Won't somebody save us all from the joyless souls that don't like bacon? Do critics have a right to ruin a good joke? I wonder this at the same time as I wonder if some critics have so very little joy left in their souls that they can no longer enter into the spirit of a game. It's not the way I would work. In fact, even if this blog does only have a few new visitors a day, I'm still wary of being accused of doing what one critic has already done. I don't want to ruin good bacon-based material. So if you don't want a good joke ruining, then don't click this link and it's probably best if you don't read any further... But the chances are that you already knew what the above critic revealed but not everybody did. I knew something was wrong when I looked at my blog statistics this afternoon. Over the past month, lots of people have been coming to this blog after searching for 'Baconface Canada review' and 'Baconface comedy' on Google. Suddenly, today, the nature of the searches changed and an extra name was added to every single hit. It didn't take long to figure out why. The Guardian had published their review of Baconface's show. Now, perhaps the critic is right to say it was the worst kept secret of the Edinburgh Fringe but my Google searches of the past month suggested otherwise. I'd figured out the 'secret' months ago and probably about two seconds after first hearing Baconface's voice. I confirmed it when I saw the pictures on Baconface's website. I mean, you can disguise most things but few people disguise their wedding rings. Figuring it out was all the fun. It's why I wrote what I did back then and I drew a couple of strips. I just loved the conceit the moment I saw it for what it was. Like writing my book as Stan Madeley (the UK's top Richard Madeley lookalike), I love this kind of game. Baconface was precisely the kind of thing I would have loved to done myself. It is the closest thing I've seen to the kind of pranks played by the great Andy Kaufman and it deserved so much better. Now it has been shown to be a prank, it's lost a little of its beauty. But what gets to me is why the critic didn't enter into the spirit or the fun. This was a comedian playing around with his craft and (I hope) having a blast whilst doing it. It makes it all the more disappointing that somebody had to come out and reveal the truth in such a bland, crass and utterly humourless way. You can't tell me that a review couldn't have been written in a way that both revealed the reviewer's awareness of the joke but their willingness to play along with it. It's not as though this joke would turn into a huge thing, filling stadiums with bacon-based material, or that some journalistic integrity would be compromised if the truth hadn't been revealed. It was one man, enjoying his art enough to share it some tomfoolery with his audience at the price of some cheap bacon. Now it becomes something else. Now it becomes part of the greater celebrity world and that sense of mischief has gone. 
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
End of the Bacon
Won't somebody save us all from the joyless souls that don't like bacon? Do critics have a right to ruin a good joke? I wonder this at the same time as I wonder if some critics have so very little joy left in their souls that they can no longer enter into the spirit of a game. It's not the way I would work. In fact, even if this blog does only have a few new visitors a day, I'm still wary of being accused of doing what one critic has already done. I don't want to ruin good bacon-based material. So if you don't want a good joke ruining, then don't click this link and it's probably best if you don't read any further... But the chances are that you already knew what the above critic revealed but not everybody did. I knew something was wrong when I looked at my blog statistics this afternoon. Over the past month, lots of people have been coming to this blog after searching for 'Baconface Canada review' and 'Baconface comedy' on Google. Suddenly, today, the nature of the searches changed and an extra name was added to every single hit. It didn't take long to figure out why. The Guardian had published their review of Baconface's show. Now, perhaps the critic is right to say it was the worst kept secret of the Edinburgh Fringe but my Google searches of the past month suggested otherwise. I'd figured out the 'secret' months ago and probably about two seconds after first hearing Baconface's voice. I confirmed it when I saw the pictures on Baconface's website. I mean, you can disguise most things but few people disguise their wedding rings. Figuring it out was all the fun. It's why I wrote what I did back then and I drew a couple of strips. I just loved the conceit the moment I saw it for what it was. Like writing my book as Stan Madeley (the UK's top Richard Madeley lookalike), I love this kind of game. Baconface was precisely the kind of thing I would have loved to done myself. It is the closest thing I've seen to the kind of pranks played by the great Andy Kaufman and it deserved so much better. Now it has been shown to be a prank, it's lost a little of its beauty. But what gets to me is why the critic didn't enter into the spirit or the fun. This was a comedian playing around with his craft and (I hope) having a blast whilst doing it. It makes it all the more disappointing that somebody had to come out and reveal the truth in such a bland, crass and utterly humourless way. You can't tell me that a review couldn't have been written in a way that both revealed the reviewer's awareness of the joke but their willingness to play along with it. It's not as though this joke would turn into a huge thing, filling stadiums with bacon-based material, or that some journalistic integrity would be compromised if the truth hadn't been revealed. It was one man, enjoying his art enough to share it some tomfoolery with his audience at the price of some cheap bacon. Now it becomes something else. Now it becomes part of the greater celebrity world and that sense of mischief has gone. 
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