Why the pandemic might just be an opportunity for stand-up comedians

Just at the moment you just have to take the opportunities as they come, says comedian Ivo Graham.
Ivo GrahamIvo Graham
Ivo Graham

The next for Ivo is an Off The Kerb Comedy Night with Elliot Steel and Tom Lucy at the Hawth in Crawley on Friday, October 16 at 7.30pm – a night of socially distanced laughs in the main theatre.

“It must be very, very difficult for anyone trying to book things at moment,” Ivo says.

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“You are just so aware that things could get worse. Half the country is already in lockdown again.

“I am on the mailing lists of lots of music venues and summer festivals, and lots of things are getting announced for next year, and they are being announced with a great fanfare and no reference to the pandemic, but after the last few months, you are wondering whether they are actually going to be able to happen.

“But really you have got to hope. You can’t be saying ‘Pearl Jam might be playing a concert here next year.’ You have got to say that they will. You have got to believe, and it is the same with my gigs.

“I have got quite a lot being booked for November and December, and into the calendar it goes. I am looking quite busy… but you just have to remember that it is very much subject to how things are.”

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Equally, that means enjoying the moment – and Ivo is relishing the prospect of his Crawley date. At the very least, it means a move away from the strange new phenomenon of car park gigs – “not something I would be wanting to be doing too much!

“With car park gigs, you have just got to assume and hope that people are enjoying it. One gig I did in Blackheath, the audience were encouraged to honk in appreciation. It didn’t fell like it.”

As he says, after a lifetime of thinking of a hooting horn as a warning of a near-death experience, it was hard suddenly to rewire your brain into thinking of it as approval and applause.

“But that was not as bad as another gig I did in Stratford where they were not allowed to honk because of local noise restrictions.

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“It was just the purest silence. You just had to think of it as like doing a monologue for the radio.

“But a lot of comedy clubs are now opening again but very carefully abiding by the social distancing restrictions. And in some ways it is not very different.

“You are getting people sitting in their couples or in fours or whatever and you are getting cabaret-style seating, and it doesn’t look empty.

“I am not accustomed to staring out at a packed room all the time anyway!

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“There have been lots of times where a gig I am doing is a quarter full mainly due to lack of demand rather than a global viral condition!

“But at a lot of these gigs there is a great atmosphere of two-way goodwill. The acts are delighted to be working again, and the audiences are delighted to have something to see again.”

As for audiences, those entrenched in their “It’s all a hoax” beliefs will go anywhere; those who are cautious will stay in.

“And those of us in the middle are trying to do relatively normal things while still getting pangs of ‘Oh! That tube carriage was a bit full!’ or ‘I haven’t washed my hands for a couple of hours!’

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“You are just trying to stop yourself drifting off into complacency.”

As for the pandemic, as Ivo says, it is perfectly possible to address it through comedy: “There is a lot of observational relatable comedy that you can take from the past few months.

“It is such a rare thing that people will have a shared experience that is so universal.

“Everybody has been in lockdown. Everybody has had the claustrophobia of their own homes. Everybody has watched the watershed briefings.

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“Everybody had torn their hair out at Dominic Cummings. Everybody has done Joe Wicks.

“So much of comedy is through that relatability of experience.”

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• Talk is increasing of further lockdowns in the UK. What do you think of the situation? Join the Big Conversation and have your say on everything from healthcare to how the pandemic has affected you personally and how we make our communities stronger: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/bc-worthing