Commodified creativity

Recently I have done a few stand-up shows outside of London.  Typically this means a car journey to East Grinstead or Taunton or wherever with other acts who are appearing on the same bill.  Often the first time you meet another comic is on this drive out of town.

As it is not the 'done thing' to discuss the actual content of your set off-stage, you can spend hours in a car with another comic without gaining the slightest idea about the nature of his act; in fact until one of you takes the stage there is every chance that your jokes could be as good as identical.  And given that many newer comedians draw their comic inspiration from similar sources this happens more often than might be supposed.

There is an exquisite, creeping sense of horror in being a hundred miles from home and hearing the act before you tilling a comedy field that you consider your own.  It is both debatable and irrelevant as to whether it's better that the other guy gets laughs or not.  Either way the audience has already gone where you planned to lead it and you will be seen as derivative.  As I've said before, this all happens because promoters rarely care what any individual act actually says; only that the combined length of their sets lasts the time the venue was promised.

This 'commodification of creativity' leads some performers to make strange, even extreme choices to ensure that they are seen as original.  At the very least it forces a comic to have more than the minimum of material on any given night.