of our viewers switched off, and a lot of people phoned in to say how much they hated it. But then, a lot of people really loved it.” As for shows like Mock the Week, if they’re just going to bully everyone all the time, they might as well go the next level and have some actual violence on there. I’d love to appear then. “Oh really, Andy Parsons. You think that? Well, how about I cave your cheekbones in?” SMACK! “And in this next section, we take one of our comedians over to SuBo’s house and kick her door in! And burn all her stuff!”
Tony Law: Go Mr Tony Go! is on at Edinburgh's The Stand Comedy Club 4th - 28th August
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