They are fed up with gag-a-minute comedy and want a bit more depth. Darker moments actually enrich comedy because you appreciate the laughs all the more." Morton chips in that we shouldn't be restricted by traditional notions of comedy. "A great story doesn't have to be something that elicits a laugh all the time. If it elicits engagement or excitement, then it's equally valid."After winning the Perrier and the Best Stand-Up gong at the British Comedy Awards, 30-year-old Tiernan has been landed with bearing the standard for this new breed of story-tellers. "They have been educated that you can sit back and listen to a story rather than having to laugh every minute.
The more personal it is, the more universal it is."Audiences, Bucknall continues, are also becoming more discerning. Story-tellers talk about life, and people live the same life the world over What's happened to them could happen to anyone. Gag merchants' material is based on purely local events, but what Morton is talking about - loss, pain, love - can be understood by someone in Pittsburgh or Birmingham. "Story-tellers like Morton or O'Neill talk to people, rather than at them. That's more relaxing for an audience because they feel they're part of an event as opposed to being shut outside the fourth wall listening to a string of gags."With a lot of one-liner comedy, there is no relationship between the performer and the audience. If you're telling stories about yourself, it's a more honest route to laughs.
It allows audiences to see the personality of a performer - and they have a higher tolerance level of that than of some quickfire gag-merchant. People don't go and see Izzard for jokes - they just want to be in the same room as him."Richard Bucknall, who runs RBM, a comedy management agency that handles Morton, agrees that story-telling creates more of a bond with an audience than a jokesmith rattling off punchlines. The difference between Bernard Manning and Eddie Izzard is that Izzard is revealing something of himself - look at his stuff about cross-dressing. "What makes alternative comedy alternative is that the comedian delivers something of himself rather than just doing a joke. But are we seeing the future or just another here- today-gone-tomorrow fad? Ed Smith, company manager at Stone Ranger, thinks it's something more concrete."People have decided there are certain limitations to knob gags," says Smith who promotes such comedians as Tiernan, Byrne and Smiley. Audiences who have matured with the alternative explosion are increasingly drawn to story-telling rather than gag-tagging Comedy is growing up. They spin complex yarns that build through a whole hour and whose impact lingers for days, if not weeks, as opposed to scattergun jokes whose resonance barely lasts until the next sentence. These acts are feeding an audience need to go beyond shallow tee-hees at the expense of President Clinton's taste in cigars towards more serious meditations on love and death.
No longer satisfied with cheap cracks about Viagra or hackneyed observations beginning "have you ever noticed...?", comedy-followers are veering towards more thought-provoking, narrative-driven acts. Often teetering on the brink of theatre, these are being performed by post-Eddie Izzard comedians such as Tommy Tiernan, Bruce Morton, Ed Byrne, Owen O'Neill and Michael Smiley. Seventies telly is the last resort of the scoundrel - and the terminally unimaginative stand-up. If I have to hear another joke about Thunderbirds or Star Trek, I shall reach for my Luger I am not alone Many people appear to be tiring of gag-a-minute comedy. The comedian - who shall remain nameless - launched into a rat-tat-tat routine about Tony Hart, the presenter on such children's TV programmes as Vision On and Take Hart. It was just a few minutes into the opening act at a comedy club last week that my heart sank. It's easier to say than to do, but here's the good news: children learn from it, and most of them learn fast..