UK Comedy
News emerged this week which must disturb and concern anyone who has ever performed comedy and written a book. Veteran Liverpool funny man Stan Boardman has done the lot during a long career. It should come as no surprise that Mr Boardman has published his autobiography. All good so far but, as Mark Ritchie reveals, things went awry when Stan The Man planned to speak at a book festival.
Seeing books published is one thing, but being able to sell them really is where all the hard work begins. I have first-hand experience of this. I have seen three books written and published and I am currently working on a fourth. Landing publicity is tough going.
As for Stan Boardman, the story of his place in the world of comedy deserved to be told and his autobiography Stan Boardman-My Life Story is currently on sale and receiving rave reviews.
The whole sales drive hit a snag recently, when the comedy star was planning to appear at a Literary Festival. The decision-makers behind the event decided otherwise. They cited their reasons as pertaining to past comedy material that Stan is apparently ‘guilty’ of performing, which was deemed inappropriate.
Organisers of The Liverpool book festival proved difficult to contact, but Stan’s son Paul has asked for transparency regarding who took the decision to cancel Stan, and perhaps more importantly, why?
As ever, I can only express my own view that censorious acts like this do no-one any favours, least of all society in general.
We are on the lookout for comedians and comedy people who would like to become guest writers on this page. Just e-mail mark.ritchie@ukcabaret.com
