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The Serious Business of Comedy · Mark and Pete

• 0:06
  The serious business of comedy. Welcome to Mark and Pete.
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  And it turns out that Britain hasn't lost its sense of humour
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  after all. It's just misfiled.
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  Yes, this is Mark and Pete, 2 blokes with half an opinion.
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  Now here's our first thought. Comedy is an incredible craft
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  where jokes and dialogue can be daft.
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  It may make folk delirious, but then it gets serious if no one
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  in the audience laughed. Well, people might be laughing
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  at Britain for many different reasons, but when it comes to
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  comedy, it is a serious business.
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  Now many people in the industry are saying that the next
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  generation of comedy voices will struggle to breakthrough.
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  Why? Because either there isn't
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  enough funding, enough venues and simply maybe we've just lost
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  our sense of humour. Mr. Pete, I ask you.
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  And now I know that we can turn to many figures of fun, Keir
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  Starmer being one of our greatest comedians of all time.
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  But nevertheless, what say you about the investment in comedy
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  in Britain? Well, Mr. Mark, as as regular
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  listeners will know, this provides us with a little bit of
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  a conundrum. We love comedy, as you say, some
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  of the greatest comedians in the world are commonly in the House
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  of Commons. But we we love comedy just
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  generally. And Proverbs 17, verse 22, as we
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  like to see what the Bible has to say on these topics.
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  We cover says a cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed
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  spirit dries up the bones and now not, You know, I'm not
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  referring directly to Keir Starmer there, but Ryan rather
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  looking at the importance of comedy for everyday life.
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  You need to be able to have a laugh, in other words.
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  And we're fans of great comedy. It'd be great to have more
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  investment in it. But yes, I really don't like the
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  government tipping the scales on different forms of art,
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  including comedy. I think if people really want
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  something, they'll pay for it. Well, interestingly the Culture
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  Minister Ian Murray has said he is entirely behind a proposal to
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  work with comedy to better understand the opportunities for
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  government intervention. Well, I think we've seen enough
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  government intervention, thank you very much.
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  Maybe. But what is important is the
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  Arts Council England. That's ace, ACE.
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  Now it has insisted it does offer support for comedy but has
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  no plans to change how it organises its funding.
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  So funding comes in different forms.
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  Of course there's obviously charitable donations, there are
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  those who have got making it as a business.
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  But I think that what people are basically saying is, is that
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  really we have run out of humour.
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  Now what's what's interesting here is that there are different
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  techniques. Some people are encouraging
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  people to sort of maybe offer special vouchers or discounts
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  now. ACE, as I reference Reference
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  said that it had awarded £12.23 million in funding where an
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  applicants name, project or title contained the word comedy
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  and that was between 2010 and 2025 and that's according to the
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  government statistics as well. So the point is there is
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  investment, but what really people are saying is of course
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  the course of time then maybe just simply isn't the
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  opportunity, not enough funding. And I suppose the other thing
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  Mr. Peed, it's all about nurturing the next generation.
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  Humour comes in different ways. If we see comedy in the 1970s,
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  maybe with a sort of the Carry On style of humour, and then
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  maybe when we moved to sort of the 1980s with the young Ones
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  and the more sort of sort of cutting edge humour, styles
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  change. Where would you try and position
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  comedy today? What mainstream comedy, as you
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  as we might call it, the that which gets featured on the BBC
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  and and that sort of comedy has ended up recently not being
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  comedy at all, but rather a lecture on why woke is good.
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  It's just it's been very strange how comedy has been lost.
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  And that of course has eventually allowed more
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  comedians who are anti woke. You might call them people who
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  are or common sense, even conservative with a small C
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  Comedians have made maybe able to make an impact not on such
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  institutions as the BBC, but in alternative media and in smaller
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  venues. But they're getting bigger those
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  venues and the reach of alternative media is getting
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  more than mainstream media. So it the the new comedy is
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  rising, but the comedy these days has for some time been
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  absent. Yes.
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  Well, what's interesting is, is that ACE organises its funding
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  under 9 main categories, and they typically come under things
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  like classifiers, dance libraries, museums, music,
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  theatre and many other things. But here's one thing that is an
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  observation of mine. Television, we know that it's
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  changing. At one time, people would
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  typically stream across terrestrial channels and they'd
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  look at classic sitcoms or maybe, you know, sort of
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  showcases and variety shows. And that was a great venue and
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  an opportunity to showcase new talent as well as, of course,
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  long established talent. But I will say, Mr. Pete, is
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  there seems to be less opportunity for those rising
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  acts and, and I think that that's probably one of the
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  things that's hit them as well. What?
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  What say you about? That yes, well, Mr. Mark, what I
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  I think about that, it's, it's interesting that it's not quite
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  as bleak as you suggest. That is true that it's very
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  difficult now for true comedic talent to break in in the way
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  that it had before through acts being spotted and then it has to
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  feature on television or asked to feature in a bigger venue,
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  has to host the Royal Variety Show and that sort of thing.
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  But the other route where the self emotion of acts on YouTube
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  and of course Spotify where Mark and Pete is hosted can can
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  actually show us their own talents and get picked up.
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  So it's it's really a different gatekeeper and the gatekeeper is
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  now whether the platform will allow the comedy to be shared
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  fairly. You know the your listeners will
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  know the problem with shadow banning, not your video not
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  being. Shared.
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  By the the company that's hosting your video that can
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  cause a problem, but it's a different gatekeeping than was
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  there before, where it depended on first of all, whether a
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  talent scout or or agent spotted you and then whether you were
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  picked up by major broadcasters. So it's different, but I see
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  that method as growing. And I think of such comedians as
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  Andrew Lawrence, who has now a big YouTube following.
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  He was originally was successful as a stand up comedian and had
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  shows on the television and won awards for his or won
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  competitions in comedy. But then because he was not
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  woke, not toeing the mainstream line on politics, yes, that had
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  taken over comedy by the stage. He was just becoming successful.
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  He's now made it big on YouTube and tours venues as well because
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  of that. So it's just a different route
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  in. I think we're coming out the
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  other side of that and this new route will predominate.
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  Well, I agree. Now, interestingly, there are
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  entrepreneurs who do invest in this area.
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  So tech entrepreneur Lou Jackson, who recently founded
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  the comedy representation and art form Trust I Craft, said
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  comedy is completely omitted from policy instructors in
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  government and the key organizations.
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  He said that trickles down to mean that comedy is not getting
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  funded. Even though it generates
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  billions in revenue, millions in tax, it's not been
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  proportionally reinvested back into the sector.
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  Maybe has a point now. What's also interesting is, is
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  that the Labour MPs who we come back to, the government.
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  Doctor Simon Offer, who helped pioneer social prescriptions in
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  Gloucestershire, said he is interested in using comedy to
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  make people better. And action is needed to get the
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  whole industry on a more secure footing A footing.
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  But the thing here is Mr. Pete, it is an observation of mine
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  that once again the the the government is sort of tinkering
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  around the subject and has really sort of the whole, the
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  whole atmosphere, the whole atmosphere of the country
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  doesn't see anything of any humour at all.
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  It's it just seems to be devoid of understanding what the
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  British culture is about. What sort of guidance would you
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  say if you had the chance to go and walk into a Cabinet Office
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  meeting now? What would your guidance be to
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  to those great clowns who are sitting there in front of you?
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  Here's the way to help comedy. It's not in the ways any of the
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  ways we've just suggested. Reminded of words I think quoted
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  but made popular by President Ronald Reagan of the United
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  States. He said the most the most
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  frightening words in the English language are these 9 words.
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  I am from the government, I'm here to help.
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  And the yes, that it tells a truism that the government, when
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  it puts it's finger on the scale or tries to help with art, ends
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  up ruining it with education, ends up ruining it with common.
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  It totally squashes it. What the government needs to do
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  is make sure that we have free speech once again in this
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  country. List any suggestion that there's
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  a blasphemy law, that people don't have the right to offend
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  other people. Of course, if there's going to
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  be free speech, you have the right to offend people.
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  Otherwise there is no free speech and the government has to
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  step in that direction and in fact should draft a new Bill of
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  Rights, is what I think they should do, in which one of the
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  rights is freedom of expression and freedom of speech, freedom
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  of religion. Well, there's some thoughts.
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  Well. Comedy fits in there somewhere.
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  I would wonder what our audience thinks about comedy and the
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  state of comedy in Britain. Well, as far as we can see, the
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  way things are going, the joke is on the British.
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  Public.