The Comedian's Guide to Survival

Dir: Mark Murphy

2016

*

The Comedian's Guide to Survival follows magazine journalist James Mullinger as he tries to juggle his job and family life while also striving to become a stand up comic in the evenings. It's not very funny, and yes, it is supposed to be, although that isn't at all clear at the beginning. The title suggests that it's funny, it stars James Buckley of Inbetweeners fame and Paul Kaye who was funny in the 1990s and it is about stand up comedy, so you'd think that there would be at least some humour there somewhere, but no. It's probably the least funny film I have ever seen. You'd think that the person writing it would be at least be a little bit funny for the film to have been green lit, payed for and promoted but it turns out not. I don't think it takes a genius to make write funny dialogue about someone who isn't funny, bad jokes can be funny, the fact that Christmas crackers are still made and bought goes some way in backing-up that statement and Ricky Gervais has made a career of it. So it's puzzling how/why the writers thought they could simply not write jokes for their 'stand up comic' main character and simply have him mumble and urinate himself. Paul Kaye, who plays Mullinger's boss, is supposed to be funny as well but he's not, he just shouts at Buckley in a character that is a sad shadow of his former guises. It's awful. After forcing myself to sit through the dreadfulness I went straight to IMDB to see who wrote it; director Mark Murphy (unsurprising as a director worth anything wouldn't direct this crap unless he came up with much of it himself) and James Mullinger. Ha, I thought, James Mullinger is the name of the main character. He named the main character after himself. No. The penny suddenly dropped and as I read more about the film, I realized that this is an autobiographical film. An unfunny film just turned into a tragic true story. According to Wikipedia, Mullinger is quite successful after winning various comedy awards. He has a web channel, has interviewed lots of famous people and gigs regularly. I have a hunch he wrote the wiki entry himself. If his stand up is anything like this film I think I'd rather listen to Jimmy Carr's laugh on a 24 hour loop. Unless Mullinger secretly wants to be hated? If that's the case then job well done. Some wonderful things can come from low-budget projects but this isn't one of them, this film is only going to appeal to those who find things funny when simply being told they're funny is enough to convince them.