Callbacks in Stand-Up Comedy Shows
Callbacks therefore consist in re-injecting material that was mentioned earlier in the show at a later point in the same show. Let us now describe this using a series of attested examples.
Content-Based Callbacks
A classification of diverse cases can be proposed. Some callbacks can be said to be based on the content of the show, “content” being taken in a broad sense, i.e. something that was referred to or mentioned earlier in the show is taken up again later in the same show. Callbacks of this type can be: character-based, topic/ [1]
anecdote-based, “emblem”-based (we provisionally propose this term and will describe what it refers to), word- or word-form based, i.e. (openly) based on linguistic material.
Character-based callbacks are typical of Eddie Izzard’s shows. A character- based callback is a device that was apparently consciously introduced in earlier shows (Definite Article).13 Eddie Izzard’s shows have a surrealist streak, as characters of all types and all periods meet across species and across historical eras (see Glick 2007 for an application of chronotopes to Izzard’s shows). One of the ways in which cohesion was built in his early shows was to bring characters that were mentioned before (e.g., a cat, a dinosaur) and have them all come back at the end of the show, in the last scene. In more recent shows, this is can also be done at random points in the show. In Stripped (example 9), a raptor and a cow driving a car reappear at different moments, as well as a squirrel, jazz chickens (chickens who play jazz), a giant squid, and Spartan sheep; and they all reappear at the end. In Force Majeure (example 10), a passage dealing with Lord of the Rings includes a first mention in passing of crack-smoking, which was referred to in a preceding section about pipe-smoking. The mechanical chicken that is supposed to be Caesar’s advisor suddenly reappears among the Lords of the Rings characters, as a very brief reference is made to a rocket, which again points back to the crack-smoking passage in which a deluded crack-addict suggested among other odd -and drug-induced, stupid- things, to “staple [his] foreskin to a rocket”. This creates unity, and the type of strangeness it may generate is also a trademark dimension of the shows (see Sect. 6.3).
Another way of recalling something is to mention again a topic that was used before, or refer to an anecdote. These callbacks are therefore topic- or anecdote- based. In Alan Davies (2013), Life is Pain (example 11), an anecdote referring to former girlfriends is alluded to again later in the show, as well as one about being unable to change one’s underwear as a child. It is only done twice, but it does constitute a callback. In Phil Jupitus (2011), Quadrophobia (example 12), the idea that new technologies have led to people finally exchanging more pointless information than before leads him to say that friends just jocularly send insults to each other. When a message is mentioned again later in the show, the insult is used again.
Another way in which reference to an anecdote can be made is through a combination of gestures, or gesture/ tone of voice/ word(s) that together are supposed to refer to some previous part of an anecdote. A complex sign is used that refers to a whole contextualized situation. This is what, for lack of anything better, we propose to call provisionally an “emblem”. In Izzard’s Definite Article (example 13), Italians are first mentioned, and as they are, the “Italian” character is made to say “Ciao!” with a specific intonation/ accent, and a hand wave is made that is to be interpreted as the wave of the Italian character from a scooter (Glick 2007 also discusses the presence of such impersonation in Izzard’s shows; Bolens 2015 also mentions the “kinesic” dimension of the shows). Later on, when something Italian is mentioned again, the same “Ciao!” gesture/word/intonation/accent combination is used. (In [2]
example (10), the rocket reference is also accompanied by a rapid upward gesture, but the gesture, this time, does not replicate what was done for the first mention, but is used to refer to the preceding passage visually as well as verbally, which is partly different.) The next examples in which simple words are replicated may also sometimes be considered to be emblems when they are in fact a combination of intona- tion/accent/word rather than just the repetition of a word.
A repeated word, or word form, can, thus, also be used. Bill Bailey, who uses rhetorical anaphora in Qualmpeddler (see example 1), often also uses word- or word-form-based callbacks. In these cases the word itself is used as a formal reference to an earlier part of the show; it is not (just) the content of it but also the phrasing that is brought to the fore. An example is “turns out” (example 14). Turns out is first used in the anecdote that is told about the reality-TV star (see example 2). When she realizes that the sun and the moon were not one and the same thing, she is quoted as saying, Turns out they’re not the same thing. Bill Bailey then uses the phrase “turns out” to introduce another statement, isolating turns out from the rest of the sentence and making it stand out. Another example is dorsum (example 15): the same anecdote about the reality-TV star leads to a discussion of the names of body parts (see, again, example 2), and the name of the top of the foot (the rare, technical term dorsum) is revealed and discussed. The word is re-injected again at the end of the show in a reference to “the blood of Christ, the dorsum of Christ”. Another example, this time not just word- but word-form-based, is the use of hashtags and acronyms (example 16). In Qualmpeddler, Bill Bailey uses acronyms early in the show, and then more acronyms are mentioned and created. And at the end of the show, as a video about the (non-)appeal of the Christian faith to young people is shown, it is made to conclude on a still that says “The Church OMG! #just- prayin’”, the use of the hashtag being itself another callback, since at the beginning of the show, #justsaying is used several times. In Force Majeure (example 17), Eddie Izzard uses the French phrase Et voila, explains that it can be used in all sorts of contexts -for instance, he says as he pretends to be wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, when you have just “vomited on the head of a child”-, moves on to other things, and then later in the show concludes one of his sequences by saying, Et voila.
