DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION An analysis of Jasper Carrott’s stage routine over time, as compared to his written material, using his ‘Mother-in-law’ sketch. As well as being shown on TV, recorded live at Palladium (with London Weekend TV, if I recall), and since, it features on his album ‘Beat the Carrott’, and in one of his …
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INTRODUCTION The purpose of this project is to study and compare written and live sketches by comedian Jasper Carrott to find the relationship between the two and how, grammatically, the delivery develops over time. Specifically to find what effect, if any, constant repetition of an act has on the structure of its sentences. There is …
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Contextual information Gesticulation is the grammatical equivalent of contextual narrative and so finds a place in this project. I am covering this first as physical actions play an important part in any comedians’ routine, but are not readily apparent on the taped version*. Generally speaking, it can be found in three ways. Firstly, by actually …
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Using colloquial accents General discourse, communicating directly with the audience, is what makes or breaks a comedian. If you read a humorous sketch – such as ‘Driver-in-Law’ – it is not the words themselves that make you laugh, but the images that they conjure up. In the book form this is somewhat restricted. You can …
Tuts Unconscious ‘tuts’ only appear in the first half of his act and are usually preceded by a very short pause and followed by ‘and’ or ‘er(m).’ They may just be used as fillers for time or while he thinks out his next sentence, but there is evidence to suggest that they are possibly mnemonic …
Pauses Pauses, coupled with intonation, are a significant part of speech and in Jasper Carrott’s routines have a number of different uses. These can be divided into deliberate and unconscious pauses. The former will include stopping for breath, pausing for a build up or to prompt a response from the audience. The unintentional pauses, which …
Reformulations Without getting into the added complexities of following your conversations with others, generally speaking, whenever you speak you are doing at least three things at once. You are planning what to say next, saying what you previously planned and monitoring what you just said in order to check that it is actually what you …
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Audience Address Comedy is like any other commodity – it can me marketed. And like any market the style must suit the targeted audience. The approach to a television show like ‘Carrott’s Lib’ is different from that of his theatre shows and different again from the form used in his books. The greatest difference between …
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