In this week’s column, our performing arts editor, Nell Frizzell, is taking a cold, hard look at cash. And why getting rich can, so often, make you rubbish…
The only thing worse than failure is success. That’s right. Money makes you mediocre.
According to the Sun (where I go for all my cultural commentary), Michael McIntyre has earned £5m in the last two years. Which is funny, because McIntyre is about as amusing as a digestive biscuit. And about as edgy.
Now, I’m no punk (I prefer my saliva on the inside) but it is fairly obvious that mainstream financial success has ruined many a great performer. Eddie Izzard went from painfully funny to wincingly repetitive. Ricky Gervais’s sitcoms have had the trajectory of a boiled egg, thrown off a roof. And I don’t think anyone in their right mind would argue that The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living is Mike Skinner’s finest album.
Oh, I know what you’re going to say: the Beatles just got better and better, the more successful they became. Yes, well, as the lyrics to You Never Give Me Your Money attest, The Beatles spent much of their group career frantically fighting to ever get their hands on any of the money owed to them. It was only once the band broke up, and each mop-head was sent out on his merry way, did they start to make serious millions. Step forward Paul McCartney’s truly buttock-slackening The Backseat of my Car.
Also, while the mass hysteria of Shea Stadium fuelled Beatlemania like cider to a 13-year-old’s first grope, it didn’t necessarily improve the quality of the actual performance. The Beatles could have been singing the theme tune to Playaways in Bulgarian for all anyone could hear. And it isn’t just musicians that suffer from overenthusiastic audiences.
In his incredible autobiography, Born Standing Up, Steve Martin admits that his audiences got so enormous that, “I was worried about being seen at such distances – this was a small comedy act. For visibility, I bought a white suit to wear onstage.” Imagine that. You’re a comedian, brought up playing the back room of a seedy bar, and suddenly you’re faced by thousands of microdots – each one a paying customer expecting you to make them laugh. He did what any sane person would do – he wore a white suit so at least they could see him, and he stuck an arrow through his head.
Audiences didn’t just laugh at Steve Martin – they screamed, hollered his name, cheered, clapped and whooped over his punchlines. According to one critic, the audience was “devouring the comic with approval.” Which is a line I thought I’d only ever hear in reference to Mötley Crüe groupies.
Of course there are some acts that can fill a stadium – and fill it well. I have it on good authority that Jerry Seinfeld was still funny, even when he was bellowing into the charm vacuum that is the 02 Arena. I would still pay good money to watch Tina Turner, even if I had to do it through the Giant Magellan Telescope. And Radiohead may now be performing to thousands at a time, but they haven’t become any less innovative – well, in their attitude to pricing at least.
So, if you’re one of the thousands of people desperately trying to eek out a living on delayed invoices and 18p chicken noodles, I suppose what I’m saying is don’t despair. Being poor is terrible. But being rich might well be worse.
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Illustration by Narcsville.