One mincing Messiah, one Everyman drunk
COMEDY: Brand, Stanhope epitomize difference in Brit, U.S. styles
Two comics perform in Vancouver before month’s end, one quintessentially British, the other equally American, and each with a proud record of making people angry.
The Brit is Russell Brand, the movie star and celebrity divorcee (from pop star Katy Perry), who performs Saturday at Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
The Americanis Doug Stanhope, the “drunk American comic,” actor and would-be presidential candidate, who performs Aug. 31 at the Rickshaw Theatre.
Brand is on his worldwide Messiah Complex Tour, which also features, his website says, “Jesus Christ, Che Guevara, Ghandi, Malcolm X and Hitler).”
Brand, ahem, will be the one wearing the feather boa.
Stanhope crossed Canada on what he calls his Tiny Blisters Tour, which sounds bad for our reputation, though it’s surely better than being on his upcoming S--- Town Comedy Tour in the United States in September.
Having the two in Vancouver in the space of a week is a grand opportunity to see the differences between British and American comedy — to see, as an acquaintance of mine puts it, “brainbased” British humour and “gut-based” American laughs.
Compare the classic British humour of Monty Python’s Flying Circus to the classic American humour of Saturday Night Live; the former requires at least a cursory knowledge of the Spanish Inquisition, or philosophers, while the latter requires only an appetite for the broad silliness of cone heads, or a guy living in a van down by the river.
(These are general observations, and not to say Monty Python was never silly or that SNL was never smart.)
There are also tremendous differences in the style of the two comics.
Brand is a decadent creature, like some louche attendant in the court of a French king.
Stanhope is more an Everyman, a working stiff on the comic circuit who would rather play bars than comedy clubs and who invites people round for a visit when he’s home in the Arizona dessert.
Differences aside, Brand and Stanhope have a lot in common as performers — each is more intelligent than they may initially seem to be, and each is given to moments of genuine profundity, albeit outrageously so.
The following is a further comparison of Brand and Stanhope, culled from various media/Internet/movie/TV/book sources that may create a fuller picture of each comic:
Brand on the U.S.: “I know America to be a forward-thinking country, right, because otherwise, you know, would you have let that retarded cowboy fella be president for eight years? We were very impressed. We thought it was nice of you to let him have a go, because, in England, he wouldn’t be trusted with a pair of scissors.”
Stanhope on the U.K.: “The BBC knows how to do TV. They run six episodes and stop, quit while they’re ahead. They’re not like American sitcoms going into their 19th season, and they have to add a f---ing alien or some random child they had out of wedlock that appears on the scene.”
Brand’s moment of low judgment: The day after 9/11, he showed up to work at MTV dressed as Osama bin Laden. Was fired.
Stanhope’s moment of low judgment: In 2008, he created a website to raise funds to pay for an abortion for Bristol Palin, the pregnant, teen daughter of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.