Che Burnley - You Should've Been Here Last Week

[00:00:00] You could count the punters on one hand, but the street they were completely wrapped.

[00:00:07] They were filled up to the guttles, they were chewing down the street, they said you should

[00:00:17] have been here last week.

[00:00:19] I swear, you should have been here last week.

[00:00:23] Oh yeah, you should have been here last week. Here's Shane Burnley. With us here today, Jay Burnley, who's runs the Black Comedy Showcase in Edinburgh Festival and in Liverpool and various points around the Northwest. Welcome to the show, Shane. Hello, thanks for having me. We always start off with the same question. You know, why did you get into it?

[00:01:42] Why did you do it, Jay?

[00:01:43] Why?

[00:01:44] Basically, it was a weird one for this showcases a beer, got your showcases, Irish showcases, female showcases, all this kind of stuff. How come there isn't a black showcase? And you're right. And I again, coming from Oldham and watching stuff like the comedians and the wheel tappers and Schunters Club, God knows how. I'm dead young. But I remember him. I said to him, yeah, why isn't there?

[00:03:01] And I said, you know what?

[00:03:01] I'm going to run one.

[00:03:02] I'm going to do one.

[00:03:03] And I'm going to do it like a

[00:03:05] reverse of burning man.

[00:03:06] Because I always had that in my head.

[00:03:07] It'd be really funny to do anything alternative. So people expect, in one sense, sometimes people expect you to do black comedy, right? And then in another sense, they will go, why do you always do this black comedy stuff? And it's like, for us, it's basically just observational comedy, but you know, which happened to be black. So that's where it came from. I did that and then a lot of the comics

[00:04:22] that got the time there was like,

[00:04:23] I know this is a really good idea.

[00:04:25] So we just kept running it and running it and running it.

[00:04:26] And now it's starting to of like it just leaves a dearth appear and again I think there is sometimes a hesitance I've done gigs where I've gone these people are not going to like me and sometimes I'm right and sometimes I'm wronged. Imp been running out of acts. And it's just sort of like we're going to have to start making our own and then also at the same time going here's a platform for you. You don't have to move out of Liverpool. You can do

[00:07:02] the North West if you want. Which comedians said it, but they looked at it like a game of risk.

[00:08:04] completely and utterly useless. I can say this as a member and someone who regularly

[00:08:10] gets in contact with the president who must, you know, every time he sees my emails come up, like I keep on saying stuff to him, like why don't you do something?

[00:08:14] You know, that would be useful. Yeah, just anything. I don't care what it is.

[00:08:20] I can hear them with them. And it was it was all amicable, but again, it's that nothing gets

[00:08:24] done because it was somebody complained about me two page letter that's like the mother.

[00:09:40] I'm not a member of equity.

[00:09:43] I don't answer to you.

[00:09:45] I'm taking time out of my day because I'm just saying this because it's like the online online version We need somebody to speak to their own. Fuck off. That's... Even I was thinking, where's the gig for white people in prison? What? They're in a different wing. Is there, well, this is the weird thing is that, is I... Comedians go on about how freedom of speech and all this kind of stuff. And we, you know, with it, we're these, these...

[00:12:21] So, you know, we were talking about all these issues.

[00:12:24] I think that's one of the issues that really needs

[00:12:26] dealing with. and we're having a proper joke, or you are actually racist. When somebody, when you want to have a serious conversation about it, nobody wants to. So it's just sort of like, oh, you've been awful. So, okay, difficult in Liverpool. Why difficult in Edinburgh? Again, this is a bigger picture and it sounds like you're winching sometimes. And I get why some comics go,

[00:13:41] there's more black comics moaning

[00:13:42] about social services, loads everywhere.

[00:13:43] No, in London there is loads.

[00:14:44] working class people of any colour, they find it harder because we're a subsection of that, it's even harder harder. So yeah.

[00:14:48] I mean, what are your plans for it? What are your plans for the Black Comedy show? Do you see it

[00:14:52] expanding to every city in the North or I mean, what would you like to see happen?

[00:14:58] Everybody goes, well, we need more Black comedians, but then when you do it, people go, well, why do

[00:15:02] we need this Black Knight? And I had this idea that I sometimes because it's not as metropolitan as London and everything like that but it's the sort of like oh it's not a this woman's not going to talk about women things i think this black person i'm going to say so you've got to do a pre-amble

[00:16:22] of going i'm cheering this is my heritage and I know people, you know, Trinidadian heritage or African heritage. And there was a guy called Louise. This year he's gay and he's Scottish, black Scottish. Yeah, sorry. And I'm going, yeah, he's lovely. Yeah. But again, it's a, I, people think that, oh, well, you just, you're getting

[00:17:44] because he's black.

[00:17:45] It's a step for me because, oh my God, you're Scottish and black. I do a special that's it. You go no you can you can do whatever you want it's just that you know people expect certain things of you. Yeah yeah I totally agree with you. Yeah that's it dates people expect black comics to be the same hence that's why you never get books more than one on a bill. Well that was that was another thing I did with the showcase is that and I didn't realize whether or not comedy will become more gentrified because it is for people with money and the travel costs and stuff like that. But I think there is a big thing about the human condition and

[00:20:21] connection with other people. I don't know if this think that they've got a beal exactly like that. And all comedy is all with my mate. And it's not like that. Yeah. That is that is spontaneous. And you'll never get that again. So some of the stuff that Paul does really riff and on stuff.

[00:21:41] You'll never get that again.

[00:21:43] You know, it's just you should say always, but I've worked backwards by accident. And I just thought you had to do an hour. So that's how I just run a lot of stuff and then put it together like an hour backwards. I keep doing it, I keep doing it.

[00:23:00] Everybody keeps going,

[00:23:00] why don't you take a certain stuff and I go,

[00:23:02] all right, right, I know.

[00:23:03] And sometimes I've seen newer comedians

[00:23:07] get really RC with older comedians been to where a lot of the old male black comics and all of them did something about white women at some point and every time they did that everybody looked at my car. I could feel that, I could feel that and it was so horrible and I feel, I feel, I feel

[00:24:23] that but I've had it myself so I was like, it's just a night for black people. It's just sort of like, it's for everybody. I tried to make the white male audience members part of the show, and you've both seen that. So, but for anybody who hasn't come along to the show, it's funny to be using med stacks. I've seen that, you know, back in the day, it doesn't happen so much now, but where a comet would do something, say something borderline racist,

[00:25:44] and there'd be one black guy, and they'd go, was great, he smashed it. It was just weird in Edinburgh, it was just a large group of black people just having a lovely chat. This homeless drunk Scottish guy was just walking up the street and we weren't in the

[00:27:02] way but we were all just like this is and because you just went you know what fuck off fuck you because he said fuck off to you first right he said oh you're fucking better than anyone no fucking you can get fuck off you because you know

[00:28:20] I've apologized and you know I've tried to be That's what I did. He's emotional. No, no, no. He's got to get to talk to another black person. It's amazing. Not one person in comedy. It's not Edinburgh already is it?

[00:29:40] Well even the people who watch this podcast will be saying exactly the same thing.

[00:29:44] Oh my god they got another black person on.

[00:29:48] A lot of them will be in discomfort behind that comic. I love that thing when you go back from a gig though, it's all the acts for the bill are in the same class. Maybe there's five people in one car and then one of them's had a really shitty.

[00:31:01] That is hard to do with for them. Both of the person that's had the crap gig

[00:31:03] and also everybody else in the car because

[00:31:06] Chameleon's being as they are,

[00:31:07] they can't help going on and on about it, can they? normally meet up in the car park there, where there's normally a big picture of an act that's doing much better than you. And sometimes you could say, yeah, I remember when he was in the car five years ago, whatever happened to him, as you see the seven foot poster of him with his thumbs up.

[00:33:25] If we get in, oh, and this is just how weird it was. And I said, do you mind if we put the radio on

[00:33:27] or listen to some music?

[00:33:28] And he said to me, I don't do music.

[00:33:32] I don't like music.

[00:33:33] And then a little shiver ran down my spine.

[00:33:36] And so I said, what do you do?

[00:33:38] Because I actually, I like to listen to my,

[00:33:40] I record my acts and I listen to it as we go along.

[00:33:43] And then I make editing suggestions.

[00:33:46] And then he brought out this back? So I said, well yeah, okay, so we split there, Patrick, and it's 25 quid and to this day it's about 10 years ago, I've never had the fucking money. He's never paid me back. Since the toilet and they wouldn't stop the car. In the end it got to the point where I said look you've got to stop, just pull off at the first exit, I've got to go to the toilet. So they did, jumped out the car and that's when I found out that the expression piss turned out bus delayed because of snowstorm. So I was stood outside for two hours. Bus finally turns up, get on the bus. Of course it took two hours to get to get into the centre of London. And on a bus where the heater had packed up. So freezing, the night ofers. Anyway, see you in the next one.

[00:39:04] This show is part of Pajomodie, the podcast comedy network.