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'It's like the wild west!' – inside Cardiff's heckle-heavy comedy scene

In 2005, you could fit the whole Cardiff comedy scene into a small minibus, says comic Elis James: “I get very nostalgic about those early days. It was the pre-Live at the Apollo era so there was only a handful of comedians based in Cardiff and you could count the gigs in single digits.” Around that time, Rhod Gilbert moved back to Wales. “Rhod took a great interest in the embryonic open-mic scene,” says James. “You’re used to doing horrific gigs in the back rooms of pubs. Then, because Rhod is the Dr Barnardo of Welsh comedy, suddenly you’re performing in a theatre in front of 1,000 people.”

Now, you’d need a fleet of minibuses for the comedians in Cardiff, but that mutual support remains. “It’s close-knit,” says Eleri Morgan, who has been doing standup in the city for three years. “There’s a sense of camaraderie.” Cardiff attracts people from all over Wales – James is from Carmarthen, Morgan from Aberystwyth – so audiences get a cross-section of Welsh humour. James, whose recent BBC TV series Funny Nation tracked the history of comedy in Wales, noticed many comics adopt a “low-status” persona. “Wales is a country of small towns and villages,” he says. “Growing up, if you were seen as a show-off that was quite an insult.” Comedians play with this, Morgan says: “There’s a Welsh saying which roughly translated means, ‘He who seeks fame, let him die.’ You’re like, ‘I’m on stage, but I’m a piece of shit.’”

Rhod Gilbert.
‘The Dr Barnardo of Welsh comedy’ … Rhod Gilbert. Photograph: Tracey Paddison/Rex/Shutterstock

Leroy Brito, who grew up in Cardiff’s Butetown and has been a standup for almost 10 years, agrees: “The humour is very self-deprecating.” His comedy explores his Welsh identity and how Cardiff has changed. He’s had sell-out shows at the Glee Club and Wales Millennium Centre, but says: “If you go to Butetown, you’ll get people telling you they’re funnier than me. They’re trying to make sure you don’t get too big for your boots.”

Cardiff’s scene is a “wild west”, Morgan says, allowing all kinds of comedy to flourish. The generation between James and Morgan included Jayde Adams, Henry Widdicombe (who started Machynlleth comedy festival) and Edinburgh comedy award-winner Jordan Brookes. He says the relatively small circuit gave him and alternative acts such as the Death Hilarious and Charlie Webster space and time to try weird stuff that has blossomed into entrancing experimental shows.

“All the nights are a bit chaotic,” says Morgan, “but it’s always fun.” James used to go from gigs at Chapter Arts Centre, where everyone listened and “faced the right way”, to “very rough” gigs where the audience were surprised – and less than thrilled – when comedians appeared.

Now, the Glee Club and arts-venue shows sit alongside many smaller ones, such as improvised standup night What’s in the Box? These have suffered recently, as a string of independent venues have shut down. But gigs tend to emerge elsewhere. Morgan and fellow standup Priya Hall were about to take over running two comedy nights when the coronavirus lockdown hit.

Possibly the biggest transformation is the emergence of a Welsh-language comedy scene. “It’s an almost unimaginable change,” says James, whose first language is Welsh. “I did my first gig in English, because it was inconceivable doing it in Welsh.” He worked with BBC Radio Wales early on – including on sketch series Here Be Dragons, with Brookes – but always in English. In 2015, S4C asked him to do a comedy special in Welsh. “I’d always written autobiographical stuff in English,” he says. “There were stories I couldn’t do because the audience didn’t get the references, but my childhood was typical for a Welsh speaker. Suddenly, this entire lifetime of stuff opened up.”

Hall agrees: “My Welsh-language sets are based on niche experiences that are universal to a Welsh-language community – you can’t do jokes about novels you did for Welsh GCSE to an English-language crowd.”

James has now done three Welsh-language shows, touring Wales with each, and says the audience has grown enormously. So has the selection of standups for tour support – almost 30, up from a handful. Support for his 2019 show was Cardiff-based comedian Esyllt Sears. She recently started Bloc Comedi, the first new material night for Welsh-language standup, where Cardiff’s network of Welsh-language acts – including Sarah Breese and Lorna Pritchard – perform.

S4C’s platform Hansh now makes Welsh-language sitcoms, mockumentaries and sketches – including Morgan’s series about a yogi struggling to stay zen during lockdown. Meanwhile, BBC digital platform Sesh offers an outlet for local talent, including Brito. He’s also turning his standup show Three Dads, about his experience of becoming a father at 18, 25 and 34, into an English-language, Cardiff-based sitcom.

James and Morgan allow themselves to poke fun at Wales and even the language. “I’m allowed because I’m from the same place as the audience,” says James. According to Morgan, “there’s this idea of your Welsh never being good enough. For a long time it was dying, so you wouldn’t want to bastardise it. Now, because the language is in a healthy place, we get to fuck around with it. That’s really liberating.”

Classic Cardiff crowds are quick to heckle, but audiences for Welsh comedy, partly there to support the language, are kinder. “I do more new material to a Welsh-language crowd because audiences are there with a supportive vibe,” says Hall. If you hear a heckle, “they’re usually correcting your language!”