If it Wisnae For Yer Wellies, Where Wid Ye Be?

As a follow up to Fizz's last post, I too read that Billy Connolly interview this morning. He's entitled to wish to be called whatever he wants, if he wishes to distance himself from guys like Dylan Moran, Ardal O'Hanlon or Bill Bailey then that's up to him. However portraying comedians who go out with written and re-written prepared material as a lesser art form only encourages the huge number of folk who step onto a stage and ramble for however long they're allowed, with no respect for their paying audience. The people who can do this to some success are few in number.

Let's just look back at The Big Yin's career a wee moment. Surely he's not attempting to convince us that he made The Crucifixion up on the spot, or The Jobbie Weecha? He's not saying that he went on to Parkinson that first time with no semblance of an act?

Woody Allen is rightfully acknowledged as one of the greatest stand-ups of all time. When he first went on stage he read his material out from sheets of paper. He soon learned that didn't work and memorised it all, but he wrote it, every word. As does Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Wright and many others. Even Bill Hicks, wrote and honed his stuff, even though he made it sound like it was all falling out his mouth for the first time. Of course he could if he wanted to speak off the top of his head, but it wasn't always guaranteed to be funny. Stanhope too, writes his material down and hones it as he goes. When we saw him at the Festival the reason he wasn't so funny on the night I was there was because he was constantly interrupted and had to devaite from his prepared stuff to deal with the fannies in the audience.

Perhaps the reason that Billy Connolly's not had a noteable and quotable piece of material for about 15 years is becAuse he knows he can get away with going on stage and talking about various subjects with not that much preparation. The suggestion that if you write stuff down beforehand makes you less of a comedian or less funny is a shabby argument. Sit through twenty minutes of 'So the war in Iraq then. If it's over someone forgot to tell the Iraqis. Someone heckle me...so anyway...' and see if you think that's funnier than watching Chris Rock or Denis Leary do prepared material.