Jerry Sadowitz : Talking through his hat
Jerry Sadowitz wants to be billed as 'the most offensive comedian in the world'. But offstage, he's the very model of decorum, as Julian Hall discovers
Tuesday, 11 May 2004
independent.co.uk[/align]
It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Edinburgh and it seems that most of the city has gathered on the Meadows to sun themselves. Even Jerry Sadowitz is happy. Well not exactly. By his own admission, he will never be happy. Let's just say that his disposition when we meet outside the Queen's Hall, where he will perform later that evening, is favourable. Despite nearly 20 years of relative fame - a level he remains resolutely bitter about - the 42-year-old comic and magician is enjoying his current tour of Scotland. "It's keeping me moving and keeping me busy, which is healthy for me." Since childhood Sadowitz has suffered from ulcerative colitis. This unpleasant complaint goes a little way to explaining his other afflictions; being a "fucked-up individual" and being "extremely bitter". "I'm also away from London which is good for me; I have no life there except for helping out at the magic shop [International Magic in Clerkenwell]." He mumbles something about being away from bad influences, but doesn't
It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Edinburgh and it seems that most of the city has gathered on the Meadows to sun themselves. Even Jerry Sadowitz is happy. Well not exactly. By his own admission, he will never be happy. Let's just say that his disposition when we meet outside the Queen's Hall, where he will perform later that evening, is favourable. Despite nearly 20 years of relative fame - a level he remains resolutely bitter about - the 42-year-old comic and magician is enjoying his current tour of Scotland. "It's keeping me moving and keeping me busy, which is healthy for me." Since childhood Sadowitz has suffered from ulcerative colitis. This unpleasant complaint goes a little way to explaining his other afflictions; being a "fucked-up individual" and being "extremely bitter". "I'm also away from London which is good for me; I have no life there except for helping out at the magic shop [International Magic in Clerkenwell]." He mumbles something about being away from bad influences, but doesn't expand.
One thing is for sure, he doesn't mean alcohol. Sadowitz is teetotal, something that he believes has helped reinforce his status as a social misfit because he is never able to soften up. "Going into a bar is a traumatic experience for me," he admits, sipping the jasmine tea he has ordered from the Chinese restaurant where we now sit. Most who meet Sadowitz are surprised to discover how self-aware, polite and reflective he is. He shows little of the robust, focused character that shook up the comedy scene in the late 1980s and will again take the stage a few hours hence. "I didn't want to cultivate a likeable stage character and be a bastard off-stage," he says, but he winces when I remind him of some of the fluffier off-stage descriptions of him, one recently going so far as to call him a "cuddly bunny". Sadowitz wouldn't even pull one of those out of his trademark stage hat and cuddly bunnies don't peddle the Comedy of Hate.
Proud to have "invented" politically incorrect humour in the UK, Sadowitz's expletive-laden act continues to treat subjects like rape, homosexuality, Aids and multi-culturalism with all the grace of an abattoir hand. Show me the bunny, I think to myself later while watching the show.
Describing himself as a "moralistic, ethical and non-violent person" Sadowitz paraphrases the late US Comedy of Hate pioneer, Sam Kinison, to explain the line between what he says on-stage and what he actually believes: "I don't advocate wife-beating, I understand it." This empathy is used to explain a recent comment he made about voting for the BNP. "I was very angry that day. What I am saying is that I can understand working-class frustrations that their needs are not being met and why they might turn to the BNP. To dismiss them all as mindless thugs is fanning the flames."
Sadowitz, of course, wants a debate on immigration more open than any mainstream politician could countenance and using language that would require the resignation of everyone concerned. Unsurprisingly he has some sympathy with Ron Atkinson's recent transgression: "He shouldn't have had to resign. Using horrible words means, yes, they lose their currency, but it also makes you stronger if you can take it on the chin - like I do when a friend of mine calls me a big-nose Jewish bastard."
A year ago at The Soho Theatre, a woman who had recently been raped walked out of his show while he was explaining that he admired rapists "because they have to work in the dark". "Oh yeah, I remember. My only regret is that I wish I had been able to come back at her with something funny. You can't take out everything that offends people, there would be nothing left." The walkouts continue but it is hard to believe that audiences can be in any doubt about the Sadowitz shtick. His most recent tour title, Not For The Easily Offended, could have been applied to any of his shows. "I wanted it to be called Master Baiter", he responds, "with maybe a line on the poster saying 'Most Offensive Comedian in the World' ".
Apart from the small matter of the title, Sadowitz has been delighted with the tour, put together by Tommy Sheppard, founder of the Stand comedy club in Edinburgh. Over the years Sadowitz's admirers in the comedy world, who are legion, have scratched their heads and wondered who can harness his talent. For a while he was managed by the eccentric promoter and performer Malcolm Hardee ("that was desperation"), and approached the infamous Off the Kerb impresario Addison Cresswell before ending up at Avalon for a while. Now, as arguably then, he pretty much looks after himself. Well, nearly. "I hate making phone calls and setting things up. No disrespect but I nearly forgot the interview today because I don't keep a diary." So could someone come in and manage the unmanageable? "I have such contempt for agents, managers and promoters" he says, but on the other hand, "I'd love someone to help who is nice, competent and honest. Is that too much to ask? All sorts has been said about me, that I'm difficult. What? Because I need a radio mike and two tables for my show?"
Trust is the key issue for any venture with Sadowitz. He can be generous, yes, as evidenced by the helping hand he gave fellow magician Derren Brown. But he doesn't suffer fools or the rampantly ambitious gladly; he cites Ben Elton and the US card conjuror Richard Kaufman, his "nemesis" in the magic world, as examples of the latter. Add to the pot an obsession with his place in comedy and intellectual copyright; Jasper Carrott and the late Bob Monkhouse are among those he believes have lifted his material. And, oh yes, there's that bitterness again, stemming partly from having watched his own and subsequent generations of comedians bypass him in fame.
"For as long as I can remember, people have lied to me on almost every subject. I have learnt not to lie and to tell the truth at all costs. I hate game-playing, I hate roles and I hate costumes." Sadowitz must know that this, rightly or wrongly, comes across as uncompromising. It is one of the reasons that the people gate-keeping along his path to tangible success, such as TV executives, have shut him out, often seeing him and his stage act as one and the same. Since Channel 5's The People versus Jerry Sadowitz was cancelled he has been trying to get back on the small screen. "I've got lots of ideas for TV" he tells me, unconsciously tying his curly locks into something like a ponytail. One is for a sitcom based around the magic shop where he works in London. "It's written itself," he says, so earnestly that I don't know if even he has seen the obvious joke.
Magic for Sadowitz is more than just escapism, but "one of the great defences of God". "If I do a trick, or an effect, as magicians call it, you see the effect not the method. Isn't that a fair analogy to the universe? The effect is that we are on a planet that appears to be home and that everything is quite natural but we don't actually see the method. There is a magician I think, and he's a very good magician, he's not going to tells us what the method is." Despite being a Glaswegian Jew, Sadowitz's god is a non-denominational magician: "Religions are just the way God disseminates himself to different tribes around the world so they have a way of reaching him, different phone numbers, or a stamped addressed envelope in the case of the Jewish religion." And of the life beyond? "As strongly as I believe in God, I also believe that when you die you return to nothingness - which has got to be better than heaven." Asking Sadowitz, with his funereal pallor, about death is almost like hearing it from the horse's mouth, or at least from the pall bearer. He may repudiate the idea of eternal bliss but in the midst of his answer he says: "The tragedy is that I really love life, but it is tragic, short and - in my case - wasted."
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Jerry Sadowitz plea to reporters not to quote his material
28 July 2008
By Kate Copstick[/align]
Last week Jerry Sadowitz sent an open letter to all newspapers covering the Fringe, asking them not to quote his material. Was he just being precious? Absolutely not, says Kate Copstick
THE word "critic" is derived from Greek, meaning "one who discerns", and ancient Greek – "one who offers reasoned judgment or analysis". At the risk of sounding overly literal, there is nothing in the job specification that says "one who scribbles down all the best lines, accessorises a comic's set list with them as examples and calls it a review".
During the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where the number of shows and their performers' desire for reviews mean that critics can be seeing five or six shows a day, the option of taking the easy route and simply quoting a comic's lines to give the potential audience an idea of the feel of the show is always there, and increasingly attractive to the lazy, the tired, the jaded and the inept. But doing this is not to review the show, but simply to report it. And those nice free seats (free to us, the press, but not to the performer) are for reviewers, not reporters.
This year, veteran comedian Jerry Sadowitz has drawn a line in the sand. In an open letter to arts editors across the land last week, he wrote: "Dear sir/madam. This email is a request to all newspapers/magazines, that if they feel they must review my show in Edinburgh, could you PLEASE not quote the actual material in the review? A very important element of comedy is surprise, and it can often make the difference between a show that works and one that does not."
There will be comics everywhere who will agree with him, because he is right. The good comics spend months writing their acts, honing them, road-testing them in front of their real critics: the public. Then a reviewer pops in, watches, scribbles and files their piece, a goodly percentage of which said comic has painstakingly written for him or her. The art and the craft of comedy criticism has to be better than that.
Many years ago in a review of a show by Simon Munnery I quoted a line of his because I honestly wanted to give people an example of his comic brilliance and I probably, with hindsight, wasn't a good enough writer to do it otherwise. I certainly didn't think enough about what I was doing, and being told afterwards by someone as smart and as reasonable as Simon Munnery that I had killed a line in his act was one of the most important lessons I have ever learned.
Jerry Sadowitz has suffered more than many at the hands of not only the quoters but the misquoters. One hack brought outrage from the comic by quoting only the first half of a close-to-the-bone but classic two-liner about Nelson Mandela.
Laughter is a much more fragile commodity than most people tend to give it credit for. Comedy is not just about the words; it is about the context, the timing, the tone, the voice, even the physicality of the comic in the moment when their words are let loose. All these factors determine the audience's response to the joke. And printing someone's line doesn't allow for that from those seeing the show after having read the review.
Added to which, quoting from a show sets an idea of the comic and the show in the reader's head. Supposing you were reviewing a Michelangelo exhibition and all you did was print a page of close-ups of penises. The guy was big on penises, people would conclude. If you go to see his work you will see penises. And this is true – David's has been a talking point for centuries. But it's not exactly what you'd call a review of Michelangelo exhibition, is it ?
Of course, giving an example is a fast, easy way to give a "taste" of someone's act. But we are, supposedly, critics. Shouldn't we be better than fast and easy? (Please, save the laughter, I have a weak finish.) In quoting a stand-up comic's material, the reviewer is not only taking from the performer his or her justifiably expected right to be the one to hit the public with their carefully crafted lines and garner the laughter – their laughter, their payback – but is also taking from the public their right to hear these carefully crafted lines in context and from the comic who crafted them.
Interestingly, the number of comics who don't want critics in their shows at all is rising – Daniel Kitson has been refusing to give out press tickets for years; this year Stewart Lee is joining him.
If this continues, comedy reviewers could find themselves out of a job. I suppose that at least some of us, if nothing else, have great skill at taking dictation. You can quote me on that.
• Jerry Sadowitz's latest Fringe show, Comedian, Magician, Psychopath II is at Udderbelly's Pasture, Bristo Square from 31 July to 25 August at 7:40pm. Kate Copstick will be reviewing Fringe comedy for The Scotsman from next weekend.
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Interview: Jerry Sadowitz
Magician and comedian Jerry Sadowitz wants to be billed as 'the most offensive comedian in the world'. But as he prepares to return to Norwich for a special one-off show, ABIGAIL SALTMARSH finds him on his best behaviour.
ABIGAIL SALTMARSH
04 December 2008
Norwich Evening News[/align]
Morose magician Jerry Sadowitz, who has long revelled in a reputation as one of the country's most confrontational stand-ups, is not looking forward to returning to Norwich - but that's is not because he doesn't like the city. “I have been to Norwich a couple of times before and I'm ashamed to say I quite liked it,” said the comedian, who is known for his somewhat grumpy demeanour and provocative style of presentation. “The reason I'm ashamed to say it is because I actually never look forward to anything.”
Widely considered to be one of the best stage magicians in the country - magic, not comedy, is his first love and he is the person who gave Derren Brown the introductions that led to him becoming such a success - Sadowitz admits he has courted controversy in his time. His hard-hitting humour takes jokes almost as far as possible - to a level some find offensive and others hysterical. His reputation frequently goes before him.
Rude, crude and sometimes provocatively misogynist. No subject is too tasteless, no taboo too sensitive. He's been banned, booed off, picketed by pensioners, and physically attacked. His material will sometimes reference disasters or tragedies and he happily uses obscene language liberally. According to his fans, its all to cutting comedic effect, others fail to see the funny side.
On his last appearance at the Norwich Playhouse in April, the Evening News reviewer Peter Walsh wrote: “I consider myself to be pretty broad minded and like my comedy to be on the edge, but even with that in mind, I have to confess that some of this performance made for pretty uneasy viewing. There is no doubt that he is indeed hugely talented…but while the card tricks were mind-boggling, some of the comedy was so acidic that it burnt holes through even the broadest of moral mindsets.”
"No subjects were off limits from his shock filled rants that left very few taboos untouched resulting in some members of the audience that night rising from their seats and leaving during the show. Parts of the performance were brilliant, but there are some subjects which just are not funny, no matter how many swear words you garnish them with,” observed Walsh.
Born in America in 1961, but brought up in Glasgow, Sadowitz began conjuring when he was a young school boy. An early influence were the Derek & Clive sketches by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, which were littered with obscenities as the pair pushed taste as far as it would go, and much of his comedy emulates. Today he is considered an accomplished close-up magician, known particularly for his card tricks.
His comedy, performed while dressed in black and wearing Victorian funeral directors style hat, combines the visual traditions of the magician. He often uses gaudy conjuring props, with political social and cultural observations which deliberately challenge the norms and taboos.
“I will be doing my Edinburgh show in Norwich,” he said. “For anyone who has seen me already - it's just more of the same really.”
In 2006, Jerry was voted number 15 in the Channel 4 production One Hundred Greatest Stand-Ups. The same year he broke the Soho box office record for ticket sales when he performed his close up magic show at the Soho Theatre. Some of the card tricks he performs are so technically difficult that there are only a couple of magicians in the world who can do them. But his determination to push the boundaries have in the past ruffled the feathers of the notoriously secretive Magic Circle when he fails to stick to the rules of particular tricks.
His in-your-face stage persona has arguable been a double edged sword. Though he stands out as the most shocking of UK comics, his non-PC material has meant that, in his view inferior, contemporaries have progressed on to TV, while his own television appearances have been limited to late night spots.
So what can Norwich expect from his show? Some decent magic and some daring humour. “I was going to do some ballet dancing too,” he said. “But then I thought maybe not…”
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JERRY SADOWITZ
Empire Theatre, Eden Court, 31 March 2009)
JOHN BURNS relives childhood terrors as Jerry Sadowitz stalks the stage
01 April 2009[/align]
WHEN I was a small boy on the Wirral my Gran used to take me to see the Punch and Judy show on the sea front at New Brighton. I was always a little scared of Mr Punch, with his hooked nose, starring eyes and violent temper he was a sinister character, a puppet bogey man. As a boy I used to have nightmares that Mr Punch would somehow follow me home and invade the sanctuary of my bedroom. Many years have passed now since my childhood day trips and memories of my lavender scented grandmother have faded. I had even forgotten my terror of Mr Punch, pushed it into the darkest recesses of my mind … or at least I had, until last night, when Jerry Sadowitz took to the stage at Eden Court.
There, unmistakably, in the persona of Mr Sadowitz, was Mr Punch. He had grown up as well, the pointed hat with bells had been replaced by a top hat, but the prominent nose and the wicked glint in his eyes were still there – he even still had his stick. Mr Punch had found me.
Sadowitz is probably the most uncompromising comedian in Britain today. He is, as they say, mad, bad and dangerous to know. In the opening two minutes of his act he unleashed enough profanity to shock my Grandmother into several seizures and seriously wound most of my aunts. If there had been a swear box in the theatre it would have collected enough money by the end of the show for the Bank of England to declare the recession over.
Dressed in his top hat with wild hair escaping beneath it, Sadowitz’s personality filled the theatre from the moment he stepped on to the stage. He is an intimidating character on stage and anyone unlucky enough to have sat in the front row must have had a tense evening.
From the outset he began a systematic destruction of every pretentious politically correct doctrine Radio 4 has ever held dear. No one is safe from the scorn of Sadowitz, no religion, no ethnic group escapes his scathing tongue. He even reserves his harshest comments for himself and his own Jewish origins.
His comedy is breathtakingly fast as he machine guns every liberal, right-thinking Guardian reader he can find. I found myself continually asking myself, “Should I be laughing at this?” Before I could answer the question Sadowitz had moved on and was happily slaughtering another sacred cow, before barbecuing it over the intense heat of his intelligence, and force feeding it to the vegetarians on the front row.
Sadowitz is as fine a magician as he is a comedian. He performed a series of card tricks and other illusions throughout the show. These were shown projected on to a screen behind him so that the audience could see, or rather not see, the skill of his sleight of hand. The magic blended well with the comedy and provided entertaining respite from the barrage of jolting humour that he performed for the greater part of his act.
Sadowitz is a superb showman; in earlier eras he would have been equally at home in a circus tent, on the stage at a Victorian music hall or warming up the audience at a Roman colosseum before offering the lions their Christian lunch.
Was he obscene? Yes, certainly. But was he offensive? The second question is much harder to answer. This is no Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown, knocking laughs out of an audience of morons with a series of blue gags. What Sadowitz is doing is far more subtle, more subversive and more dangerous.
A man who hates everything and everyone actually hates no one. Perhaps that is the irony of this man. The controversial nature of his material will probably ensure that you never see Sadowitz with his own special on TV and that is a pity, because he deserves greater public exposure.
Unfortunately there isn’t a watershed late enough to allow for Sadowitz. Towards the end of his act he took a moment to rage against other comedians, including Bill Hicks. Yet there is something of Hicks in Sadowitz’s style. He, like Hicks, is a comedian with the ability to make the audience think, to challenge their perceptions of the world. If you are offended by Sadowitz, maybe you have missed the point. Perhaps there is more to Mr Punch than meets the eye.
