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THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED

MUSICAL COMEDY gets a raw deal, writes veteran performer EARL OKIN.

I OUGHT to be bitter.

After writing pop songs and recording at Abbey Road Studios, 10 years on the folk circuit of the 70s, where I'd been funny along with other musical 'entertainers' of the time such as Jasper Carrott and Billy Connolly, it was at my favourite jazz hang-out the 606 Club that I was trawled by the then-unknown Nigel Planer to do some comedy at a place called The Comic Strip.

There, to an audience of about half a dozen, I was the triumph of the evening, alongside French & Saunders, Rik Mayall and the whole crew.

Significantly though, when we were asked to do a pilot for Granada TV, everyone was 'picked up' except me.

Why? Well, I didn't do sketches and I didn't do stand-up. My comedy was musical.

Strange, since the comic-song was the backbone of British comedy from 1870-1950 or so... from Charles Coburn to Flanders & Swann and so on.

So why is there a prejudice against musical comedy?

Throughout the 80s - when I raised the roof at the original Jongleurs when it was still exciting and enjoyable - agents would watch me getting encore after encore and walk straight past to sign up a new, young stand-up, such as Jack Dee.

Likewise, as I set out on what turned out to be a record run of 500 performances at Edinburgh, though I always self-promoted, almost never played the major venues and yet always made money, TV scouts stayed resolutely away from my shows.

'Sorry,' they would say, 'We're only looking for stand-ups.'

Thus the creative alternative comedy-scene of the 80s with classic acts such as the Two Marks, the wonderful juggling/circus skills comedy of Mr Smith & Mr Dandridge, and the unforgettable Stephen Murray (whose act of torturing teddy-bears almost caused civil war to break out in the audience), gradually faded away, leaving only a welter of stand-up.

Some were very talented but many just boring fodder for the major comedy agents and the comedy chains who simply wanted interchangeable performers for their pigeon-holed shows.

Talk to a TV producer about VARIETY and you either got a blank stare, or they immediately thought of dreadful old-fashioned 70s comedy of the worst sort.

Yet, some of the greatest names of pre-1980s comedy were variety acts, from the silly magic of Tommy Cooper, to the all-round ability of Morecambe & Wise and so on.

The USA provided major Variety stars like Danny Kaye and Mickey Rooney.

Luckily for me, on the continent, the Variety tradition continues and stand-up is still pretty new and of lower status.

In Germany, where, in our prejudiced way, we think there is no comedy, there are superb clown-based comedy artists like the unique HACKI, who runs the Chameleon Variety in Berlin, musical comedy from Lonely Husband, (a group of four very silly men), comic trapeze acts, the immigrants from East Europe whose mime-work is of truly awesome skill, the fantastic KGB Clowns and many more.

Belgium has as its most popular theatre performers, De Nieuwe Snaar, three musicians who, like me began on the 70s folk-circuit, and whose mixture of comic-songs and gentle slapstick fill 1,000-2,000 seat theatres.

I know. I played 157 theatres with them and never got bored with what they did nightly.

Also in the show was the hilarious and quasi-macho but very silly magician, Gili, who provides a sort of send up of David Copperfield.

Holland, meanwhile, has Hans Liburg who also fills major venues, a very worthy successor to the classical-music comedy of Victor Borge.

I could go on...

When you work over there, you are expected to be able to entertain an audience on your own for two hours, not 20 minutes, and they very soon tire of four-letter words.

If you can provide this sort of show, you are paid really well, comedy being considered an art-form and comedians being treated as artists, not just some 'bloke' who can make people in a pub laugh for 20 minutes.

Oh! And it's all right if you mix some REAL music into the show. You haven't got to be funny ALL the time. That's what Variety means, after all...

But what of the UK in the 21st century? Last year, for the first time in a couple of decades, various Variety shows were screened, but what did they do!?

One was hosted by Bradley Walsh (enough said); the other by talented Bruce Forsythe. The guests, though, were the usual suspects of clapped-out old-fashioned stand-ups and a couple of big-name pop singers. This was supposed to pass as Variety.

Naturally, I contacted the TV companies involved, just in case I could get back on the box in my own country, but no.

There were only looking to use TV names already known to the public or new comedians aged under 25.

I thought: Here we go again! No wonder the shows didn't catch on. What they should be looking for are people who are just plain GOOD! And we have them...

Naturally, the best Variety acts have taken time to develop, wonderful entertainers like the juggler Steve Rawlings who now offers a two-hour true Modern Variety show (featuring experienced performers who are very funny but totally unknown) to any theatre or TV company with a bit of originality of thought.

Imagine. Two hours of comedy and no stand-up. Is it POSSIBLE?

There are few current Variety acts on the UK comedy circuit. The sexy but silly Mandy Muden and the highly impressive not to say ultra-cheeky Carey Marx offer comedy-magic.

There are a few musical acts including the one-off American madman Steven Alan Green, people who like myself have been around for 15 years or more and the very original Rainer Hersch with a whole new approach to comedy from classical music.

But strangely, it's the emergence of the American, Rich Hall with his musical character 'Otis Lee Crenshaw' that just may open a few minds to a return to some sort of Variety and the comic-song, though he was only able to succeed in this genre after establishing himself first as a stand-up.

One or two TV companies are flirting with formats other than stand-up, sketches and sit-com right now. Let's hope they don't settle for the same old stand-up and pop group routine or buy into the old myth that young people will only enjoy other young people.

If they do, however, there's still continental Europe! So, no, I'm not bitter and I'm not anti-stand-up.

But isn't it high time that the UK rediscovered Variety - a New Variety format for today?