Given the allegations against Bill Cosby, can we ever enjoy his jokes again? Should other comedians tell them? And has he tainted the artform of comedy itself? These are some of the questions raised by Greg Fitzsimmons, Emmy-winning writer of The Ellen DeGeneres Show and a standup comic, who has begun to perform Cosby’s comedy routines on stage. “It’s less heinous a crime for me to be stealing his material than what he did stealing from all those women,” Fitzsimmons told Esquire magazine. In his interviewer’s words: “It’s using comedy’s most verboten act [ie, joke theft] as a means of defending it from a man whose crimes have spoiled our memories of his canonical work.”
Here’s how it works. At a recent gig in New Jersey, Fitzsimmons embarked on one of Cosby’s best-known skits, the dentist routine from his 1983 show Himself. (“Dentists tell you not to pick your teeth with any sharp metal objects. Then you sit in their chair, and the first thing they grab is an iron hook… ”) Fitzsimmons got through half the routine, he reports, with no indication that the audience had identified it. So he told them it was Cosby’s, adding that: “I might as well do it, because I don’t think he’s got enough time to sue me right now!”
Fitzsimmons – a big fan of Cosby in his youth – tells the interviewer he’s still piloting this curious magpie act, still working out how to make it register as – what, exactly? Punishment? Revenge? Redemption – for the jokes, if not the joker? While admitting that Cosby’s performing career is probably over, Fitzsimmons argues that “he’s still got this body of work. So how can you cheapen that somehow? How do you dilute that?”
And why (others might ask) would you want to? Other comedians – such as Eddie Murphy at last month’s Mark Twain award ceremony – content themselves with mocking Cosby. Other artists explore what his story says about race, power and sex. Fitzsimmons’s project seems to be motivated by outrage at Cosby’s alleged acts. I sympathise with his desire for justice by other means (“I want to hurt him”), but it’s not clear that this is an effective way of executing it. Yes, joke theft is “verboten” in comedy, but only when you’re passing off another act’s jokes as your own. As soon as you credit the creator of the gag, it stops being an affront and starts being a tribute, no?
Fitzsimmons partly acknowledges this, telling Esquire, first, that he loves Cosby’s comedy and regrets it’s been tainted by the performer’s personal life; and second that, performing the material, “the tricky part I’m finding is I don’t want to glorify [Cosby] by doing it”. He senses his project needs more work, and wonders about whether to amend Cosby’s material to refer directly to his crimes, or to perform only those routines (like the one about Spanish fly) that seem retrospectively sinister in light of the rape allegations. A bit of thrashing out to do, then – but the plan is that other comics should join Fitzsimmons in plundering Cosby’s back catalogue, so this becomes not one man’s crusade against Cosby, but a whole industry’s.
I can see that would be a powerful gesture, both as an expression of solidarity with Cosby’s apparent victims and a zero-tolerance approach to those who’ve tried to excuse his activities. But I do find curious the Esquire article’s implication that comedy needs to defend itself from, or absolve itself of, Cosby’s behaviour. As if comedy were implicated in what Cosby has done; as if his alleged activities have made the artform itself suspect. You could make that argument, and it would focus on the faux intimacy of comedy, the power it grants the sole performer on stage, the implication that everything can be laughed off. But I wouldn’t buy it – any more than I’d accept the argument that Ian Watkins of the Lostprophets should make us wary of Welsh bands, or Rolf Harris of paintbrush-toting players of the wobble-board. I think that’s a claim too much for what is otherwise an intriguing, underdeveloped project – one that hasn’t decided whether it’s about punishing Cosby or about reclaiming the material from the man and celebrating it. Fitzsimmons may think it can do both, but I doubt it.
Three to See
Mike Wozniak
The Man Down star brings his excellent new show to London: a classic slice of anecdotal standup in which the bluff, Basil Fawlty-alike Wozniak struggles to return a stowaway cat to its owners.
• Invisible Dot, London, 9-14 November.
Chortle comedy book festival
“The only event of its kind dedicated to comedy books” returns for a third outing, featuring David Baddiel previewing his new children’s book and Isy Suttie reading from her new memoir - among others.
• At Hornsey Town Hall, London, 7-8 November.
Dawn French
When Dawn French premiered her first solo show on the road last year, the Guardian’s Alfred Hickling called it “less of a standard standup gig than a form of high-concept public atonement”. Now that self-revealing effort, entitled 30 Million Minutes, transfers to the West End.
• At Vaudeville theatre, London, 11 November until 9 December.
