Are Gong Shows Good or Bad for Comedy?
Are gong shows a positive or negative force in stand-up? We asked Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Jon Whiteley to present their arguments
The ‘gong show’ format has been a staple of television since long before the likes of Simon Cowell and his cohorts belittled the mentally fragile for financial gain. But it is in comedy rather than music that the gong show takes its most controversial form – people either can or can’t sing a song, but stand-up is much more subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so placing a young hopeful in front of a crowd baying for fresh blood is a divisive spectacle for the comedy scene at large.
We asked two comedians to give their arguments for and against gong shows. It’s a debate that will no doubt run on for eternity, but feel free to chip in the comments below.
FOR – Kiri Pritchard-McLean
Stand-up and member of Gein’s Family Giftshop
Gong shows aren't perfect, no gigs are. Each gig comes with its own trappings but I'm firmly of the school of thought that you can take something away from all gigs, particularly the tricky ones, and gong shows are nothing if not tricky.
I appreciate that it may seem like a needlessly harsh environment for more esoteric acts but, typically, so is the world of stand-up comedy. The acts that have been more leftfield that I've seen persevere at gong shows have ultimately become stronger, more versatile comedians without compromising what it is that makes them special.
When I started doing stand-up I got a lot of my stage time from gigs like Beat the Frog (at The Frog and Bucket). Stand-up can seem a dark art when you first begin but Beat the Frog was a great way to regularly perform to large receptive audiences, which aren't typical when you start gigging. I'd much rather perform to 300 giddy students brilliantly compered by Dan Nightingale than a sparsely attended room above a pub where the audience have just come to have a quiet drink and a gig has started around them. Having said that, I've done both.
Kiri Pritchard-McLean
Gong show formats can err on the brutal side. King Gong (at The Comedy Store) prides itself on its combative air, but as a comedian you do have to learn how to master tricky rooms and there's far less pressure when it comes to cracking them lower down your career. That's not to say that all acts who do well at gong shows are good – often they're total dogger with a meaty line in lowest-common-denominator, derivative bullshit. That's why it's so good when a unique act comes along and rips the gig a new one without pandering to the audience or appeasing them with trite observations on Tinder. Essentially, winning at a gong show doesn't make you a good act, just as getting kicked off doesn't make you a bad act.
When I hear criticisms of gong shows, and there are plenty of valid ones, I always smell a hint of hypocrisy. The acts who are against them rarely turn their analytical eye towards other nights that pride themselves on having a 'nice audience', but which in actuality tend to be filled with people who think they are better than comedy. Now that's a tough crowd. To assume that an audience that has arrived at a gig hooked in by a format are incapable of appreciating any genre of comedy either shows a simmering contempt for audiences (not healthy) or worse, a secret contempt for your own work (even unhealthier).
Maybe, if you're an act having a tough time at gong shows, you're looking at it in the wrong way. Don't go into it thinking about winning. Look at it as an opportunity to work on getting a great five minutes that tells an audience what you're about while being piss-funny. There's no point in your career where that skill set will cease to be useful.
Gong shows don't make a comedian; no one gig does. They don't break the determined and talented ones, though; they add to the varied tapestry that's required to make a competent, successful and interesting comic. So just use them for what they're good for: stage time.
AGAINST – Jon Whiteley
Standup and member of Quippopotamus comedy
It’s tough to write negatively about something you’re bad at. Any body-blows made are liable to be drowned out by the deafening sound of you chewing on the sourest grapes imaginable. As a young performer, I did plenty of gong shows: Beat the Frog, Rawhide Raw, Funhouse Comedy and King Gong – I’ve died at them all. That said, I’m not one to let partisanship get in the way of a good hatchet job.
Gong shows have been a staple of British live comedy since the boom of the early 2000s. New comics jester for the attentions of a surly crowd, the weaker comics are kicked off and the strong get a prize. Some are nicer than others and there’s a degree of variance in the boon: The Comedy Store, for example, gives its winners a cash prize as well as a spot on a professional bill. For better or worse, most new acts will find themselves at one of these nights at some point.
Some say the hostile, competitive atmosphere is a great training ground for comics: an assault course for the surly, heckler-filled comedy scene. That said, I don’t think many new acts actually benefit from being thrown in at the deep end. Also, if you’ve ever doubted that fascism could happen in England, try watching the crowd reaction at King Gong when a transgender woman gets on stage, and consider how terribly fucking wrong you were.
(Continues below)
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Although, as explained earlier, there is usually a prize for the best, this rarely actually guides clubs' booking policies. If you’re a seasoned booker, are you really going to start booking people you don’t rate for professional spots just because they won some dumb competition? Obviously you’re not – and rightly so – but the flipside of this is all those lucky winners left scratching their heads over when they’ll be allowed to perform at a club’s tent-pole weekend show.
Most new comics carve out their work in half-empty back rooms, and one of a gong night’s unique selling points is that it offers stage time at a real, bustling comedy club. That said, the people who come along are not typical club crowds, and they’re not coming with the same expectations. On a Saturday there’s an expectation that the acts on stage will be really, properly funny, but at gongs there are no such guarantees and the reverse is likely to be true. Trying to be funny to someone who’s just been told that you’re probably not funny is akin to trying to cop off at an STI clinic.
Most important, though, is the way gong shows dampen creativity. While interesting acts do often get through at these nights – the first time I saw Beat the Frog, Ed from the excellent Gein’s Family Giftshop won – you’re never seeing anyone at their best, you’re seeing them at their broadest. That STI clinic line would’ve killed at a gong. I’ll give credit to gongs that they promote an economy of language – and that they’ve stopped many a spotty young Stewart Lee tribute in their tracks – but most of the acts featured in these pages are bad gong acts, and they’re all the better for it. The best new act and new material nights encourage comics to push boundaries and really explore the funny. Gongs just tell you to toe the line.
Also most importantly, I’m bad at them, so they suck.