The Wright Stuff
(Dt. Übersetzung folgt in Kürze)

Because of the 40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing (note the title), we’re going to look at someone with a space connection : Steven Wright. No, not because he’s on a different planet to the rest of us : Steven Wright’s father worked on electronic testing for the Apollo project, and a lot of his work ended up on the moon. Some would say his son still lives there…

In the UK in the mid 80s, comedy enthusiasts would regularly tune into „Des O’Connor Tonight“. The basis of this programme was a celebrity chat-show, bookended with Des warbling a couple of middle-of-the-road songs for the Granny element of the audience – sort of like an english version of Heino, but without the sunglasses and the blond hair. (Des was a big hit with my Gran – the same one who bought me the Bill Cosby Album.) Due to it being a chat-show, it regularly featured American comedians. At the time, English comedy was split into two camps – the old guard, who came through the working-mens club circuit, and often relied on sexist and racist humour in the form of street jokes, and „Alternative comedy“, which aspired to the American observational style. You can guess which one interested me more.

Anyway, I switched over to BBC2, got past Des’s initial song without losing the will to live, and, all of a sudden, was confronted with a very dead-pan, unhappy-looking American character, who didn’t even acknowledge the audience, but just wandered around the stage, microphone in hand, delivering a surreal monologue.

„I have a decaffinated coffee table. You wouldn’t know it just to look at it.“ „The other day somebody stole everything in my apartment and replaced it with an exact replica… When my roommate came home I said, ‘How did this happen?’ He said, ‘Do I know you?’”

„When I die, I’m going to leave my body to Science Fiction“

Who was this man who said such strange and funny things? The nearest to this in English comedy was Spike Milligan (who, in an interview, quoted one of the above jokes as one of his favourites). I was hooked, as were doubtless people like Mitch Hedberg and Jimmy Carr (who was probably watching that night as well..)

Steven Wright delivers his comedy in a long, slow drawl whilst pacing the stage. Unlike most comedians, he often ignores the audience and appears to be talking to himself. He’s the king of deadpan delivery, and you can be quite sure that Mitch Hedburg owes a lot to him. But whilst Hedburg points out surreality of everyday life, Steven Wright’s act is what Salvador Dali would do if he did stand-up comedy, and I mean that both in terms of surreality and craftsmanship.

Wright explains he puts tape on all his mirrors to prevent himself falling into an alternate dimension (shades of „The Twilight Zone“ as well as „Alice Through the Looking-Glass“) – and that’s one of his more normal jokes. Looking at him, you’re not really sure if he actually believes this stuff himself. He certainly looks like some of the mental derelicts you find riding round on subways mumbling to themselves.

Fortunately, he’s a lot more together in real life, and supplements his comedy with acting and film-making: He appeared in „Reservoir Dogs“ and has even won an Oscar for his film „The Appointments of Dennis Jennings“. He has his own website on http://www.stevenwright.com/ which contains an excellent biography:

„I was born. When I was 23 I started telling jokes.
Then I started going on television and doing films.
That’s still what I am doing. The end.“

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