Juliet England: Comedy gigs are no laughing matter for deaf people

Ah, Friday night. Surely the finest evening of the week. I have free tickets for a comedy and curry gig, and the chance to catch up with a friend I haven’t seen for ages. There is a bar. What could be nicer?

Well, being able to hear, for a start-off. It’s a cavernous room and busy so even catching what my friend is saying is a struggle. But somehow we muddle through.

Then, curries duly consumed and the first part of the evening over, the lights dim and the first comic walks on stage. I’ve requested front-row seats, and told my mildly alarmed friend we’ll have to take our chances of any of the acts drawing attention to us. She looks worried but, hey, it’s a free evening out, what has she got to moan about? (To be fair, she isn’t complaining.)

Anyway, I can remember almost nothing about the first act, other than that he seemed to be a generic thirty-something bloke in jeans and trainers. I don’t think I heard more than a couple of words that came out of his mouth. It’s OK, I think, he’s just the compere. There are a couple more acts to come. Hopefully they’ll be OK.

Unfortunately, they aren’t. It’s an identical story with the first main comic, again a generic thirty-something guy in jeans and trainers. I think there may have been a quip to do with Christmas, but it certainly hasn’t lingered in the memory.

After the interval, things look up a bit. The comic comes on very much in character, clearly channelling his inner Sartre or some other Left Bank 1960s poet. He has a monk-style haircut, a burgundy suit with compulsory black rollneck sweater, and swills dramatically from a glass of red wine.

He explains the perils of modern technology: ‘I wanted to text my girlfriend and say I thought we should move on. I ended up writing that I thought we should move in.’ It’s a good job it’s a half-decent gag – I have to make it last all evening.

I smile as he adopts a pretentious pose before reading a poem of his, and appreciate the attempt to create a character, so that he’s not the generic guy in trainers and jeans, kicking off his set with an eye roll and a ‘Brexit, eh?’, but otherwise, zero, zilch, nada.

I had really hoped that by ensuring a front row seat and by turning up my hearing aids full blast and making sure batteries had enough juice, I would have got something out of the evening other than a few minutes’ chat with my friend, which we could have had anywhere.

(During the sets I steal glances at her, and she seems to be chortling, so at least one of us is having fun.)

And it’s clearly not the fault of the comedians, or the organisers. But it got me to thinking about jokes and humour generally, and how often those of us with a hearing loss are inadvertently left out.

On so many occasions, I’ve been with a group of people all laughing their heads off, desperate to know what was so funny. Actually, this was especially noticeable in the days when I had a ‘proper’ job, and it seemed at the time to erect another barrier between myself and my colleagues. Clearly, people don’t always have the strength to repeat the gag and, admittedly, jokes do lose their appeal rapidly if they have to be explained or repeated.

I know there are comics with a specific appeal to a deaf audience, such as Deaf comedian John Smith, who does his sets in BSL. I have also previously reported on comedian Ray Bradshaw, who performs his set in both spoken English and sign language.

However, it’s a little hard to see where an act like Ray’s would leave a cloth-ears like me, who doesn’t sign and who would probably miss most of the oral words. (It’d leave me In the bar, no doubt. With a severe hearing loss but not profound deafness, I so often fall between the two proverbial barstools after all.)

Whenever I’ve been at a comedy event (admittedly not that often) it’s pretty much the same story. What could clubs do? Loops and captioning, I guess. Not that I’ve ever been to a gig where they’ve had captioning, and induction loops don’t seem to work with my kind of hearing loss anyway.

All of which I know must sound like the most tremendous whinge. But there are surely a number of issues here; inclusion, obviously, but humour is also pretty much a daily essential as well as a social lubricant. Even a weapon in these crazy times, a form of self-defence. A way of joining in.

The great Alan Bennett said that anyone devoid of a sense of humour must be equally devoid of humanity, and I have to agree. It’s quite a serious business, having a laugh.

Read more of Juliet’s articles for us here.

Juliet England is a hearing-impaired freelance writer.