'Dizzy': Vic Reeves and the 90s Comedy Boom [November 3, 1991]

Plus: K-Klass, Crowded House, Manic Street Preachers, Metallica, and Queen

This week’s Number One: ‘Dizzy’ — Vic Reeves & The Wonder Stuff

In the 1980s, British comedy was open warfare between two opposing factions.

On one side, you had the staunch traditionalists, led by the likes of Bernard Manning and Stanley Boardman. These were guys who came up through pubs and the cabaret circuit, who knew how to work a drunk audience (mostly, by being horrifically racist.)

Then, you had the Alternative Comedy movement emerging from the Comedy Store in London. Faces like Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle were leading a raucous movement that combined elements of punk rock and anti-Thatcher socialism.

It’s easy to view this as another Left vs. Right conflict.

But it’s actual, the divide in British comedy has always revolved around a different axis: banter vs. silliness.

Banter comedy is about extending and amplifying the existing conversation. The charm of someone like Bernard Manning was that he was essentially one of the old lads who sit at a bar all day, happy to chat to anyone who sits next to them.

Silly comedy is more theatrical and literary. The Goon Show and Monty Python’s Flying Circus is not the kind of comedy that emerges naturally when you’re chatting with your pals down the pub. No – it’s what you get when you’ve studied Brecht and Rabalais, ideally in Cambridge.

Banter is earthy and natural, but conservative. Silliness is ambitious and arch, but quite progressive. Banter is Northern, silliness is Southern. Never the twain shall meet.

Until Vic Reeves arrived.

Vic Reeves is the stage persona of Jim Moir, a man with legit working-class credentials (Northern, comprehensive school, dropped out of a mechanical engineering apprenticeship.)

The Vic Reeves persona is an exaggerated, Bizarro-world parody of the traditional comic. He seems to be wearing a crushed velvet tuxedo even when he’s not wearing a crushed velvet tuxedo. That’s Vic Reeves.

But he’s not a total parody. Vic Reeves really is an old-fashioned entertainer. That’s why he was able to produce a raucous hit single like ‘Dizzy’, which is an absolute blast of pop joy.

The substance of Reeves’ comedy was deeply silly. Actually, calling it silly is an understatement. His work with Bob Mortimer is some of the most bizarre, nonsensical, dadaist, gonzo, weirdo gibberish ever broadcast on TV.

Their work offered an alternative to the alternative. Comedy was no longer a choice between racism and anti-Thatcher jokes. You could also watch whatever the fuck this was:

1991 was the brink of a new era in British comedy. The Perrier Award nominees from 1990-1992 included up-and-comers like Sean Hughes, Frank Skinner, Jack Dee, Eddie Izzard, Lily Savage, Jo Brand, and Steve Coogan. The Mary Whitehouse Experience were building an audience on TV, and Lee and Herring were becoming radio stars. All of these people still dominate comedy today.

(Except Sean Hughes who sadly died, RIP Sean.)

This was the generation that inspired the whole “comedy is the new rock’n’roll” thing, which would become a catchphrase in the late 90s.

And if those guys were rock’n’roll, then Vic Reeves is a kind of Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart figure. A delightful old weirdo who does his own thing without worrying about what anyone else is up to.

Which is how, in 1991, he ended up shouting into a washing machine on Top of the Pops with The Wonder Stuff bouncing around beside him. It was just what he felt like doing at the time.

---

Elsewhere in the charts

Number 8 (Re-Entry): ‘Rhythm Is A Mystery’ — K-Klass

The mystery would only last until March 1992, after which Snap would break the embargo and confirm that rhythm is, in fact, a dancer.

Number 26 (New Entry): ‘Fall At Your Feet’ — Crowded House

Look, it’s ridiculous to have absolutist opinions about music. Everything is subjective, nobody experiences anything in the same way.

But if you don’t feel a tiny shiver of emotion when you hear ‘Fall At Your Feet’, you’re dead inside. It’s a lovely song.

Number 29 (New Entry): ‘Love’s Sweet Exile’ — Manic Street Preachers

There are two phases in the life of a 90s Manic Street Preachers fan.

First, there is the bit where you try to guess the lyrics simply by listening to the song. With James’s diction, it sounds a bit like:

“Wablama inchanin escape colour tin
Gassif I’m in jeans yamma amma stool”

Then, there is the moment where you read the sleeve of the record and commit the words to memory. And, thanks to the curse of knowledge, it sounds like James is singing clear as day. He’s saying:

"We blur into images of state coercion
Classified machines die misunderstood”

Which doesn’t make much more sense. But it’s very rewarding, like when you finally see the dolphin in the Magic Eye poster.

Number 35 (New Entry): ‘The Unforgiven’ — Metallica

Okay, if this song makes you feel emotions then you’re probably 14.

I say this with all love and respect, and because I remember how much emotion this song made me feel when I was 14. I identified so much with the protagonist of the lyrics. He was a lonely man walking a lonely road, fighting for what was right on the fringes of an unforgiving society.

Yes, yes, thought teenage me, you have described the situation so well, James Hetfield. This is exactly what going to school is like. I am The Unforgiven.

Number 36 (New Entry): ‘Clipped’ — Curve

Curve were superb and got tons of critical acclaim at the time (mainly from male journalists who were shameless in their salvation over Toni Halliday.) But maybe they suffered from being slightly ahead of their time? The angular guitars and industrial production sound a little post-grunge.

Whatever – the point is that they never sold as well as they should. Post-curve bands like Garbage and Sneaker Pimps shifted absolute lorryloads of records.

---

Album of the Week

Greatest Hits II — Queen

Here in our alternative 90s timeline, it is the first week of November 1991. Freddie Mercury is still alive, still heterosexual, and still HIV negative.

But the rumours are getting intense. Everyone knows that something’s up.

Queen’s first greatest hits covered the period up to 1981, when the band recorded the Flash Gordon soundtrack. Greatest Hits II doesn’t have the same quality of tracks, but probably tells a more interesting story of a band that fell and rose and fell again and rose again.

Like, there’s almost nothing from their ill-fated disco album Hot Space, apart from the game-changing Bowie collab, ‘Under Pressure’. Instead, the album opens with some of the Live Aid-era hits that turned their fortunes around, like ‘I Want to Break Free’ and ‘Radio Gaga’.

You’ve also got mid-80s tracks from their era as the world’s biggest stadium band, playing to over 250,000 people in South America and 120,000 at Knebworth. These are big songs designed to make the mountains echo. A lot of cocaine was involved.

There’s also some confusion and lack of direction in the later tracks. By 1989, it wasn’t entirely clear who Queen were or who they were singing for. And then, finally, 1991 brought some clarity. Innuendo and the singles from it were a swan song.

But right now, on November 3rd, 1991, Freddie Mercury is fine.

---

Next Week

Seal stops clubbing with his rebooted 'Killer' [Nov 10, 1991

Last week

'The Fly' brings U2 screaming into the 90s [October 26, 1991]