Through It All I’ve Always Laughed, Count Arthur Strong (Faber & Faber 2013)
The pictures are much better on the radio. But the pay and publicity are much worse, so radio comedians want to get on TV. That’s what happened to Little Britain and The League of Gentlemen. And though they lost a lot when they transferred, they were good on TV too. And they made their performers big stars.
Count Arthur Strong got on TV too, but the man behind the character, Steve Delaney, hasn’t become a big star. I don’t know how good he was on TV, but I do know how good he was on radio. Very good. The Count Arthur Radio Show isn’t as imaginative or as weird as Little Britain or The League of Gentlemen, but in its quieter way it’s just as funny. Or funnier. But it took me a while to tune in, as it were. The start of the show put me off at first. Count Arthur announces in a jaunty voice: “Count Arthur Strong’s Radio Show!” With rhotacismus. So I used to switch off almost straightaway. I thought the show consisted of silly voices and would-be whimsy. Then I listened properly to one episode and was converted. Count Arthur is very funny and very well-performed. The character is a deluded, would-be actor, raconteur, and expert Egyptologist and is obviously based on Hancock’s Half-Hour. But he doesn’t have the realism or melancholy of Hancock. And for me he’s better.
That said, I don’t think he works anywhere near as well on paper as he does on the radio. His misunderstandings and malapropisms are far funnier with the spoken word, whether he’s dragging a long-suffering shop-assistant or barman into a tangle of non sequiturs and misplaced accusations or delivering one of his ridiculous speeches and lectures. He slurs and splutters when he speaks, which adds to the comedy of what he’s saying. He can’t do that in print, though Steve Delaney tries to do the equivalent. This book is presented as though it’s a typed manuscript by Count Arthur, so he forgets to turn off the caps-lock, mangles spellings, misuses or forgets punctuation, and annotates the pages in biro or uses them for his shopping-lists.
And yes, all that is funny. But not as funny as the spoken stuff. And if you’re familiar with the spoken stuff, you’ll recognize a lot of recycled or previewed material. I recognized one early bit in the book from a recording of one of Count Arthur’s stage-shows. It’s one of funniest things I’ve ever heard him deliver, but if I hadn’t heard it first, would I have found it very funny in print? Maybe not. It’s a rare bit of risqué, you might say, because Count Arthur doesn’t usually rely on double-entendre or celebrity gossip. Here it is from the book:
She always looked younger that she was, did Mother. In fact, we’re all like that in my family. My Uncle Earnest looked like a toddler right up into his seventies. We’ve all got elastic skin like Mother had. Oh yes. I’ve never had any of my buttocks siphoned off and squirted into my forehead like some of them, thank you very much! Cliff Richard has it done more than once a fortnight! It’s a wonder he can sit down. His bottom must be red raw some nights. Lulu, she’s another one. Oh dear! It would be dreadful if they got the syringes mixed up and you ended up with Cliff Richards buttocks in your face. I wouldn’t know where to put myself. I mean I liked, ‘Mistletoe and Wine’, but I wouldn’t want his buttocks in my face.
In the stage-show, that made the audience howl with laughter. I think it’s still funny in print, but I don’t think this book captures much of what makes Count Arthur Strong so good and so funny as a radio or stage performer. Where it works, it works by reminding you of what the character sounds and acts like, not in its own right.
Papyrocentric Performativity 