University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: October 26, 2006

By KEVIN FRYLING
Reporter Staff Writer

Andrew Stott says he has been fortunate to find a home at UB because he can study a unique subject that not only needs more representation in academia, but that has fascinated him since childhood—comedy.

Andrew Stott has a more personal connection to his research topic than most scholars—he has performed professionally as a stand-up comedian.
PHOTO: NANCY J. PARISI

Stott has a more personal connection to his research topic than most scholars. For four years after he received a doctorate in English from Cardiff University in Wales, Stott not only worked full-time as a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster, but performed nights in the pubs and clubs of London as a stand-up comedian. The experience offered insight into at least one reason critics find comedy so hard to define.

"What the comedian tries to do is harness something that is essentially unpredictable," says Stott, assistant professor in the Department of English, College of Arts and Science. "Laughter is something that has thwarted and intrigued and frustrated thinkers from Aristotle on. That's what I'm interested in."

He started performing as a comedian in 1995. "It was something I always wanted to do," he says. "I had a vast collection of comedy LPs and books as a child.

"It took me a while, but when I finally did it, I loved it. It was just fantastic...I had my successes and I had my failures, and I actually got to the point where I was making quite good money."

After several years, however, the off-stage elements of a comedian's lifestyle persuaded him to concentrate full-time on a career in academia. "I started to lose my appetite for all of the traveling and late nights and stuff ancillary to the comedy," says Stott, noting that a typical performance might mean setting out to a club straight from work and a dangerous late-night bus ride home after midnight or 1 a.m. "It was a lot like burning the candle on both ends," he says.

In 1999, Stott studied briefly at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City. He wanted a change and enjoyed the United States—although not acting—so he decided to search for teaching positions at universities on the East Coast. He joined the UB faculty in 2002.

As the director of the master's program in the Department of English, Stott regularly teaches graduate courses on comedy and Renaissance culture, as well as "Introduction to Scholarly Methods." His upper-level undergraduate courses tend to focus on Shakespeare and the early-modern period.

He now channels his experiences in the trenches of comedy into research on the topic. He started out as a scholar of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, such as Ben Johnson and Thomas Middleton, but after spending time as a performer, he says his interests expanded to include the history and philosophy of comedy.

Stott says that until recently, there had been little rigorous academic criticism on the subject of comedy. Traditional criticism tends to regard comic literature and drama as unimportant or neglects the humor to emphasize the serious elements. Although the opinions of past critics are valuable, Stott points out their conclusions often miss half the reason comic masterpieces, such as "Don Quixote," for instance, are regarded as great works of literature in the first place.

"To convert something funny into something serious is to ignore or overlook an extremely important and major facet of it. You're only reading 50 percent."

It is important to approach comedy on its own terms, he explains, because great comic literature tends to employ satire or wit to bring readers nearer the truth or insight beneath a joke's surface.

Humor based on "paradox is illogical," he adds, "but in that absence of logic something bigger is revealed."

The author of numerous papers, reviews, presentations and several book chapters, Stott's first book, "Comedy," was published by Routledge Press in 2005 as part of its "New Critical Idiom" series. He currently is working on a second book contract: a biography of Joseph Grimaldi, a famous pantomime clown who lived at the turn of the 19th century.

The book will examine the personal tragedies that influenced the Romantic period's greatest comic actor—a trait that Stott argues makes Grimaldi the first modern comedian in the same sense as Charlie Chaplin or Richard Pryor, whose humor also dealt with traumatic personal themes, such as poverty and drug addiction, respectively.

Stott plans to travel soon to Harvard University and the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., to conduct research on Grimaldi. He also plans to search records overseas at the British Library and the Garrick Club, a centuries-old institution in London whose members are involved in the dramatic arts.

"The sources are out there," he says, "but they're spread all over the place."

The biggest demand on his time at the moment is not a book, however—Stott is the father of a baby daughter, Frances, who was born in August. He and his wife, Josie, also are the parents of a 2-year-old son, Floyd.

A native of South London who now lives on Auburn Avenue on Buffalo's West Side, Stott admits it took some time for him and his wife to adjust to life in a new city and country. But, he says, there are plenty of reasons to love Buffalo.

"We have a nice house and a nice pace of life. It's a wonderful place to bring up children.

"If we tried to do what we're doing in our tiny apartment in Bethnal Green in the East End (of London)," he jokes, "we would probably be completely insane—absolutely spare with frustration."

He adds that the move to Buffalo has been a great career step as well.

"The department, I love," says Stott. "It's absolutely the best place I've ever worked."