A Book for Her by Christie Bridget

Author:Christie, Bridget [Christie, Bridget]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781448185337
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2015-07-02T04:00:00+00:00

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fn1 Although I did nearly buy one once. It was in Worcestershire and it cost £33,000 and had no electricity. This is true.

fn2 This is all true. I promise you. Look it up!.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘Because I thought I’d be taken more seriously if I pretended to be a man, I had dressed as King Charles II. I wondered about wearing the robe all the time, perhaps even during childbirth as well.’

WERE IT NOT for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and a man called Tommy Sheppard, I wouldn’t have worked out how to talk about feminism in comedy. Or how to talk about farts. Or how to talk. Or fart. I’d still be forcing people to watch me gurning, pretending to be various chemical compositions or viruses, and doing impressions of how TV historians walk. Probably.

So if there’re any furious sexists out there still reading this book (which you shouldn’t be, as the cover clearly states that this book is not for you) then you can blame Tommy Sheppard. The Northern Irish former Scottish Labour councillor and candidate, and now SNP parliamentary candidate, owner of the Stand Comedy Clubs. I don’t mean Tommy Shepherd (aka Speed), a fictional character, superhero and member of Marvel’s Young Avengers. He did not facilitate feminist-based comedy at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Tommy Sheppard has given me a venue at the Edinburgh Stand since 2010, when I did my A Ant show. Before then, I was making a financial loss every year by taking a show to the Fringe, but the Stand’s deals are fair and favour the acts in a festival where most performers actually lose thousands of pounds, though no one seems to believe this.

I’m lucky enough to live in London, the stand-up capital of the world. If you want to be a stand-up, or to watch stand-up, you come here. There are so many comedy gigs in London that the comedy website Chortle has to list them by area (north, south, east, west or central London). In New York, acts pay for stage time to try to get parts in sitcoms. In London stand-ups want to be stand-ups, and acts from other countries come to work here because they admit it is the best stand-up comedy city in the world.

Whether you’re a physical clown who doesn’t speak (Holly Burn), a ventriloquist (Nina Conti), a sketch/improv group (Austentatious), a character comedian (Jo Neary), a musical act (Isy Suttie), a double act (Anna & Katy), a political act (Josie Long), or a socio-politico-feminist act (Kate Smurthwaite), there is a gig you can do.

But this diversity of comedy acts and voices from different backgrounds and creeds and nationalities will start to diminish as London house prices and rents continue to rocket. The sums just won’t add up, and as writers from ordinary backgrounds are being priced out of the capital, so too will their audiences.

And it’s the same in the Edinburgh Fringe. Most stand-ups will consider going to the Edinburgh Fringe at some point. I don’t think it’s presumptuous to say that.

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