Stephen Fry on American vs British Comedy
1)
0:00
We have time for one more question, which will come from the gentleman there. You talked about the American sense of humour, we haven't touched on it, and you haven't mentioned it so much.
The British sense of humour, but do you think they differ hugely, and if so, what accounts for that difference?
It's an excellent point, I think. I mean, it strikes at the heart of what American optimism is, which is an essential thing, but not any optimism, but a refusal to see oneself in a bad light.
2)
00:31
I can talk about this for far too long, but if you go to an American Bookstore, by far the biggest section is self-help and improvement. The idea is that life is refinable and improvable, and that you can learn a technique for anything.
Whether it's making love, being a businessman, marriage, cooking, losing weight, whatever it is, there's an NLP way of doing it, an Anthony Robbins way of doing it, and things they didn't teach at Harvard way of doing it.
3)
01:02
There is an unbelievable sense that life is improvable that you can be lectured at or indeed given a sermon at you know that that's it's the Protestant base of America that that things are done by text and by works as opposed to by submission and by you see a Doctrine in the way that the higher Church.
European rump, we still believe, and there is a sense of original sin in Europe. I mean, this is a bizarre theory that I won't push to its limit, but when it comes to Comedy, it's satisfactory.
4)
01:37
I think it's evident that the American comic hero is a wise-cracker who is above his material and those around him.
The British comic put it this way: the American comic is like John Balushi or someone like that.
The scene in Animal House where a fellow plays folk music on a guitar and John Belushi picks up the guitar and destroys it, and the cinema loved it because it just smashes it.
And then Waggles his eyebrows at the camera everyone says God he's so great well. A British comedian would want to play the folk singer you.
5)
02:16
We want to play the failufailurethe Great British comic heroes are are are people who want life to be better and on whom life craps from a terrible height and whose sense of dignity is constantly compromised by the World letting them down.
They want to wear a tie, but they're not quite smart enough to wear an old-school tie, because they're kind of from a lower middle class. They are Arthur Lowe in Dad's Army, Anthony Aloysius Hancock, Basil Fawlty, Del Boy, and Blackadder. They're not quite in the upper echelons.
6)
02:53
They try to be decent and correct; everything tries to be proper. They're even David Brent from The Office, and their lack of dignity is embarrassing. They are a failure, they are an utter failure. They're brought up to expect respect, decency, and being able to wear a blazer in public.
And everyone around and goes Where is the American Hero is the Smart talking Jim Cary, and he's Ben Stiller, and he's you know whoever, he just goes back, they can wise crack their way way out of any situation, they win the girl, they're smarter.
7)
03:27
They' got the biggest knob in the room the British guy arrives in the room and says oh my god I've left my left my knob behind I haven't even got one and in a sense comedy is the microcosm that allows us to examine the entire difference between our two cultures.
Ours is bathed in Failufailurewe make a glory of our failufailureelebrate it we love the fact that every Great British comic hero can go into a dictionary he's a bit of a basil faulty he's a bit of a captain mannering he's a bit of a Steptoe he's a bit of a he's a bit of a Burick.
8)
03:57
He's a bit of a blackout, he's a bit of a this, he's a you know that character that we recognise, all of them, so flawed as to be an utter disaster, but you can't do that with American Comedy.
You can't say he's a bit of who's that chap in Friends, or he's a bit of a you know, it doesn't work, they're not characters at all, they're just brilliant repositories of fantastic killer one-liners.
Stephen Fry on American vs British Comedy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k2AbqTBxao
Shakespeare: Twelfth Night (Shakespeare's Globe)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDPT2e26SgY
