This week’s excuse for not blogging comes from the fact that at 5am tomorrow I leave for Denmark. Well I say I, but I mean Tiernan Douibe, the person who’s names on my boarding pass. I’d like to be able to change that but I didn’t book the flights and it would cost £110 to do so, so I’m praying Ryan Air don’t have me arrested by the terror police and I’ll happily spend my flight pretending to be someone slightly different. Sure me and Tiernan Douibe will have some similarities. We both totally have beards, we both like the Wu Tang Clan, things like that. But where we differ is that Tiernan Douibe may speak in an accent. I’m not sure what yet. He may also laugh if he farts on the plane. In a loud way that states he is in no way embarrassed. He’ll also prounounce ‘water’ slightly wrong so that when he asks for some on the plane, everyone around him thinks he’s exotic. And he might walk with a limp. We’ll have to wait and see. I haven’t met him yet. It could all go horribly wrong though. Firstly Ryan Air may just not let me on. That’d be bad. Worse would be if I get to Denmark and they are expecting Tiernan Douibe who is a completely different comedian and his one hour show ‘I Fire Penguins From My Asses’.
This would be mostly bad because a) I can’t fire penguins from my asses, not least because I don’t have a pet ass. Nor do I have more than one bodily ass. Either way, it’d be hard and 2) because I have spent a week learning Danish things. There is nothing like an abroad trip to make you realise just how culturally ignorant you are. I know the Danish watch a fair amount of British TV but my gags seem to be filled with far too many vague references on people and places that outside of the British Isles are fairly pointless comparisons. I could go full ‘British Tourist’ and just say them anyway, only loudly, hoping they’ll get it, but instead I’m actually trying to write jokes. Mostly, as I’m doing two one hour shows, I’m trying to write about their government so I can squeeze it in and around my Edinburgh show of last year. Turns out that its pretty hard working out how other countries work. Well it is if you’re me.
I spent ages learning how British politics work, and now to try and get my head around Danish politics, it feels like a whole whirlpool of boringness. Its not the most interesting aspects of Danish culture I’ll give you that. Sure, there are bits that are. Like the fact that their Queen smokes, their Nick Griffin equivalent is the only Danish MP that supports David Cameron, and recently they too suffered from Norway’s butter crisis. But ultimately things are so similar yet with such subtle differences, that cramming them all in my brain isn’t very helpful to anyone. I’ve been watching the Danish show Borgen to help me, and what that has told me is that most Danish politicians are quite pretty, anyone who looks like an evil Pacey from Dawson’s Creek is definitely evil and that calling someone ‘Bent’ as a first name will be funny for the rest of my life.
Thing is, comedy is totally universal. There are things that will make people laugh all over the world and last time I was in Aarhus I found it an absolute joy to play. But I wasn’t trying to comment on the state of the nation. Nor was I talking for an hour to a theatreful of people. Hopefully, I’ll just wing the whole thing, say Borgen a lot, occasionally say how funny it is that their PM is called Helle and then break down crying. Or if all else fails I’ll learn how to Fire Penguins From My Asses.
