Observational comedy takes for its source the minutiae of everyday life that people recognise without necessarily having consciously acknowledged or discussed out loud. Essentially, it begins with “Have you ever noticed…?” and follows up with some amusing observation that hopefully strikes a chord with the audience. A large part of stand-up comedy is based on this premise, of course. When you bring in some well-observed characters, themselves honed from years of observation of various archetypes, and put them into a well-devised situation comedy, you can add a whole new level of humour; Peter Kay is a past master at this.
It’s his observations of life growing up in Bolton that informs Peter Kay’s comedy. In Phoenix Nights, we see his comedy oeuvre at its finest, having filled it with idiosyncratic but true-to-life characters and scenarios gleaned from his experiences of northern working men’s clubs (for fairness, it should be mentioned that it wasn’t solely Kay’s baby: Dave Spikey and Neil Fitzmaurice were co-creators and writers). The Phoenix Club is a fictional working men’s club, home to the usual variety of club themes: cabaret entertainment, bingo nights, karaoke, raffles, fundraisers, and themed nights, with a stage bedecked with a tinselly back-drop and – all mod cons! – a smoke machine.
The scene I’m highlighting is the one starring “psychic medium”, Clinton Baptiste, and it strikes, I think, a seam of comedy gold. Replete with the motifs of the end-of-the-pier entertainer – the campness, the mullet, the flamboyant suit, the local accent at odds with the assumed gravitas of a true mystic – actor Alex Rowe’s character is a gift, and he portrays it brilliantly. The conceit is that Baptiste is a rubbish medium, with no redeeming qualities, and none of the empathy that you would expect from a truly spiritual person.
Not only is he clumsily obvious with his cold-reading techniques (“is there a John in the audience?”), but he also manages to cause offence and upset by delivering the bluntest of messages from “beyond the grave”. To one lady: “You’ve not been well have you? And it is terminal, isn’t it…?” (which is evidently news to her!). And to a man sitting with his wife: “Is there something you wanted to tell her? Get off your chest maybe?”. “What is it?”, we hear the wife demanding, as Clinton walks away.
Incidentally, Alex Rowe has gone on to develop the Clinton Baptiste character, outside of the Phoenix Nights episode – check out the hilarious Clinton Baptiste’s Paranormal Podcast. But for now, let’s watch his original scene, and enjoy Clinton “getting a word”…
