Miranda Hart

by Sophie Johnson

  4

  HERE COME THE GIRLS

  ‘Men find funny women threatening. They ask me, “Are you going to be funny in bed?”’

  – Joan Rivers

  All set to throw off her worries and find her fortune at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, what did Miranda Hart, as a woman, face when she put herself out there in the male-dominated world of comedy? Many female comedians insist there is no difference, but it is a discussion which dates back many years. Comedian Kerry Godliman told a Guardian interviewer that, when she was at the Comedy Store, she was looking at press cuttings they have on the wall at the back. ‘There’s bits and pieces there from 1984 about women in comedy and you think, Nothing’s changed! We’re still having that conversation!’

  As we know, one of the main reasons Miranda doesn’t look at reviews is because they mention her looks, whereas she doesn’t think it is the case for men in the business: ‘A fat male comedian isn’t a “fat comedian”, he’s just a comedian. It’s really frustrating… People are obviously going to mention what I look like, but it’s a shame it has to be a key part. I can’t just be Miranda.’

  While men do get this same journalistic treatment about how they look – one recent article described Tim Minchin as ‘kohl-eyed, poodle-haired, ivory-tickling’ – with women, it does seem to get more personal about looks. This has even affected how some comics choose to represent themselves on stage.

  Isy Suttie says that she never wears a skirt or tight top when she’s performing stand-up: ‘I never want them to be thinking about me as a sexual object of any kind.’

  Some might argue, though, that doing so only perpetuates the myth that good-looking women can’t be funny, and funny women are only so to make up for their lack of looks.

  You might assume this attitude is dead and even consider it laughable, but, only in 2007, Christopher Hitchens wrote a piece for Vanity Fair called ‘Why Women Aren’t Funny’. Although he offers the disclaimer ‘This is not to say that women are humourless, or cannot make great wits and comedians’, he does go on to bring up the archaic theory that women feel no need to be funny as ‘They already appeal to men, if you catch my drift’. The thrust of his article is best summed up by the following extract: ‘My argument doesn’t say that there are no decent women comedians… Most of them, though, when you come to review the situation, are hefty or dykey or Jewish, or some combo of the three.’

  Ouch! Sexism in comedy is gradually going out of fashion but, as with any sociological change, it takes its time. The term ‘comedienne’ is being phased out, and it will only appear in this book inside quotation marks.

  Giles Coren, restaurant critic and Gary-from-Miranda lookalike, wrote that he was looking to buy a stand-up comedy DVD as a Christmas gift: ‘So, what to choose? Looking at the comedy chart shelf, it went: John Bishop, Kevin Bridges, Lee Mack, Frankie Boyle, Michael McIntyre, Dara O’Briain, Rhod Gilbert, Bill Bailey, Jimmy Carr, Peter Kay, Dave Allen, Billy Connolly, Sean Lock, Stewart Francis, Lee Evans, Karl Pilkington, Rob Brydon…’

  He was astonished that there is not one female present in the list, not even one token girl. Coren cannot fathom why this is. As I look at hmv.com’s stand-up comedy DVDs section at the time of writing, of the 378 titles listed, only 18 showcase female comedians. That’s not even 5 per cent. These included: four Victoria Wood DVDs; three French and Saunders’ live sketch shows (not really stand-up); Grumpy Old Women (stage show); and Pam Ayres (who, although funny, is primarily a poet). I considered including the two Lily Savage shows to bring it up to a nice round 20, but that would hardly be accurate. Whatever the reason, the truth is that women in comedy are heavily outnumbered.

  It’s not much better on the live circuit. Performer Lucy Porter says, ‘Backstage at a gig, I occasionally realise that I’m the only woman in a dressing-room.’ This brings female comedians closer, as Miranda herself has confirmed: ‘I’ve made some really nice friends – mainly women. There’s definitely a sisterhood.’ There is a strange attitude that seems ingrained in our society that female comedians are separate. Sometimes, the compere gives them a discouraging introduction, whether through a simple mistake or brazen rudeness.

  In his article, Giles Coren explains what happened to a female stand-up friend of his. She was appearing at a gig compered by Michael McIntyre, and pleaded with him before going on not to describe her as ‘gorgeous’: ‘Men always do that when they’re introducing me and it makes it very hard to perform – it means the women in the audience hate you before you even open your mouth, and the men are just sizing you up and going, “She’s not all that.”’ But, probably out of habit, he brought her on with: ‘This next act is the absolutely gorgeous… oops, she told me not to say that, but she is.’

  In this case, McIntyre most likely said it by accident, but some male comperes are less innocent. Stand-up Tiffany Stevenson received the following patronising and rude introduction: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for another act. Now, it is a girl, so be nice because she could be a bit… well, crap.’

  The comedy community has tried to overcome this by putting together gig nights with a female-only line-up (Miranda has, in the past, hosted such a gig called ‘Lipstick and Shopping’), or with an occasional ‘token male’. But this can have the opposite effect of highlighting the very issue they are trying to solve. Nina Conti has said that it made her ‘notice I was a female comic, rather than a male one’. Isy Suttie feels similarly: ‘For me, stand-up is my job and the thing about women-only gigs is that they become like a pat on the back and I don’t understand why people are patting my back.’

  There was controversy in April 2011 when Funny Women, founded by Lynne Parker and which seeks to promote and develop new female comedy talent, announced that it would be charging a registration fee of £15 to those entering its annual competition. Comedians used Twitter as their soapbox and said what they thought of this ‘Pay-to-Play’ system. Sarah Millican offered: ‘Advice to any budding female comedians: no need to pay to play by entering Funny Women. Just be funny, write loads & work very hard.’

  Bethany Black added: ‘If Lynne hasn’t been able to raise the money to cover the costs then that’s her failure. Why should comics who are at the start of their career pay for that failure?’

  Shappi Khorsandi was equally dismissive: ‘Aspiring comics! Never pay to enter a competition! Buy a new hat instead!’

  Funny Women’s website responded: ‘So, potential female comedians of the future, you have been presented with both a choice and an opportunity: you can either take comedian Shappi Khorsandi’s advice and do what’s expected of you as a girl (namely take your registration fee and go shopping for a new hat), jump on the bandwagon and perpetuate the stereotype of the bitchy irrational female comedian who’s more interested in gossip than developing a professional profile; or you can rise up and act with the strength and poise of a woman, join us in making a statement, and be a fundamental part of taking female comedy beyond this silliness and on the next level.’

  This only inflamed the situation, and comics joined a Facebook group to boycott the competition. Jo Caulfield, whose picture was used by Funny Women in its publicity material to justify the fee, said: ‘As the website face of Funny Women Pay2Play I advise all new young female comics to AVOID us like the plague.’

  The next day, the blog post was deleted from the website, and replaced with an apology from Funny Women’s head, Lynne Parker. ‘I would like to apologise for yesterday’s blog post. I was so shocked at the responses to the introduction of the £15 registration fee and have been hugely hurt by what’s being said on Twitter and Facebook.’ To try to make amends, she continued, ‘I am a great personal fan of some of my worst critics and just so sorry that this has all been taken out of context. I really hope that we can all get past this and move on.’

  Meanwhile, on television, panel shows dominate the comedy listings. Suzanne Moore, columnist for the Mail on Sunday and the Guardian, is critical of such formats. ‘Every so often, som
eone like Miranda Hart or Josie Long comes along and reminds us that yes, women can be hilarious too, but panel show after panel show now consists of what we used to call DOTs (Dicks on Tables).’ It’s a rare panel show that features as many female guests as male ones – but the playful We Need Answers on BBC Four (on which both Hart and Long appeared) was one, and a world away from DOTs.

  Rising star Holly Walsh defends the panel-show format. ‘I really enjoy doing panel shows. I love writing jokes and I love the fact that you can’t rely on your old material – you have to come up with new stuff.’ She also points out that they are a good way of showcasing new comedians, as stand-up shows tend to only use ‘tried and tested people’.

  Germaine Greer, author of The Female Eunuch, had stirred up the debate in 2009 when she said on television that women weren’t as funny as men. To try to stop the furious response, she published a piece in the Guardian beginning, ‘I should probably not have said, in so few words on television recently, that women aren’t as funny as men. Put so baldly, the observation sounds like deliberate provocation, as if I was baiting feminists, or looking for some kind of knee-jerk response.’

  Her explanation, however, did not placate those who disapproved. As one blogger remarked, ‘Germaine Greer regrets saying, “women aren’t as funny as men” in so few words – so she says it in many, many more words.’

  In the article, she makes further provocative statements such as ‘they have not developed the arts of fooling, clowning, badinage, repartee, burlesque and innuendo’; ‘Women famously cannot learn jokes. If they try, they invariably bugger up the punchline’; ‘Put her in an improvised situation along with male comedians, and she is likely to be left speechless’; and ‘Men do the inspired lunacy; women do droll.’

  Tiffany Stevenson, who runs a gig with Zoe Lyons called Girls with Guns, was left feeling frustrated by Greer’s article. ‘The window of opportunity is already narrower for women on stage, as audiences and promoters come with prejudged notions about a woman’s ability to be funny. Germaine Greer simply perpetuates the myth that we’re not.’

  Britain has a rich history of female comedians, so it is hard to understand why this entrenched attitude has not shifted that radically over the years. Miranda Hart says, ‘As a female viewer, I’ve never felt like I needed women on the telly but actually maybe one does. Without French and Saunders or Joyce Grenfell, I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to be a female comedian.’

  Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders were one of the biggest comedy double-acts of the 1980s and 1990s, starting off at The Comic Strip, a London comedy club that also saw performances from the likes of Adrian Edmondson, Rik Mayall and Nigel Planer. In 2009, they were jointly awarded the BAFTA Fellowship, which led Miranda to tweet, ‘Bafta fellowship for French and Saunders totally deserved IMHO [In My Humble Opinion]. Their influence [has] been extraordinary and [is] often unrecognised in industry elite.’

  Other female British comedy greats over the decades have included Joyce Grenfell, Hattie Jacques, June Whitfield, Sheila Hancock, Jo Brand, Linda Smith, Jenny Eclair, Helen Lederer, Kathy Burke, Meera Syal, Morwenna Banks, Catherine Tate, Victoria Wood and Julie Walters. Miranda met Walters briefly at the 2009 BAFTAs. Although it wasn’t a perfect encounter – Julie didn’t recognise her and Miranda became flustered – she was excited enough, telling an interviewer, ‘I’ve just met one of my heroes, Julie Walters… It wasn’t the best of meetings to be honest. I was gunning that she might go, “Oh, I’ve seen your work,” but she hasn’t, and that’s fair enough.’

  Today, Victoria Wood and Julie Walters tend to restrict their collaborations to Christmas specials, French and Saunders have officially split, performing their last show on Drury Lane in 2008 (though they have reunited recently for occasional radio specials), and Catherine Tate is taking serious acting roles, usually alongside David Tennant. The award-winning Channel 4 series Smack the Pony (1999–2003) played an important role in showcasing female character comedians and writers such as Sally Phillips, Doon Mackichan and Fiona Allen. Since it ended, a handful of female sketch shows have come and gone, such as Tittybangbang, Little Miss Jocelyn (both for BBC Three) and E4’s Beehive.

  It is now time, though, for a new generation of female comics to emerge. After lying dormant on the circuit, they are now getting opportunities to appear on television. People are calling the double-act Watson & Oliver the new French & Saunders, though they enjoy playing more male parts and offer a more surreal brand of humour. Meanwhile, Emma Fryer, who showed her worth as the stoned kleptomaniac Tanya (to be pronounced ‘Tanyaaah’) in Johnny Vegas’s Ideal, has since written and starred in the BBC Two sitcom, Home Time. Elsewhere, Sharon Horgan’s series Pulling brought attention to her deliciously dark and filthy sense of humour, while Lizzie and Sarah by Julia Davis and Jessica Hynes was a pilot that many loved and thought should have been a full series. For Miranda, one of the rising stars of TV comedy is a fellow comedy actor renowned for her Big Ass Show on ITV. ‘I think someone like Katy Brand’s incredibly brave because she makes herself ridiculous, she makes herself beautiful, she does everything.’ And there are plenty of other promising figures who are gradually establishing themselves via panel games, stand-up and sitcom, Sarah Millican, Roisin Conaty, Pippa Evans, Laura Solon, Joanna Neary and Andi Osho among them.

  Over many years, American female comedians – from Roseanne to Sarah Silverman – have become popular in Britain, where their sharp brand of self-deprecation and sarcasm has found enthusiastic followings. A recent import of note has been Kristen Schaal, probably best known as Mel in Flight of the Conchords. After performing at the Edinburgh Festival and clubs across London, she has made an impression on Britain’s audiences, and her show Penelope Princess of Pets was shown as part of Channel 4’s Comedy Lab strand.

  The lady of the moment is, without doubt, Tina Fey. She stamped herself on the international consciousness with her impression of former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live, during the 2008 presidential election campaign. Since 2007, she has been a writer and lead actor (as Liz Lemon) on the sitcom 30 Rock, but some have tended to load this talented woman with the responsibility of representing funny women. Adam Frucci, who runs a comedy blog, believes: ‘She is in a tough position. Not many comedians are forced to represent their entire gender when all they are just trying to be is funny.’

  Inevitably, you can’t please everyone and some think that Liz Lemon conforms to the stereotype of the lonely woman, desperate for a man. Others believe she has only got where she is because of her looks. Jill Filipovic, founder of a blog called Feministe, says, ‘If Tina Fey were ugly, then she would not have the career that she has had. We still don’t see a lot of unconventionally attractive women on TV.’

  But Fey also receives her fair share of nasty comments about her looks. She took the opportunity of a newspaper article she had written to publicise her autobiography Bossypants to have her say, explaining, ‘When people care enough to write, the only well-mannered thing to do is to return the gift, so please indulge me as I answer some fans here.’

  So, rather than avoid reviews, Tina Fey confronts them and hits back with sassy remarks. To someone posting, ‘When is Tina going to do something about that hideous scar across her cheek?’ she sarcastically replied, ‘The trickier question is what am I going to do? I would love to get your advice, actually. I’m assuming you’re a physician, because you seem really knowledgeable about how the human body works.’

  Someone calling themselves ‘Centaurious’ sent the following missive to one site in the small hours: ‘Tina Fey is an ugly, pear-shaped, bitchy, overrated troll.’ Some would ignore such an attack, others would be affected by it, but Fey faced it with comedy. ‘To say I’m an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair… As for “ugly, pear-shaped and bitchy”? I prefer the terms “offbeat, business classassed and exhausted”, but I’ll take what I can get.’ And she can’t help but sign off with a dig
of her own: ‘Now get to bed, you crazy night owl! You have to be at Nasa early in the morning. So they can look for your penis with the Hubble telescope.’

  Just as Miranda Hart followed on from the British comic traditions of Joyce Grenfell, French and Saunders and other female performers, so Tina Fey had a foundation of American TV comedy to build on, which dated back nearly 60 years to Lucille Ball. Ball, the star of I Love Lucy in the 1950s, was a popular female lead whose physical comedy had audiences in hysterics, but she was a relatively non-threatening character. It took characters like Carla, the barmaid in Cheers played by Rhea Perlman in the 1980s and 1990s, to show that comic females on television could ‘grow a pair’. Carla was a smart ass who gave as good as she got, just as crude and biting as the boys. It could be a popular trait in stand-up comedy too – notably through the work of Joan Rivers – but the woman who led this trend on to the small screen was a certain Roseanne Barr. Transferring her stand-up character to television, Roseanne co-wrote her own show and her unyielding matriarchal voice made a huge social impact on the cultural landscape. After Roseanne, Ellen DeGeneres and Brett Butler had their own sitcom vehicles (respectively, Ellen and Grace Under Fire), while there were strong co-starring roles for Julia Louis Dreyfus (Seinfeld), Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle) and Jane Krakowski (Ally McBeal, 30 Rock) as the strong women of American sitcom.

  So, while Tina Fey is the ruling female in American comedy, Miranda Hart will end up flying the flag here in Britain. Hers is a softer, less aggressive style, and fits well with the national outlook. So, as she developed a stand-up persona for Edinburgh and the ultimate goal of television, what was Miranda hoping to achieve with her act? ‘A lot of women seem to be either very laddy in their stand-up, or don’t want to break their pretty, feminine look.’ Instead, she aimed to avoid being pigeonholed by looking for something more spontaneous. ‘I think it is a shame that more women don’t act the fool and let go a bit – that is what naturally appeals to me but maybe that is just my personality.’ And this isn’t comedy for or about women that she is aiming for. Again, it’s that universal appeal. ‘I think as a comedian you’ve got to be free and you’ve got to have a confidence and you’ve got to be completely free to be laughed at. I see myself as a performer, not as a woman performer or woman writer. I just think of what is funny.’