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Annie Auerbach plumbs the
shallows with Tina C
"It's parody, innit?"
So says Chris Green, creator of comic personas ranging from
Tina C, the biggest Country and Western star to hit Nashville,
to Dave, the world's crappest stand-up comedian. Chris often
gets taken a little too seriously. His character Dave once
received such critical acclaim for his 'talking to his knob
routine' from one punter that Chris felt a little
disillusioned. "He actually found the gags funny,"
Chris said mournfully. "He missed the whole point of
it."
A stand-up comedian who
parodies a stand-up comedian, Chris has got the irony thing
down to a fine art. Originally a music researcher for Jo
Whiley and a self-confessed 'musical egg-head', one day Chris
received a shipment of Country and Western CDs. "I was
converted. From knowing nothing about Country music, I began
to love it." He goes on, "This was back in '95. I
was frustrated with helping others to be creative in TV, and I
had a drama degree, so I started doing stand-up in a club
called Duckie in South London. They were a great inspiration
to me." And thus Tina C was born: one discontented
media-type plus a whole load of Country.
Tina C, Nashville's finest
diva, and Chris's latest incarnation, takes a
fuschia-fingernailed swipe at white trash culture. If you want
to get a mental picture of the songstress herself, think Ricki
Lake, think trailer park, and then double it. "A little
bit looks good," Chris drawls at me,going from easy-tiger
London, to sexy deep south sibilance at lighting speed,
"but a lot will look a whole lot better." Tina is a
tall, glamorous lady with preponderance for diamanté and
white stilettos. And she's got a moral conscience, too.
Her fame has helped her become
"better attuned politically." Tina's list of charity
and environmental concerns reads like a CV of only the most
determined beauty queen. Chris can't stand the pronouncements
of those infamously intellectually challenged famous people.
Why do we hang on Victoria and David's every word, when we are
in common agreement that a game of Trivial Pursuit round at
the Beckham's would have the fraught high-brow tension of a
night in with the Royle's? Tina C's heartfelt advice is a sly
dig at a culture that takes its moral and political guidance
from low-rent celebrity that has had fame thrust upon it.
It's been puzzling me throughout this little cultural exposé
that Chris's greatest successes have been in America. Tina has
a show on cable, Trash with Tina, which Chris describes as an
American Eurotrash. Sounding like a hybrid of a freak-show and
a Tammy Wynette concert, you've got to wonder whether its US
audience 'gets it'. Or is it the man who liked the knob joke
all over again? Chris understands that the irony is a little
lost on his transcontinental chums, but he just can't get
enough of the white trash chic. "America's a very
democratic place. The white trash culture remains faithful to
its roots all the way up. Just because these celebrities get
unbearably rich, it doesn't mean their behaviour
changes." The only thing that does is the number of
hi-tech additions to the trailer, I guess.
So Tina C's coming to the
Komedia. Chris really looks forward to doing her, so to speak,
because he has great affection for his female personas.
"The female characters are pure, there's nothing of me in
them." Tina will be singing some of her all time greats
to the dulcet strains of The White Trash Band, exclusive to
Brighton. Expect to hear tracks from her early album, It Ain't
Easy Being Easy and her recent number one smash, No Dick's As
Hard As My Life. Her repertoire has got it all; incest: I
Called My Grandaddy Grandpa (But I Should Have Called Him Dad,
romance, Is My Ring Too Tight For Your Finger? and
old-fashioned bisexuality, Don't Tell Me Your Single (I've
Slept With Your Wife).
Speaking of which, before we
went our separate ways, I asked Chris who would be Tina's
dream date. Thinking for a moment he said, "There have
been rumours about Tina's sexuality, which I couldn't possibly
confirm. As to the date, it would probably be a toss-up
between KD Lang and Dennis Rodman." Leaving me to grapple
with that unlikely threesome, he says goodbye.
Tina C will be at the
Komedia on Aug 23-24, 01273 647100.
copyright New Insight 2000
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