It is difficult to resist the premise of Stand Up & Deliver (Channel 4), which aims to turn famous non-comedians into passable standups in just two weeks, via the mentorship and support of eminent comedians. Anyone who has spent a bit of time watching live comedy will know that even top-flight professionals find it tough from time to time, so watching amateurs attempt to make a room full of strangers laugh promises delicious schadenfreude. And it is all in aid of Stand Up to Cancer, so you can feel worthy about laughing at their struggles.
The casting is magnificent: the Rev Richard Coles, the reality mainstay Curtis Pritchard, the former Corrie star Katie McGlynn, the Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi and, best of all, the Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder. All have experience of performing for the public, but trying to get them to channel that into being deliberately funny is as hard as might be expected and then harder again. Their mentors – David Baddiel, Judi Love, Zoe Lyons, Nick Helm and Jason Manford, respectively – seem curious about the prospect of moulding a comedian. Then they find out what they have to work with.
To kick things off, the non-comedians have to perform two minutes of unscripted standup, so that the mentors can look for strengths and weaknesses. It is like the opening rounds of MasterChef, when the contestants have to show off their raw skills, which usually involves someone knocking up an undercooked risotto and hoping for the best. These first attempts are very much a series of undercooked risottos, although there is a perverseness to the concept, in that not being funny – in this context – is funny.
McGlynn is determined but self-conscious and gets easily frustrated with herself, while Pritchard can’t stop laughing before he gets to his jokes, which are usually on the smutty side. Coles is polished, but holding something back. Ryder is unpolished and holds nothing back. Warsi turns out to be the big surprise, in that she seems to be pretty funny from the off. “I’m famously on the Isis kill list,” is certainly a grabby opener.
Helm is reluctant to be partnered with her, owing to her being “overtly Tory”, as he puts it. He makes it plain that he would rather have had anyone else, which is more awkward than any of the bad jokes. He has to get over his preconceptions about her, while she has to loosen up and let go. Their story is a staple of these kinds of shows, with the pair going on the kind of journey that the cameras love. “I’m not doing that on stage; it’s too much swearing,” Warsi says to Helm, having just sworn up a storm in rehearsals during an off-the-cuff rant (which is, of course, now on national television).
Then there is Ryder, a man who should have no trouble with material, but whose attention deficit hyperactivity disorder makes it difficult for him to channel his thoughts into anything coherent. You get the impression that Manford thought he had won the lottery when he was matched with Ryder, only to be disabused of the notion. As he points out, being the funny bloke in the pub is not the same as performing standup to an audience of thousands, or else everyone would be doing it.
Even telling Ryder a joke proves to be funny, although perhaps not in the way Manford would have liked. As Manford launches into a bit about his kids, Ryder is incredulous: “You’re joking, mate!” “I am joking, yeah,” says Manford, the scale of his surreal task becoming plain. But Ryder’s stories, when he relaxes into telling them, offer a series’ worth of entertainment, never mind a five-minute set. All I will say is that I will never eat tomatoes again without checking where they came from.
Many people harbour fantasies of trying out standup, but this show dismantles any romantic notions that it would be easy, or fun. As Lyons says, after 20 years in the business, she still wonders why she is doing it: “You could have been a vet!” But Stand Up & Deliver also suggests that it could be therapeutic. By the end of this first part, I was so invested in their “journeys” that I forgot there was a competitive element. At this stage, anyone could win. But hearing Ryder tell that story about tomatoes means we are all winners.
