Doktor who? November 18, 2007
After the recent of negative posts about new comedy I wanted to show that I wasn’t totally cynical and that there is still some excellent new comedy about. In the absence of decent television comedy at the moment, I feel the need to turn to new live acts to heap praise upon. Although this new act you will have seen and will be seeing each week at the end of BBC3’s Comedy Shuffle.
Yes, I’m talking about the man, the myth, the legend that is Doktor Cocacolamcdonalds. You would be forgiven, from his name, for thinking that he is some sort of anti-consumerist protest act in the style of Reverend Billy And The Church Of Stop Shopping or even Mark Thomas, but no, his show has nothing to do with either of these global brand names. The origin of his name is never explored in his act, but that doesn’t matter as it merely adds colour to an already psychedelic act.
I saw his act twice at The Gilded Balloon in Edinburgh, so impressed was I with his show. It felt fresh and I saw new aspects of it both times, although his endearingly bumbling manner was actually carefully orchestrated. However he still has the ability to ad-lib to hilarious effect and still keep in character during his sections of audience interaction.
And what an original character he has created. Standing on stage in just a pair of brightly coloured underpants, with layers of ties strung round his neck, often talking in monotone. He also sometimes shouts at the audience, not so much in an aggressive manner but more like an upset child having a tantrum. However, he makes the character extremely likeable as he creates an air of pathos, frustration and vulnerability almost like a clown, but not a modern circus clown, more like a traditional Pierrot, but one who has taken too many drugs and is having a breakdown on stage in front of you. There is something about this character that makes you want to look after him.
He starts by telling the audience about his early life in almost a fairytale manner, how he was brought up by cats. It almost feels like early Mighty Boosh style territory (that’s meant as a huge compliment by the way) and then the show continues with a series of songs, poems, narration and audience interaction. The songs at first seem rather free-form, almost as if they could have been ad-libbed. But, on a second listen, it becomes clear that they are well thought out, clever and very inventive with language. Songs such as ‘When You Generalise, They’re General LIES!’ and ‘We Didn’t Need It But They Made It Anyway!’ all emerge from his apparently inane ramblings in a slightly clumsy manner, but as the songs progress the structure and the simple but clever lyrics win you over and often get you singing along too.
Then there’s the audience interactive ‘Rocky Personality Test’ where he asks members of the audience “Which film do you adore? Rocky 1, Rocky 2, Rocky 3 Rocky 4?” Interaction in shows often has the opposite of the desired effect, as the audience are worried the performer will ‘pick on’ them in some way, however with the Doktor it is all very good natured and thoroughly bizarre- you can’t help but smile when he gets you singing along with both the theme tune to The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air and ends with a completely incongruous sing-a-long of Last Christmas.
Although the sing-a-long ending was a great way to close the show and ensure the audience went out smiling and remembering his show, however way he chose to wrap up the journey of the character was what I found so clever, and what made the show special for me. He closed by almost coming out of character, saying basically that the costume, the make-up, the keyboards and the songs is all ‘bloody good therapy’. By breaking out of the character that he had just been performing for the last hour, it was a clever way of showing that as a performer, he wasn’t taking himself too seriously and wasn’t trying to create an air of alienating mystery around his act, but trying to involve the audience even more by showing to us as we walked out singing Last Christmas into the balmy August night that it could potentially be anyone of us on stage.
I know I said I was going to be all positive in this post, but I do feel I have to comment on the Doktor’s appearance on Comedy Shuffle and how it could be off-putting for someone who hadn’t seen his full show- you only got one song by him so you don’t get a true sense of his act. The same goes for Pappy’s Fun Club who only got to perform one sketch, whereas I’m told their show is a clever new twist on the sketch show format when seen in full (which I will be doing next week, incidentally, watch this space for review). This is more a problem I have with Comedy Shuffle as a format really. It seems they are trying to appeal to a younger audience by making the show into a Top Of The Pops but for comedy, showing us acts in 5 minute segments as if we all have problems with our attention span. Fine, it does show a variety of acts, and allows lesser known comedy to be showcased but this is only suitable for certain types of comedy really. Instead of trying to create a format and making the acts fit round it, why not just give more decent new acts the air time and let them choose and craft their own format. I’m sure this approach would nurture more inventive and original writing than either giving new acts merely five minutes to prove themselves, or giving more established writers half an hour of televisual rope with which to hang themselves.
