Katie Mulgrew looks to a future without stand-up (but more zombies)

Iceberg straight ahead! This is it. The end of comedy. Rome is burning. There is an asteroid heading straight for us and it is most likely called Dave…Ja Vu.

The White House has well and truly collapsed and not because someone ‘just blew the roof off it’ with their brilliant comedy. Comedy is broken! If it were a person it would be Humpty Dumpty. That’s how broken it is. It’s positively hemorrhaging. Bleeding orangey egg jokes all over the refurbished laminate flooring and trendy mohair rug that comedy splashed out on before it went bankrupt.

In the face of such impending doom we should probably all pack our bags and head for high ground. Preferably high enough ground to avoid the impending tsunami waves but flat enough to erect a marquee where you can charge £48 a traumatized head for ‘Curry AND Comedy!’

I imagine all over the country similar scenes of chaos. Headliners busy stockpiling gigs in tins and jars. Promoters with shotguns sat on the porches of their comedy venues, shooting any gig starved open spot that gets within spitting distance of their stage.

With no comedy to watch, reviewers will go a bit mad. Informing customer service representatives at Barclays that their banking material is hack and leaving comment cards in the local branch of Tesco Express. Saying things like: ‘An interesting and varied range of yoghurt, three stars’ -but it tastes like a four.

Soon there will be nothing left. A few deserted function rooms above pubs. Cobwebbed covered extension leads, the only reminder that yes, there was once stand-up here. There was once laughter here.

Comedians are going to be forced to hunt down their audiences. Literally. Armed with spears and butterfly nets, they will take to the nearest Cul-De-Sac like those blokes out of Predator only more desperate and with fewer cigars. People will have even more of an excuse to stay in and watch comics on the telly when a mere trip to the local Londis may result in their own disappearance. A mum taking her bins out could suddenly wake up gagged and bound in a warehouse with nothing in it but meat hooks and a stand-up doing a 20-minute routine about social networking.

Oh but the internet will be better now. No more invites to a comedy night that is at least 355 miles away from where you actually live. I mean it is only amount of time before we all start eating each other for gigs, but on the plus side our Facebook inboxes will be a lot quieter.

I do wonder when the gigs have all gone, where will the hen and stag parties go? In what other forum will it truly get to be ‘Debbie’ or ‘Kev’s’ night. ‘Ask her about when she shat herself!’ just doesn’t have the same resonance when you are shouting it up at RPatz’s big HD face on screen No.7 at the local multiplex.

At least in these desperate apocalyptic times, the old female comedian debate won’t be so much of an issue. Women and children first! No! There are no lifeboats! We are all goners! Although there will probably be arguments on survivor forums under the topic ‘Are zombie women as bloodthirsty as zombie men?’

Any new comedians well just don’t bother eh? We don’t need any more of you. But if you insist on pursuing it, you are going to have to off another comic for your place. It’s a Hunger Games situation I’m afraid, guys. So I would sign up to kickboxing and Zumba classes pronto. All you cool skinny-jean stand-ups better bulk up.

Hecklers are no longer, the enemy your fellow comics are. Well, they always have been really... but this time they are armed with massive mallets not passive aggression.

All you uncool comics shouldn’t worry about these pesky cool comics anyway. When the zombies come it will be the prettiest ones that are eaten first.

Published: 23 Nov 2012