Recently I’ve been watching Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle. Stewart Lee is great at his stand-up parts as usual and there are some nice sketches which help to break it up a bit as well so I think it’s big thumbs up from me. It has however got me thinking about Stand-up on TV and how well it works. It seems to me that in the past few years there have been loads of shows commisioned that have been primarily stand-up comedy shows or that have featured it in some form.
I for one know that I don’t go to nearly as many live stand-up shows as I should (partially due to the lack of venues around where I live) and so this recent trend for stand-up shows has been something I’ve really enjoyed. A few years back the only time you could see Stand-up on TV was on Paramount comedy late at night, pefect post-pub TV but I dont think many people saw it as much more than that. Now however we’ve got Live at the Apollo, Comedy Vehicle and miriads of different shows on most night of the week on digital. You could even argue that Mock the Week includes sections which make use of the panelists stand-up skills.
So generally this is a great thing. More comedians getting more exposure, more people getting in to stand-up. Sometimes I wonder though whether stand-up is really all that well suited to TV. Stand-up works best out of spotaneity, improvisation and the unexpected and sometimes, with the rigorous rehearsal and forward planning of a TV show some of that could be lost. Still I don’t think this will slow down the rise in popularity of TV Stand-up but I look forward to more comedians finding new ways to adapt stand-up to TV as a medium because there’s a whole lot of things people could be doing with it.
