The naughty and nice sides of funny business

It's a Saturday night at the Hot Cat Club, the place to be for Chinese-language comedy. On Wednesday's English-language nights, the expatriate crowd clutches beers and chats loudly.

But tonight the bar is doing a brisk trade in tea, and at least one man is drinking milk. People are engaged in quiet conversation or are buried in their cellphones waiting for the show to start.

Tony Chou, one of Beijing's hottest young comics by night and TV reporter by day, is anxiously scanning the gathering crowd.

"Not that many people tonight," he says, glumly. "We had a 'nasty night' last week. Big crowd."

The nasty night was a themed event where comedians were encouraged to talk about "nasty" topics.

It is a concept that may seem strange to comedy fans from the West, where stand-up is known as an edgy, taboo-breaking, exercise.

But in China many topics, such as sex and politics, remain sensitive.

"Very little stuff related to sex," Chou says of the content of Chinese comedy. "We do have (jokes about sex) but not that many compared with Western-style comedy."

Politics are discussed within certain parameters, he says.

"Nasty for them was just like really tame for (the West)," says Irish-American comedian Des Bishop. "The nasty show was actually one of their biggest shows for a while and quite a good atmosphere because it relaxed people, and they could talk about whatever the hell they wanted.

"They are still a little trapped with this feeling that these things are unacceptable to talk about. Not so much in terms of trouble - obviously there are other topics that you can't talk about - but they are hugely judgmental around things that are considered a little low, a little base."

Bishop was born in the US but has lived in Ireland since he was a teen, and is one of Ireland's best-known comedians.

A year ago he moved to Beijing, film crew in tow, to shoot a TV series in which he learned Mandarin with the aim of performing a stand-up comedy routine within one year. That mission is complete - the show will air on Irish television later this year - but Bishop is reluctant to return home, having now found himself immersed in what he says is an exciting Chinese-language stand-up comedy scene.

"Not only are they new comedians, they are new comedians without having had anyone to base their stuff on, you know, they are literally like pioneers just taking this little hop. Some of them got into English-language stand-up and now they are trying to get into Chinese. It's pretty incredible," Bishop says.

"When I came here, all the talk was about how people don't understand stand-up comedy culture. Already that talk has dissipated in 11 months, and now the talk is, how do we expand this? More and more people want to see us. So things develop fast in China when they develop."

Bishop says not only are the audiences growing, but the skills of the local comedians are also improving.

"These guys are starting to experience success. Some of them are starting to have really good gigs."

(China Daily Africa Weekly 01/24/2014 page25)