Stand up comedy is bigger than ever.
DVD sales of your favourite TV comic are huge. And those same comics perform to sold our arenas across the country.
You'll hear different explanations. Some cite the 'Comedy Roadshow' on the beeb for giving stand ups a national vehicle. Others will tell you it's because the economy is bad and everyone needs a giggle when the economy is bad. Maybe it's because observational stories about our collective childhoods are funnier than ever?
...actually I shouldn't join the backlash about observational comedy ... have you noticed people doing that...don't you just hate it when that happens....
The truth is that comedy maybe 'bigger' as an industry but it's also becoming more polarized than ever.
I've just come back from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It was a blast and I can confirm unlimited shenanigans were available ...24 hours a day if you wanted them. If the festival is any barometer comedy is huge now. There were over 800 listed comedy acts and that doesn't the unintentionally funny festival act (I'm looking at you Paul Daniels). There are acts in over 200 venues, it's like everywhere in Edinburgh is a venue. To be honest it's a little out of hand - I got up one morning and opened my wardrobe and found a 3 man Czechoslovakian improv troop.
They were using my socks to depict man's struggle with mortality. It was mediocre at best.
The vast majority of these acts are desperate for audiences and publicity. You see the same few faces on billboards everywhere round town as the acts at the top suck up the audience and the majority of the money. It's a snapshot of the industry itself and the super sharp pyramid that exists with the few at the top prospering and most at the bottom struggling and desperate to move up.
This may not be true forever though as the comedy industry, like many others especially in entertainment, is about to change.
I spent a lot of my time presenting the first ever-live streaming online chat show from the Fringe. Festival Frank was a huge critical and audience hit (I assume) and you can check it out http://www.festivalfrank.com It was a lot of fun to host and make and hopefully that comes over watching. Despite being our first year we had more people watching live than the biggest live venue at the fringe; that's the huge reach of the internet.
It was possible because of the support of the Guilded Balloon and also production company Volcano City. They're at the cutting edge of filming and streaming stuff live but the technology is becoming cheaper and cheaper and increasingly accessible. It may not be next year but very soon I believe a huge number of acts will be streaming their shows live. This may be for free; one day it will be for a fee probably on the act's own website or internet TV channel.
This change will happen across the entertainment industry and it may already be starting with American stand up legend Dave Chapelle rumoured to be working on his own internet show. I think it'll take a big name like this to do it to start a tidal wave of performers putting their live shows online on a channel they control.
The advantages are huge. It allows you to do things on your own terms and control the output (once and for all we'll get to find out if TV Commissioners really do have the best taste in comedy...the suspense), reach an unlimited worldwide audience and, eventually, charge money to watch. When it happens this will be the elimination of the middle man, the channels, DVD distributors, live venue owners and so on will all be either eliminated or have their share of the artists fee massively reduced.
Maybe this won't end the polarization of comedy completely after all their will always be stars. But it should flatten the pyramid at least a little.
Until then comedians will continue to scramble for venues, an audience and the vital oxygen of publicity. I'll be back next year to watch as many of them as possible and host some more 'red-hot-comedy-chat'. I suspect the truth where Edinburgh is concerned is that they could put the whole Fringe online and people would still travel north every August. It's the shenanigans you see - can't put a price on unlimited shenanigans.