In a comedy career
that has spanned 15 years, British comedian Mark Watson has described his style
of comedy as trying to push things as far as he could.
And comedy fans
will get the chance to see Mark push the comedy envelope in his own inimitable
way on two occasions at this year’s Just For Laughs festival: first as host of the Brit(ish) show at Club Soda
on July 26 and 27, and then as part of the line-up of the Nathan Lane
Showstoppers Gala on July 28.
“This is going to
be my fourth time at Just For Laughs,” said Watson during a recent phone
interview from his home in London. “I’ve done Zoofest and some smaller scale
shows at the festival. But I remember being part of the Britcom Gala line-up in
2009, when John Cleese was supposed to host it, but ended up becoming ill and
was replaced by Lewis Black. I hope this time, I won’t cause anything bad to
happen to Nathan Lane; I don’t want to have a reputation of being poisonous!”
Watson began his comedy
career by entering an open mic competition, basically to see what would happen
with it and how far he could go. When he entered Cambridge University, he went
the classic comedy route that was followed by such immortals as John Cleese,
Graham Chapman and Jonathan Miller nearly 60 years ago: join the legendary
Cambridge Footlights Club, and then create a show to perform at the Edinburgh
Fringe Festival.
“I fell into
stand-up comedy quite by accident. I didn’t expect to be there for the long
term. But when I decided to go into comedy for the long term, I wanted to do
things that weren’t traditional and see how I can challenge myself with
different types of shows that would be rather interesting experiments,” he
said.
And those
“interesting experiments” in comedy that Mark undertook had their roots at the
Edinburgh Fringe Festival. For example, in 2006, he did a show called “Mark
Watson, and His Audience, Write A Novel”, in which he aimed to write a complete
novel throughout the duration of the festival – at a rate of 2000 words a day –
using solely suggestions from the audience; in 2007, he hosted with fellow
comics Tim Key and Alex Horne a show called “We Need Answers”, a knock-out quiz
show that challenged 16 comedians to answer a variety of general knowledge
questions that came from the text service Any Question Answered. It later
evolved into a TV series that had a brief run on the BBC.
But perhaps
Watson’s best-known comedy experiment began during the 2004 festival. Called
“Mark Watson’s Overambitious 24-Hour Show”, it was a 24-hour comedy marathon
that he did for charity, which included guest appearances from other comics (and
Just For Laughs veterans) such as Tim Minchin, Adam Hills and David O’Doherty.
Since then, he has done other comedy marathons of that nature at Edinburgh, and
most recently, at last year’s Comic Relief fundraiser.
Watson was amazed
when I told him that Francophone comedian Jean-Marc Parent did comedy marathons
similar to his at Juste pour rire during the 90s (including a landmark gig at
the Montreal Forum). “When I started doing the comedy marathons at Edinburgh, I
did them at smaller venues for audiences of no more than 200 people. But I
wasn’t aware that more people were doing it, and having it at a large hockey
arena is quite a commitment; you have to be a superstar to pull that one off,”
he said. “I would love to do a comedy marathon in the future with Jean-Marc
Parent; it would be a great way to promote harmonious relations between the
English and French through comedy.”
As well, Watson is
an accomplished bestselling novelist. He has written eight novels since 2004
such as Bullet Points, Hotel Alpha, A Light-Hearted Look at
Murder and Eleven (which is also available in North America), and
has a new novel scheduled for publication this month. “The books are mostly
humourous novels with a tragicomic twist to them and deal with subjects that I
normally wouldn’t tackle in comedy,” he added.
Watson is also a
keen observer about the comedy scene in his native Britain, as well as in North
America. While doing a Just For Laughs spring tour across Ontario, he noted
that Canadian audiences have a similar sensibility than those of their British
counterparts. “It’s a rather slightly gloomy sense of humour with a shade of
gentleness and a slight underdog mentality,” he said.
He also noted that
over the last 10 years, there are far more stand-up comedians in Britain, and
are regarding stand-up comedy more as a path towards getting their own TV
series. “Comics in New York and Los Angeles are basically working for TV, and
are finely honing their performances as a means of auditioning for Hollywood.
This is true in the UK, but not to the same extent. British comedy has more of
a sense of informality to it,” said Watson.
When his Just For Laughs
gigs are done, Watson will continue with his latest tour, called “I’m Not
Here”, which he has performed in 65 shows so far across
the UK. “I’m going to take it to Edinburgh, and then complete the tour by the
end of the year,” he said. “After that, I am going to take a break, because I
know I will be getting tired of the jokes by then!”
For more
information about the Brit(ish) show, the Nathan Lane Showstoppers Gala or any
other Just For Laughs show, go to the festival’s website at hahaha.com.
(This article originally appeared in the July 16, 2016 edition of The Montreal Times)
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