Stand-up comedy is so brutal in terms of what works or what doesn’t.… You can get away with murder when you’re writing. —Jerry Seinfeld, in USA Today
MY Dear Thackeray, Hastily, a scribble, from my dressing chamber—foetid mop-closet that it be!—at the Hog & Varlet. But what of bodily discomfitures, when the Soul flies so! For I now have at hand as pretty a little fourteen minutes of vocalized risibility as this old Town has yet heard, or any old Town in the good old Realm. The “Corn Riots” jape makes a smart opening volley, followed by the “Lord Palmerston’s Pantaloons,” for a nice change in the pace; whilst at the finale, what better than that I do the “Poor Laws” set-piece?
Concerning your query: Worry not, Thackeray, I have over breakfast dashed off another two chapters of Expectations.
But, alas! The fateful Knock, and I am “on”! Wish me well.
—Boz
Come up instanter to Manchester, for I fear that, short of a complete reworking, all is lost. Such barracking from the front tables, and ale-bottles hurled from the back. The “Corn Riot” sailed through the Ether, over their heads, and into that Oblivion where dead jokes dwell.
I console myself betimes by lining out more yardage on Gt. Expects; no tipplers obtrude whilst one sits composing one’s prose, free from the hubbub of poltroons more beguiled by far by their own wit, than that of the Performer. Come quickly!
—Desperately, Boz
P.S. Should Wilkie C. choose to join, so much the better for doctoring back to health my maimed fourteen minutes!
My Estimable Collins,
I am deep in your debt for “physicking” my comedic Muse. You are, veritably, the “Surgeon of Smilery.” I inclose a fair copy of the revised fourteen mins., which my new Agent, Mr. Blitz, believes fully strong enough to render t’morrow eve at the Ironmongers’ Smoker. It has taxed my energies & invention more than ten Nicklebys—I do three fresh chapters of Expects. nowadays, for one good stand-up minute. Do you like the East India Co. joke? I practise my Hindoo expression in the looking-glass, the better to put it over.
—Faithfully, Boz
Dear Thackeray,
Collins returns my fourteen mins., unread, mewling that it is “ill fortune” to see another’s Work, when one is oneself performing! For it transpires that Wilkie C. is to première his own mirthful (!) rodomontade this very evening in the back room at White’s Club. Pray attend, and tell me what he has thieved of my own life’s blood, my Act!
—Boz
Mr. Collins, Sir,
Thackeray tells of your stupendous success with a “Corn Riot” joke last evening, at White’s. I find this fascinating, though not, I grant, as much so as do my Solicitors.
Tit for tat, I am performing a new “Victoria Regina & the Gillie” notion in my monologue to-night at the Lyceum, which would not, I think, sound entirely unfamiliar to you!
—C. D.
Regarding your inquiry, I have misplaced the Grt. Expectations ms., but it is of no moment, I shall recapitulate the 14 chapters to-day on the train to Newcastle.
Prosody! Had ever tho’t my Novelizing a true Sisyphusean Labour; yet only now can know the far greater agony & pain of that Institution of Intellectual Industry nonpareil, Stand-Up.
It is all in the timing of things, Thackeray; what swarms with Life on the flat, written page becomes but a dead grey mackerel in its utterance upon the stage, without the properly measured timing of its delivery. Nor can it, cf. Collins, be taught.
I close with the promise to read your new Book soonest. Now, off to audit Trollope, who begs my attendance at his new Routine at a local caravansary.…
—Boz
Mr. Collins, Sir,
That I choose to publickly indorse Musgrave’s Ague Elixir should be of no account to you, whose success has not made necessary the support of seven in service, three houses, and a villa, plus several barouches.
—D.
Bulwer-Lytton,
I surmise that the Thack tattles, and puts you up to what he, himself, would fain do, namely, to pester and afflict a busy Entertainer with verbal Boils. Gt. Expect’ns (I lack time to write it out entire) goes forward. It picks up speed. It careers. I have the idea of a cataclysmic Stage Coach Crash, which would dispatch Pip, Magwitch, Jaggers, Miss Havisham, and Bentley Drummle, and leave Herbert Pocket to wrap it up in an Epilogue, shortening the epic by two doz. chapters. Stand-up teaches nightly, that Brevity is the Thing.
—The Boz
Thack!
If I may so address you, for we stage-folk ever prefer the informal against the formal amongst ourselves …
Enclosed cutting from this morning’s Optic shows who bested whom at last evening’s Crimean War Relief Benefit Recital. ’Tis true, Thack—Collins was heckled by the Duke of Clarence himself when he quite forgot the punch-line to the “Irish Question” soliloquy! (Do you know a “ghost” who could pick up Gt. Expect. where I left off months ago? No time!)
—The Boz
Trollope,
The Lady whom you so flippantly described as my “niece” last Evening at the Garrick is, in fact, Miss Joywell, my protégée, and a distinguished Graduate of my Comedic Work Shop.
Yrs., The Boz
B.-L.,
Have reserved two tickets for you & a friend at Blackpool Tuesday eve next, late show. Come thither. Silly goose, ’twas but a jest, anent the Stage Coach Crash! I now think I can quickly be done with Gt. Ex. by this expedient, that Pip suddenly wakes, to find all was a dream.
—Believe me, the Boz
Thack!
Finished Expectations after oysters & champagne in the early hours of this morning, only to get the d——thing away, so I can work on perfecting a wonderful new Disraeli jest. Alas, I cannot attend your Début as Napoleon III as some friends ask me down for the weekend. (I am told that that vixen Actress Miss L——is invited also!) Must rush!
Love you, The Boz
Dear Mister Collins,
I have at hand your most interesting Proposal, received today. “Dickens & Collins,” I believe, and so, too, my client, would sound more comely; he suggests that you trust his ear for names, which is not unremarked. We must also insist that his name always take the topmost place, type twice the size of yours, owing to his greater fame, and, likewise, that his share of all proceeds be 75 percent, as his Reward for “pulling you along” with him in regards ticket sales and public Curiosity. Perhaps we can thus conjoin with you, to the end of concluding a fair Contract.
Very sincerely yours,
Blitz (for the Boz)
1993