Tim Ballantine defends the circuit

Last week, Emily Snee wrote about why she is quitting comedy.

It's never fun to see somebody feel bad enough about something that they decide to never do it again, and I wish her the best of luck.

But she says one of the reasons for her decision is this: 'As far as I can tell, stand up comedy is an industry built on dishonesty. Over the past year I have seen comedians play nice with each other when beneath the surface they are filled with loathing...'

Is Emily really attacking comedy for its performers being nice to one another?

Dingy basements and rooms above pubs are the weirdest offices in the world, but they're offices nonetheless, and we comedians have the dubious honour of being one another's colleagues. And since most of us harbour dreams of becoming professional someday, that means behaving professionally with other comedians.

In any regular office around the world, walking around telling other staff members you think they're terrible people or that they're wasting their time and should give up on their career would get you a long chat with HR and would lose you the respect of everyone else in your department.

Even without an HR department to keep us in line, comedians have worked out that treating each other respectfully keeps everything ticking along smoothly. I'm sure there are other acts out there who can't stand me. But I have no idea who they are, because everybody on the circuit treats me kindly and allows me to do the same in turn.

Personally, I'm not so sure that comedy would a better, less toxic place if we all started calling one another names.

I've only ever really met one act -­ he was at an open night and I've not seen him since - ­who 'told it like it is'. He was the very definition of toxicity. I won't say his name because a) that would make me a big fat hypocrite, and b) I never bothered to learn his name in the first place.

He strutted around telling me and other people I like and respect exactly what he thought of us. After spending the whole evening strutting around like his first prize at the village arsehole competition had gone right to his head, he won't be allowed to perform there again.

There are plenty of really good reasons to hate comedy: the misogyny, the cliques, the pay ­- hell, spend an hour with me and I'm anybody would pretty quickly come up with a couple of new ones - but comedians treating each other with respect is a pretty shitty one.

Published: 1 Jul 2014