Inspired by TED Talks, a unique series of 'comedy anti-lectures' launched in London recently, seeing top comedians tackle the world's biggest questions. Stevie Martin speaks to its creators.
Riots, strikes, economic crisis and racist women on trams have all recently been adding to a rapidly escalating sense of impending doom. It’s time to, in the paraphrased words of George Osborne, “solve the financial crisis and have a laugh doing it”. Alright, heavily paraphrased and invented. Though Osborne never said this, Ben Target and Daniel Berg – co-founders of the wildly popular cult comedy lecture series PLEB Talks – certainly have.
In fact, the pair have laid plans for a high level summit at a top secret location in the City of London this Thursday (December 8th), to discuss the state of the world. The third in the series will see The Mighty Boosh's Rich Fulcher, Edinburgh Fringe Best Newcomer nominee Thom Tuck, quirky newcomer Lou Sanders, and Life's Too Short star Gareth Morinan tackling big questions, and attempting to solve the global crisis, while Nish Kumar plays the academic host.
“I like the word platform,” says Ben Target, the soft spoken winner of 2011's Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year Award, and co-founder of PLEB. “It’s a good way of describing the concept. We want it to be more than just a comedy night, a sort of culture.” His business partner (of sorts) Daniel Berg is checking out a table tennis set. “Basically, I love the TED Talks,” he adds, “so I wanted to do something similar, but with comedians instead. I told Ben my idea at the Edinburgh Festival, and he'd been thinking about doing a lecture series, so it just sort of clicked.“
At the last lecture (set in a 300-year-old schoolroom in Soho), Simon Munnery discussed the meaning of life, there was a basketball match at the interval with comics and audience members, and Nick Sun threw the popular meat-free substitute Quorn at the crowd. The founders do take their absurdist and creative comedy platform seriously though. Even while sitting on small chairs in the children’s section of Foyles in St Pancras station.
“I want it to be like YouTube,” says Target, smiling benevolently, “where people comment on the lectures, or maybe even film minute-long responses themselves.” Berg nods in agreement – he’s been filming sets performed by a variety of big names (such as Patrick Monahan) – which are due to go live on a website from January. “Basically I want it to be TED,” he explains, “Then it will grow until it ends up so popular and massive that we just, you know, have to buy TED out.”
Grandiose plans aside, both are cagey about the near future, namely what they’ve got planned for next week’s show. “It’s definitely the most exciting so far. I think people are going to be surprised, and delighted, by what we’ve got in store.” Two things are certain: tickets will sell out and we should expect the unexpected. It's a fitting cliché considering the last time I saw Target, he was balancing on a bollard dressed as a schoolteacher, shouting at people to file into a schoolroom. Before that he was walking down a side street in Edinburgh with 70 audience members in tow, wearing a pink tutu and an ever-present, serene smile.
It’s this combination of absurdity and meticulous attention to detail that sets PLEB apart from any other comedy “platform” on the London circuit at the moment. Each show takes a massive amount of time and effort to pull off. “Because the venue only gives us a specific date, and because we’re very particular about who we bill, we run through a lot of acts, and have to juggle a lot of things,” Berg says. “It does mean, though, that there’s a huge backlog of big names wanting to take part in the future.”
Venues and acts aside, every aspect of the night is carefully planned and talked over in regular meetings, held in typically bizarre places. Target likes to keep things interesting. "We recently went to the Jewish Heritage Museum," he says. "I wanted Dan to confront his heritage. I like to bring weird snacks too... like yams. Except I haven't done yams yet. Do you cook them? Do you like them?" Dan shrugs, admitting he's not sure what they are. Target doesn't know either.
Yams and museums aside, they're fully committed to the PLEB cause – it's come directly out of their own pockets. Thankfully, due to the popularity of the night they’ve just about broken even. “It's not about the money, but for the love of comedy and a belief in what we're doing," states Target. "There are some wonderful venues and comedy nights in London doing just that. We're not really like anything else out there, though, and that's a really exciting thing to be a part of." A few kids continue to grab at the books and toys, unaware they're just inches away from two men about to solve the world's problems. Or just have a laugh attempting it. Or, probably, both.
The next PLEB Talks takes places at a sceret London location on Thursday 8th December. Tickets must be bought online in advance and ticket holders will then receive an email 48 hours in adavance with the location details.
For online tickets, click here
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