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John Robertson: Making comedy out of sadism

Written by
Niki Boyle
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Aussie comic John Robertson is back at this year's Fringe with two shows: his solo stand-up show 'Let's Redecorate' and immersive role-playing game 'The Dark Room'. Here, he discusses sadism, masochism, suicide... and Darren.

I don’t know who came up with the idea that comedy should be warm and relatable - I suspect some idiot. Comedy can be literally anything - despicable, fantastical, shit - and all the comics I know who are 'warm and relatable' have sickening perversions and severe drug problems the minute they get off-camera. Yes, they can banter about 'the football', but you wouldn’t want to have a drink with them. Which is just as well, since they mostly drink human blood and the spinal fluid of disabled children.

Sadism has a great place in comedy. Last year I was doing a show where the first joke was me throwing an inflatable whale into the audience. We had the commissioning editor of Channel 4 in the front row. As the whale bounced off her face, I saw a grin that suggested both love and a mild concussion.

Offstage, I’m the loveliest man in the world (Jesus was a jerk, Gandhi liked to push orphans down the stairs), but in my show 'The Dark Room', I’m a fearsome warrior dressed in leather and shoulder pads, screaming at my audience in Brian Blessed’s voice. It’s the world’s only live-action videogame! The audience needs to escape a dark room, and I’m what’s stopping them. 

I spend half my life wearing body armour that makes me look like a refugee from what 1987 thought the future would look like (1988). I play a game with crowds of people while I bellow commands with a big, fat grin. Am I relatable?

Weirdly, yes! And I’m always amazed by the range of things people relate to! What’s all this love? Shun me, you bastards! 

When people play 'The Dark Room', I call them 'Darren'. I call everybody 'Darren'. Once the show’s been in town a night, suddenly everybody walks around the next day, calling each other 'Darren' and shouting, 'YOU AWAKE TO FIND YOURSELF IN A DARK ROOM!' I’ve had parents tell me their seven-year-old daughters have been walking around doing both these things. 'Oh, your daughter, Darren?' I say. 'Yep, our daughter, Darren,' they reply.

My approach has always been carrot and stick, but my crowd enjoys the stick and the carrot might go somewhere unexpected. The joke is that the player is doing badly... so badly, the first thing I do is take their identity. They’re Darren now! But everybody takes home a prize – and the jokes are funny, so there’s a sense of reward while you’re being beaten.

People like 'The Dark Room' for the challenge; they like it for the devilish fun; they like it because there’s a nostalgia for old videogames and because it’s a kid’s adventure show aimed at adults, but clean enough for the children - all good fun...

... but then, a great many people like the show because it’s a powerful man in leather telling a crowd what to do with a sexy British accent. You don’t know entertainment til you’ve seen a man dressed as a cosmic soldier scream 'BULLSHIT!' into the face of a seven year old girl.

A seven year old girl named Darren.  

The trouble with sadism is you need masochism to be there, too – otherwise what you’re doing is just assault. When you torture an audience, there has to be some relief for them, even if that relief is also kinda awful. Half of sadism is hugging and smooching the person you’ve just beaten:pain + pleasure = superb; pleasure from pain = great, but kisses afterwards lest PTSD set in.

Think of any boss or teacher or drill sergeant you ever tried to impress because their opinion was hard to get and was therefore meaningful – that’s real masochism; the desire to please and obey a person you think is greater than yourself, while they flick you in the tits.

It’s what used to feed religious all flagellants – 'I love you, God, NOW KILL ME!' 

Sometimes comedy torture is the repetition of a joke. Neil Hamburger is incredible at this – he grinds his crowds into roomfuls of bloody, squealing pulp by deliberately popping a hundred jokes in a row that all start the same way. When he does a different gag – the room erupts. Release! Freedom! He’s hugging you with a joke! (Usually a joke about an ageing rock star and some bodily fluid, but you take my point.)  

Sometimes torture is expecting something and not getting it, like when your favourite character in a movie isn’t doing the things you love them for, but then right at the end, boom! They did the thing you like! Oh, all is right with the world! Delayed gratification makes the orgasm stronger, folks! Or at least lets the failing relationship last another hour.    

And sometimes torture is trailing off without an...

Are you still here? Good, let’s talk about death.

The other show I’m doing at the moment is 'Let’s Redecorate', which I’ve called 'sick comedy from the heart'. It’s a tribute to my best friend who suicided last year, with a bunch of really good jokes about grief and depression.

Is comedy the best format for that? Well, it’s the funniest.

Is the show heavy? Well, only if you’ve got the mental fortitude of a snowflake. Is it warm? It’s the warmest thing I’ve ever done. Is it relatable? You ever lived through someone’s death? It’s simultaneously the most horrible and most amusing time of your life.

Death is the most universal experience, and anybody who’s been near it deserves to laugh in the Grim Reaper’s stupid, bony face... so I’m going to.

My shows are the intersection between sci-fi, game shows, love, death, videogames, pro wrestling and S&M. Why the hell would anyone talk about the football?

John Robertson: Let’s Redecorate, The Stand, until 30 Aug (not 17), 2.50pm. 

John Robertson: The Dark Room, Underbelly Cowgate, until 30 Aug, 8.40pm.

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