Incoherent Ramblings

I would like to define what I call ‘Pork pie’ jokes, after a line in one of my favourite films – Topsy Turvy by Mike Leigh (the internet suggests that Gilbert never actually said it, but it’s a great line anyway). In the film W.S. Gilbert, in a rehearsal for The Mikado, is trying to inject some authenticity into the entrance of the ‘Three little maids from school’ by inviting some Japanese guests to a rehearsal. See the video below:

We see the initial choreography that the choreographer, M. D’Auban, has set. Having seen it Gilbert prompts the Japanese guests to confirm that the dance was ‘not even remotely Japanese’ and, after some language problems^[1], gets the young Japanese girls to walk downstage. D’Auban still doesn’t get it:

Gilbert: That is the very effect I need.
D'Auban: And what effect exactly is that?
Gilbert: Did you not see what they did?
D'Auban: Yes, they walked downstage.
Barker:  They appeared to me to be ambling along the Strand.
Gilbert: They walked downstagein the Japanese manner!
D'Auban: They walked in the Japanese manner because they are Japanese.
Gilbert: Exactly! And that is precisely why they are here.
D'Auban: Our maids are not Japanese. However, they are very funny.
Gilbert: No funnier, however, than they would be if they all sat down on pork pies.

A pork pie joke, then, is any joke which may be funny, but is so out of place in the context that you might as well go the whole hog and just have some bawdy slapstick.

Gilbert’s point, as I see it, is that it’s very easy to get a laugh on stage – just have your actors sit down on pork pies. But just because it’s funny does not mean it should be done.

In a way it’s a different version of the politician’s fallacy – We must do something funny, this is funny, therefore we must do this.

Why should such a cheap laugh not be allowed? The Mikado is a comic opera, it is meant to be funny. Surely then anything that gets a laugh is fair game?

Well, yes and no. A pork pie joke will almost certainly get a laugh, but at what cost?

Suspension of disbelief in a dramatic work is incredibly important – you’re asking an audience to follow you on a journey into a different world, possibly a world very different from our own – where magic is possible, or people sing choruses in public, or a black smoke monster on an island can kill people. To keep them with you you need to maintain their suspension of disbelief; anything that rocks that suspension risks breaking the spell and causing an audience to recognise the absurdity of what they’re witnessing and so losing their investment in the plot.

Having an actor act out of character, breaking the fourth wall, or changing the tone of the work suddenly are all surefire ways to break this spell; if you’re watching a gritty police drama and, just as it seems the detective has reached a dead end, he pulls out a magic wand and conjures up a demon to help him find the killer, you’re instantly going to switch off (probably both mentally and physically). In the same way adding a pork pie joke to a carefully crafted and wordy comedy turns the whole affair into farce. Would we regard Yes, Minister as one of the pinnacles of British comedy if halfway through an episode Sir Humphrey resorted to fart jokes and knob gags?

Another way of viewing the folly of pork pie jokes is to picture yourself at a symphony concert – perhaps in the Royal Albert Hall – and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is playing. You are really getting into the music and your ears are tuned to the dynamic range of the orchestra – you appreciate the piano of gentle string passages and the fortissimo when the brass weigh in. Then someone plays the ‘Ode to joy’ theme on an electric guitar. The moment is lost, all the subtleties of the orchestral palatte are orevshadowed by the amplified guitar.

This is not to say that electric guitars are in any way vulgar – a virtuoso guitarist should rightly be considered the equal of a virtuoso violinist – but it is a matter of choosing the appropriate stage for such performances – horses for courses if you will. Having people sit on pork pies could be hilarious and completely appropriate in a pantomime, or farce, or kids TV show, but is woefully out of place in a comic work where clever word-play and satire are the principal sources of humour.

Pork pie jokes should be recognised by comedy writers and diretors and treated with care, and avoided where possible. You can get away with one or two small ones in certain contexts, but be wary or your whole work could be ruined.

Mark

1. ‘If he doesn’t speak English, he’s hardly likely to speak Italian, is he?’ [↩]

Hmm, yesterday’s post strikes me as a little bit dry and, well, boring. I’ll try and make this one more interesting. Though I won’t promise anything.

Let’s talk about awkward comedies. There has been a trend in recent years towards more realistically written and shot comedies (The Office being the genre’s seminal and still in my opinion greatest example) where we are encouraged to laugh at the characters’ awkward and embarrassing predicaments.

A classic example is from the first episode of season two of The Office, where David Brent uses the welcome meeting for the new staff from Swindon as a chance to show off his comedy skills:

Many people I’ve spoken to site that scene as a major reason why they don’t like The Office. Or, if they enjoyed season one, why season two for them went too far with the ‘cringe-factor’. I personally find it hilarious and I’ve been trying to work out why that might be; why does a scene which others can barely watch due to the discomfort it induces in them become one of my favourite scenes in modern comedy?

For a start there’s the contrast between Brent’s over-confidence and arrogance in the lead up to the show meeting and the train-wreck of his actual routine . There’s a wry pleasure in seeing someone’s arrogant pride become their downfall – we observe that they had it coming, and it, in a way, serves them right. In real life this is often, and rightly, a guilty pleasure – laughing at other people’s misfortune^[1] – but in fiction we can with clear conscience indulge in a bit of schadenfreude knowing no one’s ego has actually been wounded.

There’s also the fact that Brent’s downfall is so over-the-top, so complete, that most people can say to themselves ‘I might have been in some embarrassing situations, but never as bad as that!’. It’s a common feature of Gervais and Merchant’s writing – running with an idea far longer than anyone would in real life. In Extras, there are frequently scenes where Andy or Maggie make a slip up in conversation and say the wrong thing, accidentally or unwittingly. We’ve all been there. But where in real life one would normally appologise, have a quick laugh and move on (or just ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen. But still just move on with the conversation), in Extras they continue digging themselves into a hole trying to undo the dammage, but of course making it far, far worse:

I think that’s where a lot of the humour from this style of comedy comes from. If you’re watching a traditional sitcom then the whole setup is already so absurd and unreal that to get a laugh requires turning that notch up even higher – think of Basil Faulty; John Cleese’s performance is at it’s ground state so over-the-top that he needs to shout EVEN LOUDER and move his arms around EVEN WIDER as the episode progresses and the situations intensify.

In The Office, by contrast, the ground state is so close to normality it is very easy to mistake it at casual glance with a documentary, and so the writers and actors only need to add a small amount of caricature, push it just a bit far over the line of reality, for it to be funny.

I read somewhere that most humour is the release of realising that what appears to be something serious or scary is actually just benign and you were actually worried over something harmless. I believe that what goes on in my head when I see, for example, the famous ‘Brent dance’ scene and David starts his horrendous ‘dance’ is an initial feeling of empathic horror with the other characters – ‘Oh god, that would be awful to watch. Where do you look, what can you say?’ – but that is almost immediately replaced by a feeling of relief when my brain realises that it’s not really happening and I’m not really there. This relief is what causes me to laugh.

Hmm, I’m always crap at coming up with conclusions. I just sort of type what comes into my head. Then get bored. Then try to wrap it up. And fail. In any case I’ve tried to convey some of why I find The Office and its ilk hilarious and I would like to think it’s changed some people’s opinions, though in reality you probably hate it more than ever now I’ve made you sit through two clips. Oh well.

Till tomorrow, I hope.

Mark

1. ‘Happiness at the misfortune of others. That is German!’ – Avenue Q, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx [↩]