Jim Barclay (comedian)
Jim Barclay (born 23 May 1947) is an English actor and comedian, who played the title role of Jossy Blair in the BBC TV series Jossy's Giants.[1] He was also part of the early British alternative comedy movement in the 1980s.[2][3]
Early life
[edit]Barclay was born in South Shields[4] but brought up in South East London, the son of a deputy headmaster. He went to comprehensive school in 1958, where he started acting in school plays and was encouraged by his drama teacher to join the National Youth Theatre. He went on to study at the New College of Speech and Drama.[5]
Career
[edit]Theatre
[edit]Barclay started his career working in Theatre-in-Education, starting in 1969 at the Newcastle Playhouse Regional Extension Unit. He went on to work with left-wing alternative theatre groups, notably 7:84 and Mayday Theatre, where he met Tony Allen.[6] Barclay's disillusionment with traditional anti-establishment arts - "there must be a more honest, less patronizing way of getting ideas across to people"[7] – led him to move to political comedy. After his involvement with alternative comedy, he returned to theatre acting in the late 1980s, spending three years with the National Theatre.[8][9] In 2014, he starred as Scrooge in the Derby Theatre's production of A Christmas Carol.[10]
Comedy
[edit]Encouraged by Tony Allen, Barclay began performing comedy in the early days of the London Comedy Store.[11][12] By 1981, Barclay was compering shows at the Comedy Store, an article from The Sun noting his skill in this role: "Jim is a pro. They don't muck about with him, even at The Comedy Store."[13] Along with Alexei Sayle, Andy de la Tour and others, he was one of a group of comedians who formed the politically-charged comedy group Alternative Cabaret,[14][8] which staged shows at the Elgin pub in Ladbroke Grove in 1979–80, and in gigs around London and beyond.[15] Tony Allen has described how he, Barclay and Andy de la Tour supported each other in developing their respective stand-up acts: "All three of us were struggling to understand what we were doing and we gave each other valuable feedback and helped nurse each other's wounds."[16] Barclay appeared in Alternative Cabaret's 1981 show at the Edinburgh Fringe, and a recording of his act appears on the Alternative Cabaret LP. In 1984, he devised an anti-nuclear one-man show called Four Minutes to Midnight, which he performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and elsewhere,[17] being one of the first of the new generation of alternative comedians to take a full-length solo production to the Edinburgh Fringe, pioneering a style of theme-based show taken up by comedians in the decades that followed.[18] Barclay's style on stage was both highly political and ridiculous, exploring the absurdity of using comedy to promote radical change while at the same time being part of the general "alternative" challenge to 1970s mainstream comedy culture. He would tell audiences, "Well, as you've gathered from what you've seen so far of my act, I'm the Marxist-Leninist comedian. And I tell jokes which precipitate the downfall of capitalist society".[19] His act has been described as an example of how alternative comedy played with the politics of pleasure and "the boundaries between what audiences want and what they feel they should want".[20] He evolved an "agitprop" style he described as 'wacky and zany', adopting a costume which included yellow tights, T-shirts with slogans like 'Loot British', and a hat which incorporated both a joke nail-through-the-head and deeley boppers.[21] A review of a show at Brickies Club in Poole in January 1984 describes Barclay's act: 'All "come on", chat and cheerfully manic aggression, with his silly hat, yellow lyrics tights and massive physical presence, he seemed more like Alternative comedy's answer to Tommy Cooper.'[22] In June 1984, Barclay appeared in three different guises in an event staged by the Labour Party at the Wembley Conference Centre called A Night for a Nuclear Free Europe. He appeared perfoming his own stand-up act, in character as a comic alien among the "Pre-Curtain Up and Interval Entertainers", and running an "Interval Competition" in the second internval.[23] Following the event, Neil Kinnock, then the leader of the Labour Party, wrote a letter of thanks to Barclay, saying, "I wish to thank you for your splendid contribution to Labour's Night for a Nuclear Free Europe at Wembley...I think we have really hit on a winning formula for political entertainment which can appeal to a far larger audience than the usual political meeting."[24]
Television
[edit]In 1986, Barclay starred in the popular BBC children's football-based drama Jossy's Giants, playing the eponymous Jossy Blair, a former child football star injured shortly after his debut for Newcastle United, now charged with coaching a local school team to greatness.[4][25] Barclay also appeared on television a number of times as a comedian, notably performing his stand-up act on Book 'Em and Risk It (Channel 4, 1983), Stomping on the Cat (Channel 4, 1984),[26] and Interference (Channel 4, 1984). As an actor, he appeared in three episodes of the seminal alternative comedy series The Young Ones: (Boring, Flood and Sick). He has appeared in several episodes of both Grange Hill and The Bill.
Personal life
[edit]Barclay is the father of comedian and journalist Ellie Gibson,[3] who is half of the double act Scummy Mummies, who perform live shows and produce The Scummy Mummies Podcast.[27]
Barclay first encountered duvets in Berlin in 1968.[28]
Collections
[edit]The University of Kent holds material relating to Barclay's career as part of the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive.[29] The collection includes audio-visual material and items relating to his social activism and politics.[29]
References
[edit]- ^ Hogan, Michael (14 March 2018). "More than just a branch of science: the non-ironic 1980s joy of Jossy's Giants". Daily Telegraph.
- ^ Wagg, Stephen (29 November 2010). "'They can't stop us laughing'; politics, leisure and the comedy business". In Bramham, Peter; Wagg, Stephen (eds.). The New Politics of Leisure and Pleasure. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 179. ISBN 9780230299979.
Jim Barclay, a socialist and pioneer 'alternative' comedian
- ^ a b "How to survive 100 gigs as a standup: Ellie Gibson's comedy crash course". The Guardian. 30 May 2014. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
Her father, Jim Barclay, was one of the original alternative comedians in the early 80s
- ^ a b Morton, David (21 April 2021). "Jossy's Giants, the 1980s children's TV football drama with a strong Tyneside theme". Evening Chronicle.
- ^ Wilmut, Roger (1989). Didn't You Kill My Mother-in-Law?. London: Methuen. p. 24. ISBN 0413173909.
- ^ Wilmut, Roger (1989). Didn't You Kill My Mother-in-Law?. London: Methuen. p. 27. ISBN 0413173909.
- ^ Curran, Kieran. Cynicism in British Post-War Culture: Ignorance, Dust and Disease. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 102. ISBN 9781137444356.
The reasons for seeking to break away from the 1970s were hit up on by one of Sayle's political theatre contemporaries, Jim Barclay, who later became a Comedy Store regular (as a self-parodying Marxist-Leninst comic)
- ^ a b "'My stuff was didactic... but it wasn't very funny': The founders of Alternative Cabaret reminisce". Chortle. 7 May 2019.
- ^ "Jim Barclay". 1984pm. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
- ^ "A Christmas Carol – Interview with Jim Barclay". Audioboom. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
- ^ Allen, Tony (2002). Attitude: Wanna Make Something Of It?. Glastonbury, UK: Gothic Image Publications. p. 100. ISBN 0906362563.
- ^ Cook, William (2001). The Comedy Store. London: Little, Brown. p. 53. ISBN 0316857920.
- ^ Colin Dunne, "Going, Going Gong!", The Sun, 15 October 1981, p.9
- ^ Sayle, Alexei (2016). Thatcher Stole My Trousers. London: Bloomsbury Circus. p. 178. ISBN 9781408864531.
- ^ Double, Oliver (2020). Alternative Comedy: 1979 and the Reinvention of British Stand-Up. London: Methuen Drama. pp. 47–53. ISBN 9781350052802.
- ^ Tony Allen, Attitude: Wanna Make Something Of It? (Glastonbury: Gothic Image, 2002, p.100).
- ^ Wilmut, Roger (1989). Didn't You Kill My Mother-in-Law?. London: Methuen. pp. 142–45. ISBN 0413173909.
- ^ Double, Oliver (2020). Alternative Comedy: 1979 and the Reinvention of British Stand-Up. London: Methuen Drama. p. 77. ISBN 9781350052802.
- ^ Double, Oliver (2020). Alternative Comedy: 1979 and the Reinvention of British Stand-Up. London: Methuen Drama. pp. 163–4. ISBN 9781350052802.
- ^ Wagg, Stephen (1996). "Everything else is propaganda: The politics of alternative comedy". In Paton, George E.C.; Powell, Chris; Wagg, Stephen (eds.). The Social Faces of Humour: Practices and Issues. Ashfield 1996, Routledge 2019 (Reissue). ISBN 9780429752100.
- ^ Double, Oliver (22 January 2014). Stand Up: On Being a Comedian. Performance Books. p. 171-172. ISBN 9781408148877.
- ^ Ward, Tony (February 1984). "Jim Barcley". Coaster.
- ^ Progamme for A Night for a Nuclear Free Europe held in the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive, University of Kent
- ^ Letter from Neil Kinnock, held in the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive, University of Kent
- ^ "Jossy's Giants". bbc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 9 December 2004.
- ^ "Stomping on the Cat (1983)". BFI. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 13 June 2018.
- ^ "Podcast". Scummy Mummies. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
- ^ "Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 25 August 2022.
- ^ a b "Jim Barclay Collection". Special Collections and Archives - University of Kent. 6 December 2021. Retrieved 15 May 2024.