Brian Donaldson meets REGINALD D HUNTER in a bin—strewn street and finds a man who judges his sparkling comedy by tough standards.
n the world of comedy. the search for
perfection usually amounts to getting a
lucrative game show contract, seeing your name on a fizzy water shortlist or having as many folk walk out of your show as is inhumaner possible. But for some. there may be higher goals. Reginald 1) Hunter is a comedian who quite simply wants to be as good as he can be. Full stop. find of story. So. on the night that I see him perform a typically strong set at his penultimate show of a long-running weekend residency at the Venue in Leicester Square. he is less than enarnoured of himself. ‘I didn‘t engage people enough directly.‘ he concludes with genuine disappointment in his voice. ‘l‘ve been very lazy this week and my preparation just wasn’t good enough. I‘m very angry with myself. And I gotta pretend that I did a great show because the audience thought I did a great show‘.’ I ain‘t doing any of that shit.‘
But then maybe the fates are against all of Us on this particular night; it is Friday the 13th after all. Faced with an awkward venue manager who insists that there isn‘t a space in the building for us to conduct our post-show interview. we take to the streets and chat by some bins. Other than the hubbub of central London late on a Friday night. the only interruptions are from some Hunterians (as his fans haven‘t been dubbed yet) with their outpourings of admiration; one even has the tetnerity to advise Reg that he should stay off the cigarettes and booze during shows as his chainsmoking makes him look nervous.
‘I‘m disappointed with nights when I don't achieve my objectives.‘ he notes while I stand shivering way below perhaps the hottest man in comedy (and at 6ft 4in. undoubtedly one of the tallest). ‘lt‘s a personal thing. independent of whether or not people enjoy the show. I‘m not a perfectionist; I don‘t believe perfection is possible. But there‘s another level four or ten miles away from perfection that I think is very reachable and I couldn’t even reach that motherfucker tonight. man.‘ In a world where eight out of ten cats would rather have IX stone of idiot to laugh at than see a genuine comedy heavyweight. it‘s an admirable sentiment.
Such a steadfast refusal to rest on the kind of
laurels that have been scattered at his feet after seven years in comedy is rare. Hunter came over to London from (ieorgia in May I997. keen to escape his impending settledom in the States. Britain had just flung off the shackles of IS years of Tory tyranny and Hunter had escaped the horror of a life more ordinary back home. ‘I didn’t want to become a PF teacher in my local high school. I figured that at 27 years old. I‘d have one last wild shot in the dark and see what I
come up with.’ In Britain he discovered a country full of optimism. It may. with hindsight. have been largely misplaced. but Hunter revelled
in it and set off on his fresh career: an era of
New Laughter. maybe.
‘I came over with a very open mind but my girlfriend has noticed that I’m a bit more grumpy now. When I first got here. going to Newcastle and Liverpool for the first time was amazing. But when you go there for the eight time or tenth time and you face those pissed-up audiences again. you find yourself raging. When I first got here. people seemed a bit uptight about the weather. but you know. they got a point. It‘s starting to get to me too. I come from Georgia and I had some sunny Christmases.’
While Hunter may not be dancing inside. his career is now flying. Just one year after arriving on these shores. he nabbed himself a place in the So You Think You‘re Funny final. beaten in the end by. um. Rob Rouse. In 2002. he was a Perrier
‘IF I HEAR YOU DO THAT JOKE ABOUT THE HOLE ONE MORE TIME,
I THINK I'LL PUKE BLOOD'
Newcomer nominee for his appropriately-titled I Said What I Said and the year after that. he got onto the big boys Perrier list with the contrm'ersial White Woman. which had critics drooling with joy at the honesty or railing with anger at the seeming prejudice of it all. Hunter laughed it off and in 2004 was at the centre of more Fringe drama by speaking out against the inaugural Richard Pryor Award for ethnic comedy on the grounds of divisiveness. If the controversy proved anything. it was that Hunter‘s act is about unifying people rather than exclusion.
In last year's A Mystery Wrapped in a Nigga. the promise of the previous few years solidified into a breathtaking hour of comedy. As the show‘s title suggested. the theme was of the contradictions inherent in ‘belonging‘. If all black people were meant to stick together. how could Hunter feel such revulsion towards Don King and Trisha? Mixed into this philosophical minefield were his personal thoughts about his mother‘s recent death and the hypocrisy surrounding our attitudes towards the mourning process and the moral/financial lunacy of
funerals. All of this was told in a room which was either rocking with laughter or still with the silence of respect for a man at ease with his material and delivery. if not the world he spoke so passionately about and against.
Now he‘s even started to make in-roads onto TV with his experiment on Channel 4‘s Comedy Lab. Shown at the end of May. Bl(l(‘/\'()lll had Hunter playing a tall. unreconstructed black guy who is the demon haunting a liberal white lady played by Katherine Jakeways. After frequent bouts of fainting. she reawakens with him having taken over her body. thrusting her dormant prejudices to the fore. The half-hour show was directed by Hunter‘s long-time collaborator. house-mate and general sounding-board John Gordillo. a former comic himself and a director who has previously pointed the camera in l’iddie lizard's direction for his Uttt'epeatahle and Live at the Amhasxadors shows.
Hunter insists that he and (iot‘dillo are on the same wavelength and while they may never have had a blazing row. there may often be a frank exchange of views. ‘The first night he came along to see me after we agreed to work together I came off stage to see John.‘ recalls Hunter. ‘I used to do this gag about women not having the pressure of getting an erection. It‘s just a hole. You just lie there. So lay off men because we have to build to something. Well. John came into the dressing room and said. “If I hear you do that joke about the hole one more time. I think I‘ll puke blood." We were now trying to play a different game. and he was right to say that I needed to open it out a little more. There are enough black comics talking about sex.‘
While Blackout can be viewed as a successful venture. TV is not a place where Hunter feels especially at home. ‘If your desire is to be on TV. you have to embrace those feelgood philosophies of not offending. Well. I just want to say what I think. ()therwise. get some Vaseline and pull down your drawers. ‘cause you‘re going to get fucked in the ass. I may never be rich but I have an idea about how to be happy. And if you know that about yourself. then you can resist some things. That philosophy means I may miss out on some lucrative opportunities. but I'll be able to sleep at nights. 1 will never stand in front of a crowd and have someone shout: “Hey. you do a diaper commercial. and you don‘t even like kids?"
Reginald D Hunter performs at the Stand, Edinburgh, Thu 16-Sat 18 Jun. Thanks to GNER for travel. For tickets and information call 08457 225 225 or visit www.gner.co.uk.
9 723 Jun 200i THE LIST 15