----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2004 7:18
PM
Subject: testing
there's no need to read this. How does the format
look?
Who needs
enemas? Rebecca Front
Tuesday August 3, 2004
The Guardian
A blow to conspiracy theorists appeared in
this paper the other day. According to scientists, Napoleon Bonaparte was not
murdered, as has long been suspected, but instead died as the result of a
potassium imbalance. This, it's now thought, was brought about by a
well-intentioned doctor being over-zealous in his use of enemas. I'm aware
that the mere mention of an overzealous enema will have led many of you to
start turning the page, but stay with me if you will.
To historians and medics, you can
see why Napoleon's enemas would be of interest. To ardent fans of colonic
irrigation, such adverse publicity may be seen as a pain in the arse - but
that, after all, is nothing they won't have dealt with before. To the would-be
humourist, however, such a story presents a problem. Enemas. A great word,
ripe with comic possibilities. There may never again be such a golden
opportunity to use the old gag: "with friends like these ..."
But puns are so last century. In
the age of darker than dark, bitter without the sweet comedy, the sort of
comedy in which I so often work, puns are simply not done. They're considered
cheap, cheesy and a bit juvenile. Some might argue that that's what makes them
funny. Puns are, after all, pretty harmless faux-confusions of two words that
sound alike; surely hating them is... well, it's homophone-bia. But trust me,
I write from experience.
Some years ago I began working on
a news satire show called The Day Today. The rest of the team were actors and
writers too, but most had stand-up comedy experience. Not me. While they had
been treading sticky, beer-sodden stages and helping to create the new wave of
hard-hitting, postmodern irony, I had been sitting in radio studios with
middle-aged actors, listening, between takes, to anecdotes with tag lines such
as "stark bollock naked in front of Princess Margaret!" Of course, I had a lot
of comedy experience, but when a show has a title such as The Nice Man Cometh
or Rabble Without Applause, you know you can go for it all puns blazing.
(Damn, there goes another one.)
For the first few improvisation
sessions on this new show, I felt too intimidated to utter a word. Then one
day, someone set up an idea about capital punishment. I could see it rolling
towards me ... a glorious, multi-layered pun. Someone was bound to get there
first, to pick it up and run with it, but no. So I took a deep breath and said
it: "No noose is good noose", then looked down modestly and waited for the
guffaw. Silence. When I looked up again, some of my colleagues were pretending
they hadn't heard me, others were frantically doodling on their notepads. One,
sensing my bewilderment and fearful that I might repeat my crime, whispered:
"No puns. No innuendo." I was mystified. This was a comedy. It was as if I'd
been told to drive up a motorway with no gears and no steering wheel. But the
comedy ground had shifted, and I had to jump on or fall through the gap.
To many people, the kind of jokes
you use are irrelevant. To Conservative party members in Congleton, for
instance, the fact that their MP Ann Winterton made that irredeemably duff gag
about Chinese cockle pickers has not deterred them from reselecting her. But
the comedy world is as much dominated by fashion as... well, the fashion
world. So I have learned to resist puns and innuendo, but it isn't easy.
At a Blue Peter children's Prom
this weekend - and let us just pause to consider the resonant potential of
"Blue", "Peter" and "Prom" - I tried to sit stony faced while the presenters
breathlessly praised the Royal Albert Hall's finest feature:
"9,999 pipes! That's quite an
organ, isn't it, Liz?"
"Yes, Simon, that's certainly one
powerful organ."
I have to tell you it was hard.
Keeping a straight face, I mean, not the organ. (Damn, I just can't help
myself.)
Which brings us back to Napoleon
... Bonaparte ... (I'm resisting the innuendo locked within those three
syllables, but it's killing me.) My brief for this column was to find a story
that shouted to me and run with it. I could have chosen anything, but while
Napoleon didn't shout to me, his enemas did. For all the wrong reasons.
And, as I have my reputation to
consider, instead of basing a column on a cheap joke, I've wasted one
explaining my decision not to. But in doing so, I have created a spurious link
between me and the great Corsican: Napoleon was defeated by Nelson; I, alas,
was crushed by the column.
� Rebecca Front is a
comedy writer and performer, who recently appeared in the BBC's Nighty Night
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
