Comedy Legends Series: Lee Evans

“Your wife is an incredible psychic when she’s on the phone. Your wife ever come off the phone to one of her mates and she’s gone, “isn’t that amazing? I was just thinking about her and she called!” But what about if you aren’t thinking about her and she doesn’t call? Is that really fucking weird as well?” You say to your wife, “Who are you thinking about now?” and she goes, “No one….*gasp of realisation* and no one’s calling!” 

This is the first in a planned series of articles exploring the impact that different comedy legends have had on the newest generation of comedians. This week, we start with my comedy idol, Lee Evans, and how he enriched my childhood with his theatrical and cartoonish facial exaggerations, gestures, and fiercely amusing and inoffensive observational comedy.

Strangely, I don’t actually remember the first time I saw a Lee Evans performance. It was as if he had always been a part of our family, a wacky uncle and his rambunctious antics creating a hub of hilarity that froze us in time, forgetting that a whole world was happening beyond this close circle of one clown and his raptured audience. As young children, my siblings and I had a generous DVD box set of several of Lee Evans’ stand-up specials, ranging from his inaugural release Live at Her Majesty’s Theatre (1994), to his then most recent XL Tour (2005) and we would binge these before the word binge was ever used to describe the obsessive consumption of television. Besides his ability to make me ache with laughter, I credit Lee with bringing our family together: he was the one thing we could actually spend some tranquil quality time enjoying, as warring siblings who’d otherwise be constantly kicking the shit out of each other.

          With every subsequent DVD release, his last being 2014’s Monsters, we knew we’d be in for two hours of the most energetic, sweaty, and magnetic stand-up, right from the first moment we pressed start on the DVD menu. Indeed, no other comedian is able to hook me in from his first actions as Lee Evans is able to; like a wind-up monkey, he jitters across the stage, waving his arms and stamping his feet almost weightlessly in a true synergy of story-telling. Such is his physicality that I grow very quickly bored of other, more rigid comedians, standing statue-like in the middle-front of the stage just talking at me instead of teleporting me into their illustrative observations. Because the thing about Lee Evans is that not one part of his body or voice is left unused as he parades around enormous stages as his wife, or the postman, or a farmer in a tractor, chugging along a country lane. He is a chameleon of the highest order, nagging in falsetto or gruffly warning someone off in a North Welsh accent. Meanwhile, in his routines, there are really two performers - himself and his microphone. He plays it like an instrument, cleverly creating sound effects as if he has a full soundboard in front of him - it’s truly astonishing to watch. A gentle set-up that would have had an okay punchline is just elevated into hilarity by him using the mic in ever more creative ways, utilising echo, gripping the mic's underside to mimic a train station announcement, holding it close to creepily hyperventilate into, holding it further away, whacking it against his head; it’s a philharmonic orchestra of Foley sounds in one piece of equipment. His impeccably well-timed swearing hits a punchline home, as well as his shouting to truly land emphasis - rather than shouting to cover up weak material, as many comedians I’ve since watched but can’t enjoy do. 

Still to this day, as my siblings and I occupy vastly different areas of the globe, we communicate mostly in quotes from our favourite Lee Evans routines. Whenever there’s a birthday among us, we sing a smarmy “Happy Birthday to YOUUUU!” as Lee did as he talked about show-offs harmonising the singing at birthdays. Elsewhere, while bringing food to the table, one of us will chime “Chlamydia! Chlamydia, your tea’s ready!” while someone else will lumber in like, “Ok, I’m on my way…” But our absolute favourite bit to emulate is “distant relatives”, originally depicted by Lee as a relative standing on the edge of a driveway, exaggeratedly waving from afar and shouting “We are the distant relatives! We won’t be coming in!” This bit is one we long ago stopped reciting the words to, instead just standing on tiptoes as one of us departs, doing the big wave, and we’ll both laugh uncontrollably from our opposite ends of the railway station, going our separate ways as ever more distant relatives.

Beyond his talents in comedy are his talents in music, which he also incorporates into his shows, but at the very end when we’re weary with laughter. It’s these moments he reserves for the deeply personal commentary that drives most other comedians’ main material. As a comedian just at the start of my own career, his haunting song Nine Times Out of Ten serves as a brutal reminder to not take the fame and money (when it comes) for granted because you’ll blink and it’ll all be over. Before I knew it, here was this worldly sage warning me when I was just fourteen years' old and unaware I’d ever be a comedian one day to not blow it because you can’t go back and start again. It is painfully plain to see that there’s a part of him that almost regrets his career, that one time out of ten when he wouldn’t do it...and why? What has he missed that makes him yearn for that phantom life instead of the one he has led? His family, as the especially poignant second verse tells us, and the reason he cited for his retirement in 2014. “Funny, all that money I can’t recall,” he croons, reminding you to treasure the things beyond the material rewards of this business. Indeed, it’s the people in our humble lives offstage that are the only things we will ever be able to viscerally recall in every fibre of our being; that is, if we acknowledge them at all on our meteoric rise. After all, money can be touched but memories are to be felt, like that fucking stunning key change in the outro. 

Anyway, with some time having gone by since my siblings and I last reminisced about Lee Evans together, I asked two of them to share his lasting impact on their lives: "his jokes are just about everyday common experiences," my sister writes, "or harmless stereotypes (typical wives, lorry drivers, teenagers etc.) that I can relate to and therefore just have an innocent giggle about. Especially as I get older, I am reminded of his jokes in my day-to-day life and I can have a giggle to myself. I definitely think his style allows him to live on as a legendary comedian - he never put on accents (other than British ones), or talked about anyone’s race, and he only mentioned sex a few times. He understands people really well and loves what he does enough to bring everyone together in the way that he does.” Asking my brother the same question - “Why do you love Lee Evans?” - he simply said, “because he’s hilarious.”

Wow, decades of stand-up comedy has been rendered irrevocably moot if this - this - is actually the difference between men and women(!)

Ultimately, Lee Evans is someone so phenomenally talented that I could only dream of going down in comedic history the way he has, being the literal tie that binds so many dysfunctional siblings. I can, however, honour his impact by injecting just as much energy - if not more - into my own comedy, knowing it makes all the difference between an audience having a nice time and an audience having a truly unforgettable experience.