A brief history of comedy's greatest serial killers
I can’t claim to be the first professional comedian to also be a semi-professional murderer – there’s a long tradition of it. From the court Jesters of the medieval era to the Stadium fillers of 2010, you’d be surprised how many comics are knocking people off on the side. I mean, really, what other reason is there to be a standup comedian? If not for an alibi, why bother? Here are a few of my favourites:
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Jolly Elfric
King Cnut’s fool
Originally the King’s chief anagramist - the role was abolished after just a fortnight. The position of Jester was taken, but Elfric was determined to get what he wanted, and murdered the Jester through capering.
Capering went out of vogue as a way of murdering in the mid-sixteen hundreds, but it was, by all accounts, quite a lot of fun. The closest thing we’ve got to it today is stamping, probably, but capering had a lot more bounce to it. I’ve tried it myself but without false modesty, I was much closer to just basically jumping. Philip (the man I was killing) said it was pretty good capering, but I know he was just being polite. The modern Morris dance is actually based on this medieval slaughter. And, given its own debt to Morris dancing, I suppose Krumping is too.
William Kemp
Shakespeare’s Fool
Famed for his improvisational skills and, more importantly, ability to let his audience know when one of the words Shakespeare had given him to say had the second meaning of "Penis", Kemp was also a gifted murderer (he favoured disembowelling, but dabbled in other forms). He was dreadful at hiding the evidence, but he was so very good at improvising and, more importantly, alerting the audience to when a word in the script meant "Penis", that no one really minded. Kemp is to blame (or to take the credit for) the famous performance of A Midsummer’s Night Dream which ended with all of the lovers lying dead in the forest with their guts hanging out, and Bottom suffocating having been stuffed inside a real, live (but not for long) donkey. This is widely regarded as the first proper example of theatrical criticism as we now know it.
Barney Binkles
Star of 1930s Music Hall
If you say to any 90-year-old “These plates o’meat are right old stinkoes!” or “Ham, it is, grizzled old ham!” you’ll see their eyes glaze over, and a wave of warm nostalgia wash over their face, followed by a second wave of tedium. Those are the catchphrases of Barney Binkles, hugely popular in ’31, widely tolerated by ’35, despised by ’38. In his heyday, though, he was driving crowds wild with his distinct brand of catchphrases and walking about. Secretly, though, he was bumping off his backing band one trombonist at a time. It seems he found the well-known ‘have a banana’ riff a particular imposition in every song it turned up, and would kill his victims by forcing them to choke on excessive volumes of the potassium rich fruit.
John-Luke Roberts is making his debut as a professional killer at this year's Fringe where he plans to commit a brutal murder during his standup routine.