Upper class stand-up?

How many upper class stand-ups, or at least those who come from titled stock, can you name?

Al Murray
Miranda Hart
Alexander Armstrong

Would Lord Charles count?

If you like.

Joyce Grenfell is the only comic I can think of who is actually of an upper-class or titled ancestry. Those you mention above are simply of more well-off backgrounds.

Jack Whitehall? Eddie Izzard seems to be quite a toff.

Hugh Dennis and Miles Jupp's fathers were both something in the Church, does that count? Eddie Izzard's dad was an accountant with BP.

Quote: fasty @ 20th February 2015, 8:38 AM GMT

Hugh Dennis and Miles Jupp's fathers were both something in the Church, does that count? Eddie Izzard's dad was an accountant with BP.

Yes, John Dennis - retired Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, and lived just down the road from me when he was the Bish.

Quote: Aaron @ 19th February 2015, 6:30 PM GMT

Joyce Grenfell is the only comic I can think of who is actually of an upper-class or titled ancestry. Those you mention above are simply of more well-off backgrounds.

Possibly true of Xander Armstrong, but Miranda's uncle is Lord Luce and Al Murray's grandfather was Sir Ralph Murray.

An interesting question but to divide it out on that basis would be to place the dotted line very artificially above the thick unbroken one. The latter line is of most significance and it is between the boss class - essentially defined as the power of having/making loadsamoney - and everyone else, ie the vast majority.

A very wealthy comedian's ability to connect with an audience should by rights be minimal because the relationship mainly depends on hoodwinking Joe Public into believing that for the duration of the act the performer and audience are all in it together. In most cases, they patently are not. Regrettably it works in the same way as "50 Shades of Extreme Capitalism" works for the gullible. They unwittingly buy in to the charade without the ability to see that it represents the increasing economic divisions. And that is actually why comedy in 2015 is often harsh or hard. It is the same as any other aspect of culture in that regard.

....and, yes, thanks I am actually going to add a bit more.

Quote: A Horseradish @ 20th February 2015, 12:00 PM GMT

....and, yes, thanks I am actually going to add a bit more.

Can't wait............. >_<

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 20th February 2015, 12:01 PM GMT

Can't wait.............

Lovely Jubbly. :)

Many of the class distinctions that people still make about comedy derive more from sitcom than stand-up. Specifically, they are about television from the 1960s to the early 1980s. Many of us feel that was a particularly creative era. Some of it was linked to the arrival of new technologies that made television viewing etc among the masses possible. But it is also useful to understand that after 1945, we had a political state that was often described as paternal or paternalistic. Until the late 1960s at the earliest, many would have regarded it as overly male. But crucially it was the period in which men of influence found their feminine side. A lot - in politics and culture - had seen enough of cannon fodder during the wars and strove for a more equal system. And that drove down into comedy with the Galtons and Simpsons, the Milligans etc. The creativity was often in the constructive breaking down of the old orders - class, gender, race etc - and the tensions that arose when it met resistance. Of course, many of the old ways remained.

What we now have - and it commenced in 1979 - is in effect the old battlefield redrawn in modern western economics. It is the other side of the equation so that women sometimes pride themselves for being able to succeed by matching up to the blokes. For blokes read old generals in business suits. And the fact that they are still doing so says a lot about how far everything has in truth gone back to a world pre-1945. It is very interesting, actually, to see Joyce Grenfell mentioned above because it would be possible to find quite a significant number of women stand-up performers of all class backgrounds even in the first half of the 20th Century. I am far from convinced that much has changed in the long-term. It was just there were three and a half decades after WW2 when it often looked like what was happening would be permanently progressive.

But can you name any?

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 20th February 2015, 12:28 PM GMT

But can you name any?

Probably not, especially as Aaron - and he isn't wrong to do so - will want to draw distinctions between the upper class and, say, the upper middle class. I'm from ordinary stock. I'd find it hard to "get" those nuances.

But the likelihood of a genuinely upper class stand up is on a par with the likelihood of a genuine upper class castle owner being able to maintain the castle himself or herself. It's in Chipping Norton and Chigwell where the money power is now - and there are masses of them in stand-up, be they plum in the mouth or gor-blimey. Our meek and compliant society - named "the majority" - is merely dominated/domineered by them.

Most comics go through some middle class making device, is that what you mean?