Carr thinks that comedy DVDs make the perfect Christmas present. “The reason people give DVDs to each other is that someone telling a joke is a shorthand for saying ‘I like you and I’d like you to like me’.” His controversial joke about soldiers in the 2012 paralympics team does not feature because his Joke Technician DVD is his previous show. But he points out that anyone searching for outrage can always fast-forward to the encore, which takes in Diana, Princess of Wales, 9/11, the Holocaust, child abuse, rape and abortion. You name it, he skewers it: “I’m an equal opportunities offender.”
The performance DVD can never replicate the spontaneous thrill of the live experience but it compensates in other ways — a souvenir of a good night out with a better view, a chance to press pause to grab a drink and those all-important previously unseen extras. And, as Howard explains, the style of the specially filmed set differs slightly: “I tried to speak slower. On stage I usually get excited and talk faster, as if I’m chatting to my mates, but that doesn’t work as well when you are watching me in your room.”
The beauty of the expanding market is that smaller-scale independent DVDs can also compete by keeping costs down and selling to devoted fans. Go Faster Stripe in Cardiff has done good cottage-industry business releasing DVDs by Richard Herring and Stewart Lee in the past, though Lee is now playing with the big boys, releasing his BBC Two series Comedy Vehicle on 2Entertain. Sadly there is somehow also room for Roy Chubby Brown’s 21st release,Too Fat to Be Gay. With Brown deemed unsuitable for television, his fans inevitably lap up his DVDs.
Stephen K. Amos had initial difficulties getting a DVD deal so he decided to finance it himself, filming a gig in Sydney. He then pitched it and ITV picked it up. “I was able to negotiate a better deal because the production costs had already been paid.” Find the Funny is Amos’s first DVD and he has no idea how it will do, but he is quietly excited. “Everyone is interested in comedy thanks to television. You turn on the Dave channel and they seem to be playing QI and Live at the Apollo on a loop.”
Rhod Gilbert, who recently hosted Never Mind the Buzzcocks, has also entered the DVD fray for the first time with his award-nominated 2008 set, The Award-Winning Mince Pie. The Camarthen-born comic is another shy, retiring performer who doesn’t know exactly how much his cut is but admits that doing so well out of his tour anyway — he plays the Hammersmith Apollo tomorrow — any DVD profit “is all gravy”. There should be plenty of gravy. “I don’t know the figures but one DVD chart said that the only comedian who sold more than me last week was Michael McIntyre.”
Gilbert’s success highlights the synergy of the market. Everything shifts more product: his TV appearances, his live tour and his internet presence. One YouTube clip, featuring Gilbert letting off steam about his suitcase being shattered on a flight has gone viral, notching up nearly seven million hits (Google “Most Funny Comedy Sketch Ever” to add to his tally). Even if a small proportion of those clickers buy his DVD he may never need to work again.
In this competitive field I came across only one dissenting voice. Sean Lock seems to be the only stand-up who is sitting out this golden age. Although his live DVD last year did good business, he did not have a new show to film for 2009, and to his credit he resisted various “less-than-rewarding” offers of voicing “Su Doku’s Greatest Bloopers”-type cash-ins.
Lock views the DVD market as a necessary evil in the industry: “There is too much focus on it. The live side is what people really enjoy, but there is an obsession with sales and a machismo that goes with it. Though a lot of people buy them, which is quite handy if you are selling one.”
The 8 Out of 10 Cats team captain is nostalgic for a time before DVD, for a time, in fact, before he was even born. “In the music hall days you could tour the same show for 25 years. Maybe I won’t bring out a DVD of my next show and I’ll tour that for 25 years.”
It is the internet, though, that threatens this market. Ultimately comedy DVDs will surely go the same way as music. People will get their laughs from YouTube and filesharing. Go into HMV at the moment and it seems like a DVD shop, with CDs lurking at the back. How long will it be before DVDs face the same fate? Some are more optimistic than others. Carr thinks that giving a comedy DVD will mean something for a long time yet: “There is an emotional quality to gifting a DVD. I love that quote ‘a laugh is the shortest distance between two people’.”
Carr also has another, more practical, explanation for the comedy DVD explosion around Christmas, particularly on Christmas Eve when all the shops are shutting and you are rushing around. “Being easy to wrap is crucial.” Al Murray concurs: “You try wrapping an espresso machine in a hurry.”
