To suggest that Jim Norton is a controversial comic might be an understatement.
The celebrated stand-up has even seen jail time thanks to his stunts, finding himself arrested as a result of a live broadcast entitled Teen Voyeur Bus. Not that Norton minds ruffling a few feathers: after all, for a comedian, almost any publicity is good publicity, and the provocateur is unreservedly chatty during his fifteen minutes with the BRAG, happily joshing about the many projects he spreads himself across, and how much opportunity that might allow him to suddenly stumble from grace.
“I think the more outlets there are now, the more you have to diversify,” Norton says of his career today, and his many roles as an actor, author, stand-up comic and radio personality. “Basically, all that these different projects are is a desperate attempt at staving off complete failure. Every time I do something, I feel like I’m jumping from life raft to life raft to life raft, and I think back in the olden days it wasn’t like that. I think once you were made, people would remember you for the rest of your career. Now, I think I’d like to have my own show on the air. I’ve been doing radio for 15 years, so I love doing that, and I’ve done stand-up and acting for 26 years. I would love a talk show – something like that would be fun. Also, having a relationship that lasts more than two weeks: that would be pretty exciting.”
Having dabbled in radio and live performance myself, I can appreciate both the allure and the terror of hosting your own gig. Program whatever you want! Say whatever you want! But of course there are drawbacks: say the wrong thing at the wrong moment and the bottom can fall away faster than you can draw breath to say, ‘Whoops…’ Sometimes, you embarrass yourself and move on. Other times, the circumstances are much more serious.
“Any little moment, anything you say, it does live forever now. You look at Bill Cosby. Hannibal [Buress] is doing a set and says, ‘Google Cosby and rapist’. I think the people who posted that [footage] were trying to get Hannibal in trouble, like, “Ooooh, Canadian says naughty things.” And all of a sudden it backfired, and they came after Cosby. But that’s how it is. One moment. Usually it doesn’t change the career of an iconic comedian, who is now obviously a rapist. It changes the career of the comedian who says it. Michael Richards – Kramer from Seinfeld – had that meltdown at the Laugh Factory where he said all this racist stuff. I think that’s what you have to watch out for, that you don’t say something…”
Norton stops to think. “I mean, every comedian wants to do what Michael Richards did,” Norton says. “And I don’t mean racist stuff. When you’re heckled, you have to decide how to respond. And really what you’d love to do is say the most viscous thing possible, because you’re so annoyed that they interrupted.
“If it was a table full of heavy people you’d say something about them being fat, black people you’d say racist stuff, women you’d say sexist stuff, whatever is the meanest thing you can say. But as a comic, you know you can’t do that, so you develop skills to win the moment without losing the audience, without overreacting. Richards wasn’t a skilled enough comedian to do that, and it ended up wrecking his career.”
So far, Norton has avoided these pitfalls. Though some may find him offensive, it is generally at his own expense – antagonising an audience or hurling insults to generate interest just ain’t Norton’s style. He’d rather regale you with his calamitous forays into past relationships or his current sexual misadventures. His is comedy born of life: the stuff that just tumbles out whenever he opens his mouth.
“It’s funny. Lena Dunham wrote an article recently about Estee [Adoram, comedy booker] at the Comedy Cellar. Lena emailed me for quotes, and then sent me a link to the article. And in it, she wrote, ‘controversial comedian Jim Norton’, and said, ‘I hope you don’t mind that I used the word ‘controversial’’. And I said, ‘No!’ What comic would mind that? It’s never bad for a comedian to be seen as outspoken. If you’re going out of your way to do that, you’re probably not going to be good at it. If you’re just out there trying to shock people, you’ll probably just end up annoying them into looking the other way.”
“When I first started … I was really pathetic,” Norton says, a self-depreciating laugh rumbling down the phone line. “I was happy-go-lucky, I wanted the audience to love me so bad. ‘How ya doing tonight?’ Watching old footage of yourself, it’s just disgusting. But then I went through a stage of just being really angry and making the audience not like me at all. After a while you settle on a balance. I want to be funny, but I don’t need the audience to agree with me. All I want to do is make clear why I feel the way I feel. A lot of comedians want to change the audience’s palette, and that’s not my job. If I can make you understand who I am, then that’s it.” Norton laughs. “I hope you think it’s funny, but I don’t expect to change anything you think.”
[Jim Norton photo by Jen Maler]
Mouthful Of Shame, Jim Norton’s stand-up show, is on Sunday September 11 atEnmore Theatre,as part of Just For Laughs 2016.
