A single clown stood at the front of the stage and said “sorry to interrupt”.
“Sorry to interrupt your business meeting. Please carry on. I’ll just be here in the corner, doing my bits.”
Then he stood in silence for a few minutes. Then he said the line again. Then he repeated this for a long time.
I watched this show every day for a month, and the audience always loved it, and I didn’t understand why. It was funny but it was so stupid. And it didn’t make sense.
Gaulier clowns like to say the same thing again and again until it becomes funny.
It’s not easy. There’s an art to it. A delicate mixture of bravery and patience.
In another show, two clowns called out names from a clipboard.
“Kate? Where’s Kate?”
“Is David here?”
“George Clooney?”
Sometimes, someone in the audience put their hand up, or called out “Here”. Sometimes, no one did.
Either way, the clowns walked out into the seats, and stuck a nametag on an audience member. It went down really well (and one of those clowns went on to win britain’s got talent doing a similarly repetitive thing many years later).
A clown dressed as a wizard walked around the room. He repeatedly asked:
“Is there a wizard in the room?” to nearby audience members.
“No?”
“Yes?”
“Yes?”
“No?”
…
…
“YEEEESSSS.”
Completely baffling. Why did it work? Why was it funny? It made no sense.
My partner and I still occasionally repeat it to each other as a decade-old in-joke.
“Is there a wizard in the room?”
These days. You can’t say that you like Stewart Lee. You can’t say it these days.
Because it’s the stereotypical answer you get when you ask comedy bros who their favourite comedian is. They think it makes them sound smart. Even James Corden did it.
One of Stewart Lee’s repeating jokes is repetition. He goes on and on and on and on- and it’s annoying- but it’s funny- and he uses it to do all sorts of-
A clown pretended to introduce a TV show.
“Welcome to the Kenny Newman show, with me, Kenny Newman.”
Over the course of the month, this introduction got longer and longer. He kept adding more on the end.
“Featuring me, Kenny Newman, on the Kenny Newman show, with Kenny Newman.”
I guess he realised that the audience liked it. It was the dumbest thing, but it seemed to work.
“It’s Kenny Newman’s Kenny Newman show. Hi, I’m Kenny Newman.”
And that clown was me!
Back to repetition.