‘It’s always nice when you work hard and it pays off. It hasn’t really changed me, it hasn’t really changed my life very much.’
The year 2012 was a year like no other for British comedians. It smashed records that in years gone by would have seemed inconceivable.
During that year it was revealed that Michael McIntyre, who only six years before had been £30,000 in debt, was the biggest-selling comic in the world. Suddenly, a Brit who told jokes for a living was earning mega bucks, outstripping even the Americans. His ticket sales from his UK gigs in 2012 equated to £21 million worth – just £1 million less than the Rolling Stones, and they had embarked on a worldwide tour. His earnings were only beaten by those of the biggest names in music in the world – Madonna and Bruce Springsteen among others.
It was unprecedented that a Brit who made their living from standing on stage and telling jokes was doing so well. Headlines that had started appearing a few years before, said it all – Stand-up Comedy was the new Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Michael’s success did not come out of the blue. Comedians had been steadily seeing more and more success during the previous couple of years. In the 2011 figures of earnings in the entertainment industry, McIntyre was up there, but he was far from alone in earning the kind of money that most people only dream of.
In 2011, the highest-earning comic was Peter Kay, who raked in more than £20 million from ticket sales and DVDs. Also in that year, there was a surprise addition to the top 10 highest paid gag tellers – a woman. At number six was Sarah Millican, the first time a woman was ever thought to have been in the top 10 British earners for comedy in recorded history.
In 2011, according to The Sun, Sarah earned £1.46 million, just behind Russell Howard at £3.26 million, John Bishop at £4.98 million, Alan Carr at £5.99 million and Lee Evans at £12.9 million, as well as Peter Kay.
She might have had some way to go before she earned the same as Kay and Michael McIntyre, but her figures for 2012 were expected to be even higher. She is living in an age in which comedy gold is exactly that; an age in which, if you can make enough people laugh, you are made for life. An idea that up until recently would have been so unbelievable, it would have sent the comedians of yesteryear to the funny farm.
It is not the first time that comedy has been massive – the sort of draw that has them packing in the stands at venues around the country. As far back as the 1930s, comedians like Max Miller were huge.
The reason many people believe it happened then and it’s happening now is because when times are tough – as they are in a recession – people turn to something that makes them feel better, and there is nothing better than making people laugh to cheer them up when they are down.
According to psychologists, it is a natural reaction to our need to cope with life when it gets difficult. Media expert Dr Matt Kerry told The Sun: ‘When life is grim, we need back-to-basics comedy. The best humour is directed at the self. It’s an acknowledgment of your own misery… but you’re laughing at it!’
Max Miller was just one of dozens of acts which filled the theatres of the 1930s when the dole queues stretched round the block following the Wall Street Crash and the onset of the depression. At times in the 30s, the unemployment rate in parts of Britain was at 45 per cent.
But, conversely, the queues didn’t just stretch round the outside of the dole office; they stretched round the theatres. Many people paid over what little they earned for a chance to watch as their so-called betters, the upper classes, being lampooned for getting them in the mess they found themselves in. They couldn’t actually do anything to them, so they paid to watch others making fun of the hooray Henrys and the Bertie Woosters of the world around them who it appeared were responsible for causing their economic woes.
But then, unlike now, Max was one of the few who ended what had been a successful stage career well. Others who had also been massive during the years of plenty, when people had been clamouring to see them perform, ended their days in poverty, the few fat years failing to make up for the many leans ones later.
One act which was highly successful in the music hall era of the 1930s and early 1950s was a duo called The Western Brothers, who had audiences rolling in the aisles with their impressions of a parade of posh men. Theatregoers who went to see them couldn’t stop laughing at their impressions of the upper classes, the ones they felt were at fault for the state of the country. It didn’t last. The Western Brothers both died in relative poverty, one spending his final six years running a kiosk at Weybridge station.
When the next major recession happened, in the 1970s, comedy again hit highs it hadn’t seen in years. The audiences for TV shows featuring Morecambe and Wise and the Two Ronnies were again testimony to the fact that people in economic down times are looking to have a laugh.
At that time, a handful of top comics became millionaires thanks to the power of television, but very few made enough to retire as happy as their acts made those who came to watch them.
Fast-forward another 30 years to the worst recession since the end of World War Two. When everyone else is having difficulty making ends meet, the top comics in the land are raking it in like never before; and this time, unlike in the 1930s or even the 1970s, they are making so much, many of them could retire tomorrow.
For stand-up comedians, the figures are mind-blowing. During his 2012 Showtime! tour, Michael McIntyre sold 600,000 seats at his 71 venues, with 10 sold-out nights at the gigantic O2 Arena in London’s Docklands. Along with McIntyre in the comedy gallery of stellar earners of the last few years were also Ricky Gervais, who was paid so much he ended up in the Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated fortune of £35 million, Rowan Atkinson, who still rakes in money annually from the Mr Bean franchise to add to his £71 million fortune, and Peter Kay, whose amazing annual earnings also put him in the list at £40 million.
Less stellar, but still with stratospheric earning power, according to The Sun, were Steve Coogan, who made £5 million in 2010; Jimmy Carr, who also earned £5 million; Frankie Boyle (£4.5 million); Russell Brand (£4 million) and Eddie Izzard (£4 million).
In 2010, when these men were earning amazing amounts and the recession was in full swing, 24 comedians earned more than £1 million a year. The highest-paid female comic was Jenny Éclair at £600,000. In that year, Sarah Millican earned £250,000.
Many would say they deserve it. It takes many years of hard graft, trawling up and down the country, staying in miserable hotels or hostels, earning pennies, if anything, by performing in dingy pub back rooms, before most comedians get anywhere, assuming they actually do.
The average amount paid to a stand-up comic who isn’t doing an arena tour or putting out a DVD is about £100 a gig. Many when they are starting out work for free. Even if they are successful enough to manage a headline tour, most would be lucky if they make more than about £40,000 a year.
The line between getting by and earning huge amounts is a fine one. It is one that many comedians feel they have a right to exploit when the opportunity comes along, as, in the past, history has shown how easy it can be for it all to slip away. But it was also this issue that led Sarah to sail closest to the sort of PR disaster that has got some other high-earning comedians badly stung.
After watching one of Sarah’s gigs in Wolverhampton, a fan posted on her Facebook page that she had really enjoyed the show and if Sarah wanted to know which one she was, she said she was the one in the front row who had been videoing it.
Sarah was horrified that material people had to pay to see could end up on Youtube or somewhere else. She promptly responded by accusing the fan of theft and told her that if she was going to be so ‘disrespectful’, she was not going to be welcome at her gigs in future.
The subsequent row that erupted in response to her comments ended up in the newspapers and led to her being branded disrespectful herself for ‘bad-mouthing’ those who ‘enabled’ her ‘to lead the life’ she lived.
In the end, apart from upsetting a few fans, she largely escaped major harm to her name. Most people appreciate that comedians have to safeguard their routines if they are to continue to make a living.
The huge amounts that many comedians earn, however, is leaving them increasingly open to attack. In 2012, one of the mega earners, Jimmy Carr, was forced to backtrack after it emerged that most of his annual earnings was funnelled through a tax avoidance scheme designed to prevent him and others from paying most of it to the Inland Revenue’s replacement HMRC.
It was a hot issue, as within the deepest moments of the downturn, the chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, had branded tax avoiders lower than the worst kind of benefit scroungers. After it emerged that Carr was paying less than one per cent on his earnings, he was forced into making a grovelling apology.
It wasn’t over then either, as his participation was mentioned every time the company that had set up the scheme cropped up in the news thereafter. It might not have mattered if he hadn’t had a pop at tax avoiders Barclays a few months before, but he had. It was a case of those who make jokes at others expense, shouldn’t be caught doing what they were making jokes about. It throws into perspective the difficulty comedians have of remaining relevant enough to continue being funny, yet taking advantage of the good times to make sure that they don’t end up running a kiosk in Weybridge.
There are some who believe that all this success is a sign that a bubble is about to burst; that the good times are about to come to an end. Part of the justification for that belief stems from one of the things that has driven the rise of stand-up comedy in the last 10 years and put the comedians on the pedestal they now balance precariously on – the panel show.
After Edinburgh, the chance to appear on a panel show has for the last 15 years been the golden ticket to a comedian’s success. Starting with shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway, Have I Got News For You and They Think It’s All Over in the 1990s, dozens of comedians have been able make the move from stand-up in pubs, clubs and theatres to the mass market of television by appearing on such shows.
Because of their format, in which a series of comedians appear on a ‘panel’, making gags in turn about a particular subject, the TV producers who make them require a steady stream of people who can provide quick-fire laughs. In the process the comedians turn themselves into a walking advert for their own material, which, instead of requiring word of mouth from those who might have been to their show to recommend it to others, is suddenly being seen directly by millions.
In the 15 years or so since they were created, panel shows have gone from being rare but successful formulas, to one of the dominant types of programming on TV. Almost all of those who have appeared on such shows have gone on to make a lot of money. Even though they may only make a few hundred pounds from each appearance, being a regular guest on QI, 8 Out of 10 Cats or Argumental, among others, creates an instant audience eager to hear what a comic has to say live on stage.
It is this profusion of panel format programmes that some believe will be the death of stand-up on TV. Although people still want to laugh, they will only continue to find it funny if they haven’t seen or heard the gag before. With so many shows trotting out the same formula, some believe that this over exposure will end up with many people losing interest.
Another victim of the dangers of earning too much, with the recession as a probable influence, was Jonathan Ross. Not that long ago he was tied to the BBC with a golden handcuffs deal said to be worth £6 million.
Although he was not a comedian, his shows often had a comedy element and he regularly teamed up with comics on the shows he presented. One of those was Russell Brand, who he joined on Brand’s Radio Two late-night show back in 2008. When the pair thought it would be hilarious to ring up the grandfather of one of Brand’s litany of conquests, Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs, and brag down the phone, they hadn’t bargained on the level of vitriol that would be unleashed.
Both lost their jobs, Ross having to take an extended period of leave from TV in Britain and Brand having to head across the Atlantic to find someone prepared to employ him regardless of his reputation.
While many found what the stars did unacceptable, the fact that they were both paid large amounts of money at the public expense almost certainly contributed to the rage felt. It was yet another sign that people were starting to feel that while comedians may be entitled to earn a reasonable amount of money to stave off poverty in later life, if they started to mock those who paid their wages, they had better watch out.
It wasn’t a new phenomenon. In 1970s America, during the country’s last bad recession, comedians were king. The stand-ups of the time, like Robin Williams, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby, were among the first to make the move from the theatre to film and television. Many others began appearing on mainstream TV, on late night shows like The Tonight Show or Saturday Night Live. While these programmes were incredibly popular when they first started, eventually the audience began to tire of seeing the same old formats and increasingly similar jokes.
The comedians listed above made millions in the 1970s and 80s. With a handful making so much, soon, everyone was wondering if they could make a fortune as a stand-up. The number of comics rose and the quality of joke telling dropped. As the 1990s dawned, TV viewers who were starting to suffer the effects of that decade’s recession began to yearn for something new. Seeing those who were making them laugh earn huge amounts of money began to stick in some throats. Others just weren’t being funny enough. As a result, earnings began to fall.
American comics are back on ridiculous earnings, but even they have seen the amount they can earn fall again in the last few years. In 2009, Jerry Seinfeld earned $85 million (£55 million), partly off the back of his final TV series deal. In the same year, Chris Rock earned $40 million (£25 million). All in the US top 10 earned $10 million (£6.5 million) or more, including two ventriloquists.
Just a year later, the uncertainty of it all was demonstrated by how much the figures had changed. In 2010, the highest-paid comic was another ventriloquist, Jeff Dunham, whose DVDs and film appearances earned him $22.5 million (£13 million).
Most of those in the top 10 were able to take advantage of the money offered by roles in Hollywood films. With such a huge audience for laughs in the States, the fees they could earn from appearances were at the top end of anything even Michael McIntyre could earn. The tenth placed comedian, for example, Bill Engvall, could earn $100,000 per gig. But, perhaps showing how things had started to change, in 2010, Jerry Seinfeld didn’t even get into the top 10, and the overall amount earned was well down on the previous year.
But, in the meantime, Sarah Millican has been on a high and taking advantage of the fact that comedy is currently literally gold. And, perhaps true to her upwardly mobile working class roots, she is adamant that she will be not one of those left working in a kiosk at the end of her career.
Shortly after the incident with the videoing fan, she made no bones about the fact that it was essential to preserve the source of her income, to make sure she didn’t end up with nothing worthwhile to say.
She told The Independent: ‘If I write a joke and it works, and it works consistently, that is gold to me. One hundred thousand people have bought tickets to see me on tour and if any of them see that and go, “Oh, I’ve heard this…” it’s spoilt a night out. It’s not just me saying, “it’s my material, leave it alone”.’
Talking about the huge amounts she stood to earn in the modern era she said: ‘I’m aware that it does reap very good rewards, but I’m not embarrassed by that. The British newspapers’ fascination with money is slightly vulgar – that rather than going, “well done, you picked yourself up from nothing and you’ve really made something of yourself and you worked really hard almost constantly for four or five years and drove 50,000 miles a year”, which would be the American way – the British way is, “how the hell have you got that much money?” It’s quite jealous and dismissive of the work.’
But, again true to her humble background, she is equally determined that she will not be changed by her new-found fortune. She told Jonathan Ross on his show: ‘It’s always nice when you work hard and it pays off. It hasn’t really changed me, it hasn’t really changed my life very much. I still shop in the same places and I still eat the same things, I think I need to upgrade a little bit, like, [but] I don’t go to designer clothes shops and things like that.’
Demonstrating such typically down-to-earth northern ways of thinking, it is unlikely she’ll suffer the same fate as those from an earlier depression – who ended their days struggling to make ends meet.