Does the defiantly un-PC humour of comedy duo Programme=20 Fluoride deserve a place in the new South Africa? JOHN=20 PHILLIPS reports
IT’S 6pm in an Irish pub in central Cape Town and Chris=20 McEvoy and Roger Christian — the two determinedly=20 confrontational comedians who make up Programme=20 Fluoride — are poised over pints of Guinness as dark=20 as their comic material.
They’re unashamedly proud of the fact that people often=20 walk out of their shows in disgust, but this evening=20 they’re in mellow mode, punting a boyish bonhomie which=20 leaves one in no doubt they once shared the same school=20
That was 13-odd years ago when, fired up on Monty=20 Python and Derek and Clive (Dudley Moore and Peter=20 Cook), they decided to try their hands at writing radio=20 scripts — with little success. The influences have=20 remained but the typewriter has long since been turfed=20 out, having been replaced by a tape recorder and=20 endless supplies of beer.
This is what they do now: sit and drink and record=20 their ramblings until they come up with another=20 tasteless sketch about rape, blacks, the elderly or=20 God. And when it’s honed enough to have them both=20 laughing, they’re ready to foist it on another=20 unsuspecting audience. That’s what Programme Fluoride=20 is about: concentrating the rare flashes of profundity=20 one sometimes finds in smoke-filled drinking holes, and=20 dishing them up again in the rarefied theatre setting.
“We’re trying to emulate a bar-room situation,” says=20 McEvoy, a reed-thin, haunted-looking young man with a=20 serious nicotine habit and deep, incongruously=20 authoritative voice. “And when you’re in a bar people=20 don’t talk about political bullshit. They eventually=20 start speaking about why they’re in the bar in the=20 first place.”
Yet, as any serious drinker knows, you have to sit=20 through an uncomfortable amount of sodden-synapse=20 babble before you strike gold. Generally, the drunker=20 bar-room philosophers become, the more drivel they=20 speak, and the famous Wolf Hour — that magical period=20 of startling lucidity between rampant misanthropy and=20 indiscriminate bonding — is often a long time coming.
That could be one of the reasons why Programme Fluoride=20 has attracted so much negative criticism. How much lard=20 does one have to wade through to hit the mother lode?=20 Take this one: “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you=20 this, but the best way, and this is a state secret, the=20 best way to meet women is in accidents. Really. On the=20 way to the club I knocked over three people. Ended up=20 with two dates that evening. The other one? She died.”
Where does all this fit in with the politically correct=20 new South Africa? The answer is, it doesn’t. “We don’t=20 see our humour fitting into the new South Africa,”=20 McEvoy says. “I’m not talking about politics but=20 culture. Right now we don’t have a culture that fits=20 into the new South Africa. The thing about comedy is=20 that it’s inherently fascist — there’s no such thing=20 as PC comedy.
“We are post-alternative comedians. In a way we’re like=20 cultural freedom fighters. Right now, culture is being=20 repressed by political correctness; it always has been.=20 It’s a good idea for the masses but we don’t play for=20 the masses. The key word here is people trying to be=20 politically correct. A lot of these purportedly PC=20 people are doing it as a fashion. They’re the people we=20 want to piss off. If we can offend them, then our=20 show’s been a success.”
One aspect of their routine which isn’t conventionally=20 confrontational is their dark side — scary, brooding=20 and as brimful of universal alienation as a novel by=20 Kafka, another of their declared influences. They admit=20 they’re both “depressive” — Prozac-depressive, shrink- depressive, really depressive.
“But that doesn’t matter because what comes out is=20 neither him nor me,” says Christian. “If it was, we=20 should both be in a padded cell in a psychiatric ward.=20 People tend to think that we are who we portray on=20 stage, but we’re very different. Sure, the show’s a=20 sort of emotional purging. I dig out all the dirt I=20 wouldn’t say to people’s faces and stick it up on stage=20 — but that’s still not me.”
And that’s another reason for the criticism: their=20 audiences, they say, tend to take them far too=20 literally. McEvoy takes another slug of Guinness,=20 lights another cigarette and gets angry. “Anyone who=20 comes to our show thinking we’re the characters we’re=20 portraying is missing the boat. When we’re being racist=20 and sexist it should be obvious to the audience that=20 we’re poking fun at people who pretend not to be racist=20 and sexist when they actually are.
“There are a lot of closet bigots around and all we’re=20 trying to do is get people to admit that’s the way it=20 is. We don’t rip off women, we rip off sexists and we=20 don’t rip off blacks, we rip off racists. We’re just=20 throwing their shit back in their faces. They’ve thrown=20 their shit in our faces for so long but they don’t like=20 it when we throw it back. If we had to agonise about=20 what we’re doing, we wouldn’t get anywhere. We really=20 just want to make people laugh …”
Ja, we have to laugh, hey. As McEvoy — 20 cigarettes=20 and several pints of Guinness later — puts it: “Every=20 day I become more convinced that if we weren’t doing=20 comedy, I would have killed myself a long time ago. The=20 only reason I’m alive is my sense of humour.”
Programme Fluoride appear on the fringe at the Standard=20 Bank National Arts Festival. Look out for the Mail Guardian’s supplement to the festival on June 30