“Idon’t give a shit about Australian politics,” Doug Stanhope cackles. “I don’t even care about politics in my own country.”
From the razor-tongued US comedian famed for his takedowns of religious right wing bully politicians, this is surprising. You see, Stanhope has completely earned his cult comedian status. This is a guy whose opinions are as important as his jokes. You go to Stanhope because you want to see him angry; you want to see him sweat and seethe and let loose his verbal dogs of war. With that in mind, you’d think that Tony Abbott would be a wonderful addition to his shit list. But it seems a lot about Stanhope has changed in recent years.
“I’m 47,” he begins. “I was angry for a long time.” A montage of vein-popping rants about society’s decay or over-population or the war in Iraq comes to mind. “But at a certain point, you can’t recreate that anger forever. You just have to let it go.”
This new quasi-Zen attitude doesn’t mean he won’t still say whatever he wants onstage – his most recent special, Beer Hall Putsch, has a personal tale of euthanasia as its centrepiece. The guy still shocks, but the difference is, he’s not trying to shock us. He’s trying to be honest. And as it happens, the most shocking thing of all is the truth. “I usually write [my material] just by arguing with buddies when we’re drunk,” he says. “I start out not caring about the subject, but by the end I find an angle I’m passionate about. Or maybe I still don’t care that much, but at least I got a good bit out of it.”
With a career built on vitriol, you have to wonder what a 20-odd-year veteran of stand-up comedy still cares about. “Quitting,” he says, and bursts into laughter. “Quitting is all I think about now. Everything I care about, I’ve cared about before, and I’ve spoken about before. A million times.”
Watch a Stanhope comedy special. Take a look at some of his clips online; the oft-shared ‘This Generation Sucks’ rant, for example. It’s hard to imagine the comedians’ comedian not caring. In fact, it’s hard to imagine him not running a cult. “At my heart, I’m lazy,” he says. “The only reason I’ve ever been an anarchist is because we don’t do anything.”
I call bullshit. Quitting has been something Stanhope has discussed (or threatened) many times before. If he was truly serious about giving the game away, why hasn’t he done it yet? “I tried, and I can’t. Any time I get a few days alone, I go crazy and book a tour to Australia,” he laughs. “I guess I enjoy my misery. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.”
And the guy is not alone there. In fact, all his fans seem to love his misery, too. Don’t get me wrong; they celebrate his success. His emotional turn in hit show Louie had everyone buzzing, but even then audiences were revelling in his character’s potential suicide. With a fan base that he proudly describes as “everybody from the prosecutors to the accused”, they are on his team. But they do like to see him with something to rally against.
If Stanhope’s increasing critical acclaim and currently raised profile have you worrying that he’ll soften, don’t. “I feel good for about a week,” he says in regards to success. “I get a few compliments, and that’s nice. I might get some emails, some offers, and sure, it’s great. Then I remember I’ll probably get cancer.”
He laughs. “My fans’d love that.”
Catch hime atUNSW RoundhouseonFriday November 14 and Saturday November 15.
