Michael McIntyre

Bruce Dessau's piece about comedian Michael McIntyre in the Guardian raises a familiar point in an interesting way.

Criticisms of McIntyre, the biggest act in the UK at the moment, are a commonplace amongst the trolls lower down on the comedy food chain.  He is branded as 'mainstream' and 'lowest common denominator'; the ultimate pejoratives in comedy circles.

Yet these terms are both accurate and embraceable; McIntyre operates at the 'head' of the Long Tail* phenomenon.

'Mainstream' is what he does.  'Lowest common denominator' is what his massive audience wants.  The market compels him to be these things just as success at the 'tail' requires a comic to build a following that explicitly rejects 'mainstream'; viz Stewart Lee, Doug Stanhope and others.

I've never met McIntyre but he is universally described as a terrific guy.  His act is polished and well written and I laughed at some but not all of it.  As Dessau's article states he is introducing more people to comedy in general and to specific comedians like my mate Imran Yusuf: -

There must be a percentage of McIntyre's 5 million viewers who started their comedy education with him and are now buying tickets for more adventurous acts

What could be more self-destructive than decrying a successful performer merely for appealing to an audience that your own act doesn't reach?

* Obviously we're reading 'Acts' for 'Products' in this graphic