{"id":325,"date":"2019-08-30T12:02:11","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T11:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=325"},"modified":"2019-08-30T12:08:50","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T11:08:50","slug":"looking-for-laughs-the-chase-is-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2019\/08\/30\/looking-for-laughs-the-chase-is-on\/","title":{"rendered":"LOOKING FOR LAUGHS? THE CHASE IS ON !"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At all\nacross the arts<\/em> we often speak of the synergy between poetry and comedy as\none art form often feeds the other. We were pretty amazed though when we\ndiscovered more links in the chain:  general knowledge and quizzing skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We discovered this when laughter rang as\npunch lines were delivered with perfect comic timing at a Comedy Store event at\nBury Met and at the monthly poetry reading of Those Bard From The Baum held in\nthat same week in the neighbouring town of Rochdale. In our years of following\nSidetracks and Detours all across the\narts<\/em>  we have learned that when it\ncomes to comedy and poetry we should \u00b4treat those two imposters just the same\u00b4\nand two gigs in a short time frame proved the point. The Baum provided the\npoetry and The Met in Bury gave us an evening on which two guest comics\nfollowed the advice given to all aspiring writers and simply talked about what\nthey know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alfie Moore has created a real niche\nmarket, being surely the only serving police sergeant on the comedy circuit. He\ndiscussed life in the locker room, on the leafy suburban beat and at the sharp\nend of inner city riots as he reviewed the changing relationship between the\npolice and the general public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The headline act was Paul Sinha (pictured left). He, too, spoke of what he knew, giving a humorous insight into life as a first generation immigrant who, being a qualified doctor making his way up and down the comedy clubs of the country and openly gay, doesn\u2019t fit many social stereotypes. His comedy is edgy and shows quite clearly how he, a non-conformist, employs confidence bordering on arrogance to disguise fear and uncertainty. Paul Sinha also described himself as \u201cBritain\u2019s eighteenth ranked quizzer\u201d who appears regularly on the tv quiz show The Chase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presented by ex footballer turned comic\nand actor, Bradley Walsh, The Chase is a British television quiz show in which\ncontestants play, individually but in teams of four, against one of a squad of\nprofessional quizzers, who can prevent them claiming a cash prize by beating\nthem in a head to head final \u00b4chase.\u00b4 The programme has become one of ITV\u00b4s\nmost successful ever daytime shows, often gathering audiences of between three\nand five million. The Chase has won a host of tv awards that have helped it\nbecome a successful international franchise with versions being shown in almost\na dozen countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinha joined the squad of chasers in\nseries four but was, by then, already a serial tv quizzer, having appeared on a\nversion of Eggheads, Brain Of Britain, Mastermind, University Challenge and The\nWeakest Link. Like all the chasers he enjoys badinage with the host so Walsh\nand viewers have nicknamed Paul as The Sinnerman or even as Sarcasm In A Suit.\nWhatever his nicknames on the programme may be, the quizzer is, as we have\nalready stated, a fully qualified doctor and successful stand-up comedian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the recent diagnosis of\nParkinson\u00b4s, a disease unlikely to become any easier for him, is treated by\nPaul as comedy material for his act. He told The Daily Mirror, in a recent\ninterview that \u00b4seeing the funny side of the debilitating condition helps\nprevent me from descending into self-pity.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has written about his fight against the condition revealingly, honestly and bravely in his regular blog posts at https:\/\/www.bing.com\/news\/search?q=Paul+Sinha+Blog&qpvt=paul+sinha+blog&FORM=EWRE<\/a> but even as I write this article has come news that he will shortly be leaving The Chase. He has, however, made positive news, too, this week in celebrating Ben Stokes\u00b4 ashes-stirring batting in the recent third test of England\u00b4s now finely balanced cricket series against Australia. If the purpose of art is to lift a lid on society and reflect on the collective and individual human condition, then the best stand-up comics, like Paul, are artists in the same way as are painters or poets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ancient Greeks often highlighted comedy\nand tragedy and Mr. Rudyard Kipling declared centuries later, in an exceedingly\ngood poem, that such imposters must be treated \u201cjust the same.\u201d Shakespeare\nemployed comedic characters as commentators on their age and The Nurse, in Romeo and Juliet<\/em>, also offers comic\nrelief as do Romeo\u2019s gang-mates in their teenage banter. Sometimes comedy\nheightens the attention in the serious themes of the work. One of the funniest\nscenes in Hamlet<\/em> is his tragic\/comic\nconversation with the gravediggers. Punctuated by puns and one-liners is a very\nserious conversation about life after death and how death places us all on the\nsame status. Such\nuse of comedy to relieve tension in serious work is known as comic relief, a\nphrase used in modern times as the title for the phenomenal use of comedy to\nraise awareness of global issues of deprivation and injustice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When local folk act Rhyming Ron Davis, at The Baum,\nre-told Sam Laycock\u2019s old poem about Bowton\u2019s\nYard<\/em>, the landscape was patently Northern. Rhyming Ron listed characters\nrecognisable today as the poem reflected the good humour we still employ for\nsocial cohesion. He also delivered the acute social observation of music-hall\ngreat Robb Wilton, speaking on \u201cthe day war broke out\u201d. At the folk \u2018n poetry\nnights at The Baum, Tony Webb & Jed Greenwood (The Nearly Dead Poets) often\nde-bunk social hierarchies with savage wit and Robin Parker frequently wraps\nhilarious comedy in parody and song. The most recent event also saw local\nwriter Rod Broome delivering a comic piece by folk singer Bernard Wrigley.\nThose who had earlier watched \u00b4tennis from Wimbledon on tv\u00b4 were lightly mocked\nin an original poem by poet Graham placing sport in general and tennis in\nparticular in a very different perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marketeers are currently peddling comedy as \u2018the\nnew rock and roll\u201d. This is a grand claim but a trip to the seaside later in\nthe week certainly reminded us again that comedy is both global and culturally\nspecific. Gazing at the statue of Eric Morecambe in his home town it is\nimpossible to forget that comedy and even classical music are inextricably\nlinked. Just like a pianist, a comedian delivers \u00b4all the right notes, but not\nnecessarily in the right order.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parts of this article previously appeared in our pages in The Rochdale\nObserver.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At all across the arts we often speak of the synergy between poetry and comedy as one art form often feeds the other. We were pretty amazed though when we discovered more links in the chain:  general knowledge and quizzing skills. We discovered this when laughter rang as punch lines were delivered with perfect comic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}