Comedy gold – Michael McIntyre's Live and Laughing Jul 23rd 2013, 09:28
He may be reviled, but the highest-earning comedian around is this era's Tommy Cooper or Eric Morecambe … and a class act
Title: Live and Laughing
Year: 2008
The set-up: Is it provocative to say that Michael McIntyre is a great stand-up comedian? Certainly there is a mould of greatness that he doesn't fit. The outsider, the fearless truth-teller, born brilliant, but struggling commercially and personally because he can't shake off his destiny to challenge the complacent world ... This a noble calling, but it's not his.
McIntyre is an ex-public schoolboy (albeit one who had to leave after his parents ran out of money). He is a multi-multimillionaire, now said to be the highest-earning stand-up comedian in the world. He is Mr Mainstream, famous for his (relatively) clean material, and promoted on television. This, McIntyre's first DVD, was the fastest-selling debut DVD there'd ever been. It is a rough analogy, but in popularity terms he is this era's Tommy Cooper or Eric Morecambe. But comedy nerds treat him like Roy "Chubby" Brown. I suppose he committed ubiquity, a more contemporary sin.
Funny, how? McIntyre is not successful because people are idiots, or because he just shouts and wobbles a lot, or because he hardly swears. He's successful because he is a class act, and practised a decade before he appeared to fast track his way to stardom seven or so years ago.
The elegant phrases and that squeaky-yet-plummy voice make a distinctive combination, but at the heart of McIntyre's work is an offstage talent for noticing the fine wrinkles in daily life, and realising the rest of us half-notice them as well. He is, in short, an observational comedian, now the most conventional type of all, but in his field – the middle classes – he's the best.
For audiences, McIntyre has a knack of hitting that sweet spot of recognition – about remembering your coat when the winter starts, about the pressure to overtake a tractor, about watching the Olympic medal ceremonies and realising "they don't really want the flowers". His extended disquisition, almost, on the subject of the "man drawer" will be quoted and repeated for years, I'm sure.
Certainly McIntyre is less quirky or charming than Eddie Izzard, but among observational comedians he is Izzard's heir. Besides, there is more of a political thrust to McIntyre's shows than he is given credit for. We know he spends, or spent, much of his time caring for his children, and he has nothing but fond mockery for the conventions of what men should be. In his view, it is quite normal to be a coward at times, or incompetent, or a softy about one's favourite coat, but always to imagine oneself a little tougher than the truth.
You've heard of him, of course. But if you've never watched this show before, try to unhear of him, and check it out.
Comic cousins: Eddie Izzard, Billy Connolly, Micky Flanagan
Steal this: "To think 'prick' and say 'tut', this is the British way."
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