Comedy

When Pete Jonas (pictured left) arrived here from Australia six years ago it was like visiting a foreign country. ‘If I’m honest, most of what I knew about England had come from watching Benny Hill shows and “Carry On” movies,’ he explains. He soon realised his mistake. ‘You don’t have to chase women through parks and round trees anymore. The rise of ladette culture means people get so pissed you just have to be standing in the right place.’ Feature continues

American Erich McElroy got here a few months afterwards. ‘I expected a cross between “Fawlty Towers” and “All Creatures Great and Small”. What I found was more like “A Clockwork Orange”. I lived in some dodgy council estates. London is such a big city it can consume you. I didn’t get out of town for the first four years. Then I did. I found those little country roads I’d seen on TV.’

For the past four years Jonas and McElroy have jointly hosted the Comedy Tree club in Putney. More recently, they’ve collaborated on another project. It’s a show. They’ve called it ‘Brokeback Britain’. ‘It has nothing to do with the film,’ Jonas declares. ‘We came up with the idea a while back. Ang Lee must have stolen it and then added a mountain. And a couple of gays. We probably ought to sue him.’

They use the show to let off steam about the frustrations of living here: the love of queuing, bland food, the lack of service, train operators who should be shot, depressing soap operas, pubs that advertise ‘food served all day’ when it isn’t. Fairly gentle stuff. But they have to steer a fine line between putting the boot in hard and alienating their audiences. On the one hand, there’s a profound dissatisfaction. ‘We both come from countries where most things work, where people generally do things properly,’ Jonas says. On the other, there’s the need to adjust to a different world. ‘I think I understand things a bit better now,’ McElroy admits. ‘I’ve come to expect less.’

Anyway, it’s not all bad. McElroy says he fell in love with pub culture. ‘I was drunk for most of my first few years here.’ He even has positive feelings about the weather. ‘I’ve always been a bit suspicious of too much sun.’ Jonas can look on the bright side too. ‘It’s so easy and cheap to fly to Europe.’

So how does Jonas view Americans? ‘They’re either really cool and funny people or right-wing nationalist idiots who have no idea about the rest of the world. I like New York and LA but I wouldn’t be too bothered if middle America was nuked.’ And what’s McElroy’s opinion of Aussies? ‘They have a sense of wanderlust. They’re drawn back to Britain like children searching for their birth parents, even though their adoptive ones cook better food.’

The great thing about Britain, McElroy adds, is the sense of humour. ‘Let’s be clear: neither of us wants to leave the place. That sense of laughing at yourself, and expressing affection through the humour, doesn’t exist in the same way in the States. Here, as long as you make fun of yourself as well, you can make fun of someone else and they’ll respect you for it.’

That’s what he’s hoping, in any case. He’s just taken the British citizenship test. He passed. He’s within spitting distance of getting a British passport. By the time ‘Brokeback Britain’ opens at the Edinburgh Fringe, McElroy could be one of us.