Giving away comedians’ jokes is no laughing matter

Alex Brooker and Adam Hills at last weekend’s Stand Up to Cancer fundraiser. Photograph: Ken McKay/Rex

There’s long been a debate – it will never end – about newspapers quoting comedians’ jokes. I’ve had my say, but that was back when the practice could, arguably, be justified in the context of, well, an actual review. Innocent days! Comedy promoter David Johnson, whose acts include Stewart Lee and the Rubberbandits, has now banned the Daily Telegraph from his shows, and called for others to follow suit, after the paper ran a story about “the four best jokes” from a comedy fundraiser for the homeless charity Centrepoint. It wasn’t a review, but a list of one-liners reproduced without permission.

I hear you cry: “Whither the career of delinquent Irish rappers the Rubberbandits without doting notices in the home counties’ gazette?” Well, Johnson is prepared to make the sacrifice, and is right to stand up to this baleful phenomenon. In fact, he delighted the comedy industry two months ago in an open letter denying free tickets to the Ambassadors Theatre Group, which he accused of exploiting audiences and artists.

And now he’s taking on a practice that’s increasing as the battle for e-traffic gets desperate. All comedy reviewers have taken that most marrow-chilling call from an editor, the one that demands a roundup of the best jokes from the Edinburgh fringe or from the career of someone recently deceased. In the past few years, Guardian coverage of the TV channel Dave’s award for supposedly “best joke of the fringe” has received more hits than anything else we published during the festival. It doesn’t matter how often comedy insiders like me explain that jokes are an artist’s livelihood, or that quoting one-liners misrepresents how most comedians make people laugh. The point is, they’re cheap and they’re clickbait.

But the Telegraph has upped the ante. It’s one thing to compile one-liners from a festival, or after someone has died. In both cases the practice can be justified as a way of evoking or summing up something sprawling and diffuse (a career; a month-long event). In the festival context, a comedian may even see it – as with the Dave award – as an accolade to be included. It’s quite another thing to regularly cherry-pick jokes from standup gigs. Journalistically, it will yield thin gruel – in the case of the Centrepoint item, four out-of-context nuggets to raise a wan smile and evoke precisely nothing about the event. (One of the comics quoted, Josh Widdicombe, later claimed the joke in question wasn’t even his.)

And ethically? Well, it’s bootlegging, isn’t it? Appropriating intellectual property and selling it for profit. In a review, the comedian at least gains a considered critical response to their work, along with substantial coverage. In a roundup of jokes they merely have their material nicked and traduced.

It’s understandable, then, that Johnson asks “publicists and venues [to] stop all comps to the Telegraph comedy critics immediately”. (Although it’s a shame to punish the critics, who are not to blame here.) But the paper is fighting its corner: this weekend, after Johnson’s ban, it ran Stand Up to Cancer: the 10 best jokes in the wake of Channel 4’s Friday-night broadcast of the charity event. You could argue that, because the event was televised, ownership of the jokes (such as they are) was partly surrendered. But publication suggests the Telegraph is chuffed with its new way of generating cheap clickbait, and if that comes at the price of Rubberbandits reviews, well, it’ll take the hit.

Three to see

Rebecca Humphries

One of the sleeper hits of the Edinburgh fringe, a breakout show for Edinburgh rookie Humphries, Dizney Rascal now comes to the Brighton comedy fringe. Expect spoof songs, princess worship and some nicely spiky satire wrapped up in a love-in for Uncle Walt.
• 27 and 28 October, Otherplace, Brighton. Box office: 07800 983290.

Sara Pascoe
Hard to believe, but Sara Pascoe – by any measure one of the most exciting current standups – has never undertaken a UK tour. Until now. This week she brings her Edinburgh show, which addresses relationships throughout history (and more specifically, her own), to the nation.
• 24 October at the Pavilion, Brighton. Box office: 01273 709708. Then touring.

TJ and Dave
Exciting news for improv fans – or at least, it would be, if it weren’t sold out. This US duo, who I was lucky enough to see in New York seven years ago, are among the most celebrated long-form improvisers in the world. If you can inveigle your way into this one-off London date, do so.
• 27 October at the Nursery, London.