They eventually exit stage left and leave a lot of laughing folks in their wake.
A man or woman walk into a bar (or a club, or a theater, or an arena …). And even as the medium has morphed from one-liner artists to political satirists, from social-taboo tweakers to didja-ever-notice observational humorists, from the club-comic bubble of the 1980s to the the alt-comedy boom of the 1990s, it usually boils down to a fairly simple set-up.
Some of the best practitioners of the form are still alive … or at the very least, haven’t been in the ground all that long. Stand-up comedy grew out of minstrelsy and then vaudeville, which only makes it about a century old, tops. But the idea of getting onstage in front of strangers, just one person and a spotlight, and talking until they crack up – that’s new. Agent: Jason Yarn, Jason Yarn Literary Agency.Cavemen whacked one another in the nuts for cheap yuks, and Medieval fools jabbered in a flop sweat to keep from being beheaded. Christie fans may enjoy seeing how Van Lente redoes Ten Little Indians for the digital age, and others will appreciate the entertainment industry satire, but the humor may be just too broad or tasteless in places for some. Before long, the guests conclude that the killer is one of their own. The murders begin soon after everyone arrives, and their host accuses them, via a recording, of being guilty of crimes against comedy. Dustin Walker, an actor who’s best known from an improv comedy TV series and a movie franchise that started with Help! I Married a Cat, has invited a variety of prominent comedians to an isolated island in the Caribbean, including Janet Kahn, an insult comic Oliver Rees, the creator of the Orange Baby Man character (which he’s successfully franchised) and William Griffith, who performs in character as the redneck Billy the Contractor. Comics author Van Lente ( Action Philosophers!) makes his fiction debut with a high-concept riff on Agatha Christie’s classic Ten Little Indians.
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