Stewart Lee: in praise of Ted Chippington Photograph: Yui Mok/PA.
Tonight at the Bloomsbury Theatre, comedian Stewart Lee hosts Tedstock, a tribute to the forgotten 80s stand-up, Ted Chippington. But Chippington isn't alone in having fallen from comedy favour. Mel Smith, heavyweight of 80s mirth, has recently been heard remarking that no one knows who he is anymore. Smith is just one of many comedians to topple from a far greater height than Ted - who, after all, was pretty obscure the first time around.
But do any of these individuals deserve - as Lee clearly believes Ted does - rehabilitation? And what does the fickle fate of, say, Phil Cool, Paul Squires and David Copperfield (no, not that one!) say about the entertainment industry? Time was when rubber-faced loon Cool's BBC1 series was bagging a host of telly awards, when Copperfield was rubbing shoulders with Lenny Henry and Tracey Ullman in 1981 sketch show Three of a Kind, and when Squires was an ITV primetime fixture and the butt of Rik Mayall's jokes on The Young Ones.
Look on their works, ye mighty, and despair! Or, in other words: Mitchell and Webb, start panicking. It's surprise that makes us laugh; the shock of the incongruous. More than any other art form, novelty matters to comedy. Dennis Pennis, Mike Yarwood, the Grumbleweeds: they came, we laughed, we got fed up. Then, 20 years later, we extend them a revival. If they're lucky. The sunshine of critical acclaim now beams on the Goodies and Benny Hill while the mists of time swirl as thickly as ever around Dick Emery (whose sketch show filled front rooms for nearly 20 years) and big-handed Tory cheerleader Kenny Everett.
If you could give comic history a shuffle, which jokers would you pluck out of the pack? I'd claim more credit for Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson's forgotten sitcom The High Life. But then I would: I'm Scottish. Then there's Peter Richardson, a founding father of alternative comedy, elbowed out of The Young Ones to make way for Christopher Ryan. He might have been as popular as Mayall; instead, he's directing Carry on London with Vinnie Jones. I'd bring back Rob Newman, if he'd let me, but Newman willfully fled TV and stadium celebrity in favour of novel-writing, activism, and a more intimate, experimental brand of stand-up.
Perhaps Stewart Lee will shine the spotlight back on these neglected talents one day. That's if Lee himself isn't soon pitched back into obscurity, as comedy's cruel wheel of fortune takes another spin...
