Heard the one about the 20-something female stand-up comedian’s first gig when the promoter told her if she wanted another performance, she would have to give him oral sex?
Author and journalist Julia Raeside has. It was at the Edinburgh Fringe three years ago, where she sat in a dark room with 40 people, listening to a young woman talk about the time her new boss used his power in an attempt to intimidate and sexually coerce her.
It’s far from an isolated case within the stand-up comic circuit, Julia adds. In this industry, women form WhatsApp groups and create Google spreadsheets (to allow access for many to update) to identify and track the behaviour of sexually predatory and manipulative male colleagues.
‘Stand-up comedy is probably the worst profession within showbusiness when it comes to male behaviour,’ Julia, the author of novel, Don’t Make Me Laugh, tells Metro.
While her book may be fiction, the darkly comedic tale explores a very real subject: the bleak underbelly of an industry where male stand-ups are known to prey on female counterparts using psychological manipulation, coercive control and worse.
Julia tells the story of jobbing comedian Ed Catchpole and his slow cunning misogynist behaviour towards women. Published earlier this year, it was recently shortlisted for the Comedy Women in Print (CWIP) book awards, founded by comedian and actress Helen Lederer.
Herself a trailblazing stand-up comic in the 80s, Helen has had her own fair share of shocking incidents at the hands of male comics over the decades, which she writes about in her autobiography, Not That I’m Bitter.
Recalling one, Helen says: ‘It was 1983 at the Edinburgh festival and I’d just left Lenny Henry’s birthday party at 2am and got into a cab and realised a powerful TV producer had got in the other side.’
‘He directed the cab to his hotel and in shock she found herself in his room. ‘I opted for a trick that was to serve me well for the next few years to both attract and confuse male counterparts, and cried. No one likes a crier and we both agreed it would be best if I left.’
Although not a stand-up herself, Julia says she decided to write about the subject because she’s ‘always loved comedy, seen a lot and as a journalist written about it.’ She also knows many comedians through her husband, the comedy writer Joel Morris who wrote Philomena Cunk with Charlie Brooker.
‘When #metoo kicked off in 2017 and rippled into different areas of showbusiness it didn’t really reach stand-up,’ Julia says. ‘But comedian friends started to tell me stories about male stand-ups terrible behaviour, some of whom took me by surprise as I liked them.
‘The women told me the lists of comedians where they advise their colleagues to ‘avoid this one, don’t get a lift with that guy,’ all these things.’ Add to that the complications of accommodation at packed comedy festivals especially Edinburgh, who not to share living arrangements.
‘I realised this happens more in stand-up specifically, not music, acting or in a comedy group, but they are lone wolves. There’s a really big crossover of stand-up men who like to control a room and like to control women.’
As in the novel and real life, it’s not only female stand-ups who are targets but also fans. ‘They tour, like travelling salesmen, but it’s often not even about having lots of sexual partners for some, they keep the control going remotely from wherever they are.’
Julia adds that there’s a really high proportion of stand-ups like her protagonist Ed. ‘Who present themselves as the nice guy, someone a bit chubby in a cardigan, someone who you would feel safe with. But often this type of comedian is hiding something much harder and colder underneath.’
Take stand-up and presenter Justin Lee Collins – a comic once considered cuddly and approachable, who was then found guilty in 2012 of waging a “campaign of abuse’ against a previous girlfriend.
The CPA said that there was evidence that Collins subjected her to ‘physical, psychological and verbal abuse’ – he even made her detail previous sexual partners in excruciating detail kept in a notebook.
Get Off Live Comedy is the organisation that describes itself as an independent HR in a business where there is no accountability. In the 2022 No Laughing Matter survey it found that 21% workers in UK live comedy have observed or experienced some form of workplace sexual harassment and 63% have witnessed or had the experience of frequent banter of a sexual nature and graphic sexual description in the stand-up industry. Banter this is not.
So why don’t they fight back? ‘These stories are hard to stand up legally, I know I’ve tried as a journalist,’ explains Julia. ‘The men are often careful too, getting to a grey area that means they aren’t breaking the law.’ As for the women who know the power structure, of they speak out, they run the risk of not being believed and lose their hard-earned careers by male retaliation, the band of stand-up brothers if you like.
This was evident in the week of Julia’s book launch when she was asked to do a radio show presented by a male comedian. ‘On the day, we got bumped and then over the next few weeks, it happened twice again,’ she remembers.
‘The producer eventually owned up saying “I’m really sorry but now he [the comedian] understands what the book’s about he doesn’t want to talk about the subject on air, because he has to work with these guys.”
‘He was basically saying that some of his friends are predators.’Julia adds that the comedian isn’t one of ‘these guys’ or she wouldn’t have considered appearing, but she admits to being surprised he was so ‘unwilling to call it out’.
That’s not to say, some comics haven’t been exposed – for want of a better word – for toxic behaviour. In 2017, Lewis CK was accused by several women in the New York Times of masturbating in front of them, another of sexual misconduct, during what they believed could be potentially career changing meetings.
When the comedian admitted it, he was dropped by his talent agent and several streaming services, but didn’t face any jail time or fine. After laying low, he went on to win a Grammy for Best Comedy Album and is set to tour Britain next year.
Meanwhile, here in the UK one comedian and former reality contestant was charged with six sex-related charges against three women this August and will stand trial this month.
The biggest impact in terms of awareness, however, was the 2023 Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, Russell Brand – In Plain Sight, an investigation with the Sunday Times, and the most watched in all time in the history of the programme, detailing the comedian’s alleged assaults and rape. Charged by the CPS, Brands trial starts next year.
While it’s clear that the industry is only just beginning to scratch the surface when it comes to confronting toxic behaviour, Julia believes that because it’s within the comedy scene, it makes it all the more harder.
‘The thing we always used to be told about comedians is the ‘tears of a clown’ – that they are often sad or depressed – but if you meet many male stand-ups in real life they are really angry.
‘They have the power behind the mic while they are on stage and they don’t want to give hand it back and lose they control they have over the room. It’s the same when it comes to women.’
Julia’s book Don’t Make Me Laugh, is available to buy here.