Is the gay comedy style dead?

The ‘tiresome’ reliance on arch irony and shrill double entendres also meant that the theatrically ostentatious style was in danger of being in an artistic cul-de-sac, a panel of experts suggested.

Andy Medhurst, an academic from the University of Sussex, said: ‘When seriousness was defined by male heterosexuality, one way in which queers and queen responded was to make fun of that seriousness, of the certainties of heterosexual masculinity.

‘But now the circumstances are very different from when the radio comedy Round The Horne was around in the Sixties an homosexuality was illegal. Now you can’t watch mainstream TV on Saturday night and not see camp – even if it’s straight people doing it. Mainstream means democratisation, so it’s not necessarily a bad thing – but there is a curious nostalgia for an era when legal restrictions were quite appalling.’

Amy Lamé, the entertainer and broadcaster who promotes London cabaret club Duckie, said: ‘Some parts of modern camp are becoming distinctly less interesting than ten, 20, 30 years ago – becoming so mainstream means it loses its bite, which is what makes camp so distinctive. When Graham Norton becomes the mainstream, how does that grass roots of camp respond to that?’

But she added: ‘In some way, gay men are responsible for killing camp. Susan Sontag said, “camp sees everything in quotation marks” and I find that quite tiring – trivialising the serious, and making the trivial serious How do we get beyond the clichés?’

Lame also argued that much of camp culture was not just targeting dominant heterosexual culture, but was also misogynistic. ‘ How many terrible drag act do we have where the only joke is that women’s bodies are different and disgusting – isn’t that hilarious.’

Comedian Christopher Green added: ‘When I first encountered camp, the misogyny was the one thing I didn’t understand. Why did they hate women, yet they often acted like them, spoke like them, and in their spare time dressed up as them?’

The panel at yesterday’s British Library event What’s So Funny? felt that the reduction of everything to a double entendre was the most dull aspect of modern camp.

Comedian Simon Fanshaw said: ‘High camp is beautiful, inventive and innovative, but with low camp, everything becomes a ghastly double entendre

Green, who performs on the comedy circuit as Tina C and Ida Barr, agreed, saying: ‘There’s nothing really you can’t say these days about sex. So you can’t really make double entendres because everything is out there.’

He added: ‘What I tire of is that in the mainstream as a gay man, all you’re allowed to be is camp I really love Alan Carr, but I hate the way they say that’s what all gay entertainment is – we must have moved on from that by now.’

Fanshawe agreed: ‘When I was young, camp was terrifying – partly because I thought “do I have to be like that?”’

Medhurst added: ‘Camp is not sexy, sensual or erotic. That’s why camp icons can be straight as they are worshipped, but they are not in the erotic imaginary.’

Playwright Neil Bartlett wanted to make the distinction between camp and kitsch. ‘Kitsch just wants to be liked. West End musicals are kitsch and just want to be liked – and I don’t like them.

Lamé agreed: ‘If they’re telling you it’s camp, it’s not camp.’

Medhurst added: ‘What bugs me is when straight friends tell me what I think I should like because its camp. I’m a homosexual man and hate, loathe and despite Glee. Heteros do what they always do: come in and take over bits of other people’s culture.’

Green said camp was all about the precise use of language, although Bartlett felt its strength was in its execution more than its writing, saying: ‘It’s all in the performance. It’s very difficult to write camp down. The funniest thing Kenneth Williams and High Paddick said on Round The Horn was “Oooh, hello”; they managed to get so much meaning into that phrase.

‘Camp is always performed by people who value performance over content – they have to be because nature dealt them a bad hand in some way.’

Bartlett added that he hoped camp would overcome its current crisis, saying: ‘It’s too good a tradition to let go. ‘

But he conceded ‘it’s an annoying truth that some people can move into the mainstream and remain as wonderful as they always were. Paul O’Grady on daytime TV is a subversive and funny as seeing him the Vauxhall Tavern in 1983.’

And Fanshawe said that despite mainstream acceptance of homosexuality, there was still a battle to be fought as ‘tolerance doesn’t necessarily breed tolerance in the intolerant.’

Published: 19 Jan 2011