Andrew Hankinson - Dont applaud. Either laugh or dont. (At the Comedy Cellar.)

DONT APPLAUD.
EITHER LAUGH OR DONT.
(AT THE COMEDY CELLAR)

ANDREW HANKINSON is a journalist who was born, raised, and lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. He started his career as a staff writer at Arena magazine and in 2012 won a Northern Writers Award. He is now a freelance feature writer who has contributed to many publications, including Observer Magazine , The Guardian , and Wired . He also teaches at Newcastle University. His first book, You Could Do Something Amazing With Your Life [You Are Raoul Moat] , won the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction in 2016.

Scribe Publications
2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom
1820 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria 3056, Australia

First published by Scribe 2020

Copyright Andrew Hankinson 2020

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

9781911617686 (UK edition)
9781925713541 (Australian edition)
9781925693690 (ebook)

Catalogue records for this book are available from the National Library of Australia and the British Library.

scribepublications.co.uk
scribepublications.com.au

For my wife and children

Author: This is a book about the Comedy Cellar, a comedy club in New York. Do you care about the Comedy Cellar in New York?

Stewart: Well, not really.

Its 8 June 2018. The authors interviewing Stewart Lee in the Hawley Arms, in Camden Town, London.

Author: I want to ask you about the broader debates that are going on, which youve talked about loads and loads, so Im sorry if its boring for you, I hope you dont mind, but this club, the Comedy Cellar in New York, was opened in 1982 by an Israeli immigrant called Manny Dworman.

Stewart: Yeah.

Author: Hed been a folk musician.

Stewart: Yeah.

Author: And he smoked pot every day.

Stewart: Yeah.

Author: He wanted to cultivate the Comedy Cellar as this place of debate.

Stewart: Right.

Author: And free speech.

Stewart: I think Ive been there but I cant remember, because in two thousand and

Author: Four?

Stewart: Four or five, I did about a week of seven-minute slots in New York clubs and theyre a blur because they all look exactly the same. They all have a brick wall thing at the back.

Author: The Comedy Cellars got a brick wall at the back and a Middle Eastern restaurant upstairs called the Olive Tree.

Stewart: I probably did it.

Author: So this guy started it and wanted everyone to debate. He had some right-wing views.

Stewart: A Libertarian.

Author: Exactly. So he hired Arab and left-wing staff and comedians to sit around the back table of the Olive Tree and argue, like a salon.

Stewart: But he tried to manufacture a salon, and normally they grow organically.

Author: Right, but he started a book group and handed out reading material, most of it, like, pro-Israel.

Stewart: Yeah, yeah.

Author: So thats what interested me, but when I ask if youre interested in a book about the Comedy Cellar, like most people, you dont give a shit.

Stewart: Yeah.

Author: So I want to frame the book with this conversation, showing that what its about are the values he cultivated, such as open debate and free speech, and when I get to free speech youll think Im an arse, but Im just trying to get answers.

Stewart: Well, I think free speech is a really difficult term now because these things move at incredible speed dont they, due to social media and the internet. Now the free speech debate seems to be monopolised by what youd call the alt-Right.

Author: Which makes it an uncomfortable place to argue from.

Stewart: Which makes it an uncomfortable place to argue from.

[After thirteen minutes]

Stewart: Theyve got this night at the Backyard club in Whitechapel where you can go and say the unsayable and all these things that youre not allowed to say anywhere else, and I always thought on the circuit you could sort of say it anyway. I mean, there wasnt a stranglehold of political correctness, but what was good about political correctness was it made people think they might have to justify what they were saying.

[After eighteen minutes]

Stewart: They accused us of trying to be blasphemous and I thought, if you were trying to be blasphemous, why would you write this rather thoughtful thing which suggests we dont live up to the standards of God? And also suggests that the Bible portrays the same sort of emotional struggles between its very human characters as you see in a Jerry Springer show? To me that wasnt blasphemous. I thought, if you were being blasphemous youd do this wouldnt you, youd vomit into the gaping anus of Christ, but still, if youre a half-decent person, you cant just do that. It has to be about something. What I tried to do was write something which on paper would sound terribly blasphemous, vomiting into the gaping anus of Christ, but hopefully make it meaningful and moving and funny, and not just shock horror.

Author: Because political incorrectness cant be a thing in itself?

Stewart: It has to have a reason, yeah.

Author: So I was looking at the criticism some of these American comedians were getting for what they were saying, and I felt very strongly I should defend free speech. Im a writer, so I thought we should be able to write what we want or say what we want on stage. Then, about two years into writing the book, I started worrying about Bernard Manning. My dad went to see Bernard Manning and liked him, but I didnt like some of the things my dad said, and I thought, would I have defended Bernard Mannings right to go on stage and say the word paki, you know?

Stewart: Well, Ill tell you another thing thats changed is this, right, you might be able to defend Bernard Mannings right to go on stage and say the word paki in front of a load of people who have made some sort of informed choice of whether to go through the doors of that venue to see a man who is known for saying the word paki. Whats different now is that YouTube and social media and whatever else propel offence like that into places where its indiscriminately spewed out.

[After twenty-three minutes]

Author: You talk about the character of Stewart Lee, and lots of comedians say things they dont really mean or push in one direction when really they want to snap back in the other direction.

Stewart: Yeah.

Author: And I think you said Paul Provenza told you the stage should be treated like giant inverted commas, and you talked about Bouffon clowns, where you drew a circle around yourself on stage. That all seems to say this is a stage.

Stewart: Yeah, but that doesnt work anymore because the circles been punctured by YouTube and Twitter, and the stage is being filmed from an angle on someones camera phone that removes the inverted commas.

Author: Right.

Stewart: Its difficult.

Author: So now comedians have to be more careful as a character, or when saying things they dont really believe?

Stewart: Yeah, I think so. Its sad. Its a sad situation. But I dont think you can afford to take a reactionary position for comic effect in a world where that reactionary position can be stripped of your intent and broadcast all over the place without your control. And Im surprised to hear myself saying that, but I think now your intent has to go through every layer of the act as clearly as the word Blackpool in a stick of rock, so it can be snapped at any point and you would still know what youre trying to achieve. Isnt that sad? But I do think that, because you dont control the point at which the act is snapped anymore.