Luther Vandross and the Pope visit Madame Tussauds
The power of specificity in comedy. Analysing the particulars of one of the funniest texts I’ve ever seen to within an inch of its life.
A Whatsapp group I’m in recently shared tips on entertaining a teenage nephew on their visit to London. There were some great suggestions of the capital’s many attractions. Then discussion turned to waxwork museum and borderline house of horrors, Madame Tussauds.
Tussauds is undeniably one of London’s authentic cultural jewels, alongside historic sites of M&Ms World and Winter Wonderland. Don’t be put off by the location next to the disgusting wasteland of Regents Park, Madame Tussauds is well worth queuing for hours in London’s famously fantastic weather to visit.
Anyway, as any group chat does, the discussion went off-piste, turning up this crackers observation…
This tickled me A LOT. So many specifics, so efficiently delivered, rooted in truth.
A well-trodden comedy note is that specificity is king. Perhaps counterintuitively, being more specific makes your scenes, stories and characters more relatable to more people. Vague and broad is unhelpful. Rather than ordering a coffee, have a large, iced caramel macchiato with almond milk, extra caramel drizzle on the bottom. Instead of your character going for a walk, they can go for a steady pootle. Instead of blandly addressing your scene partner as ‘son’, what about ‘champ’? All of these give us more information about the characters, and get closer to how real people talk, rather than how scripts think they talk.
So back to the text, why did its mad array of specifics make me laugh so much, and how can I use the same principles in any scene?:
The specific combo of Luther Vandross and the Pope. I don’t know if Luther Vandross was religious, but certainly he moved in different circles to the Holy Father. I date this scene to 2005, meaning it could be either Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI. Google’s AI search says ‘There's no known connection or interaction between the singer Luther Vandross and *any* Pope’, which even widening the Pope Scope (™) is good enough for me.
The extremely narrow parameters under which the texter’s mother is willing to visit Madame Tussauds: ONLY if they had waxworks of both Vandross and the Pope. What has led this woman to this point? Will she not be satisfied with photo realistic waxwork replicas of any other celebrities?
Now, 2005 is the year both Vandross and John Paul II died. So, I can somewhat understand the clamour to see them in wax form. However, it takes Tussauds 4 months and £150,000 to create a waxwork. Even if they started making them the day Luther Vandross passed - two months Post-Papal-Partum (TM) - the earliest both models could be on display simultaneously in one Tussauds location is November 2005. All to say, it’s a demanding timeline for Tussauds to honour the pair. Unless, of course, they already had them on show. For all Dance with my Father was a return to form for the velvet-voiced balladeer, that feels unlikely.
The slim possibility that she means the real Luther Vandross and the Pope. At no point is the word ‘waxwork’ mentioned. This feels like a fun and playable point-of-view: being oblivious to Madame Tussauds being a very specific type of attraction, and/or believing they have the real celebrities on show in some kind of tourist purgatory.
The very teenage, primal and relatable quality of feeling embarrassed by your parents encroaching on your life, transposed into an adult workplace setting.
A tiny detail, but calling your child’s workplace is a nice specific too. Not their private mobile. Their direct work line.
Leaving a message with the request. Not only does this person see the contents of Madame Tussauds apparently vital to clarify ahead of a visit, they also expect their adult daughter to interrupt their working day to Google it to find out. Unable to speak to them directly, they’ve left a message, to guarantee its done. This needlessly wastes a colleague’s time too.
The fact that the parent couldn’t just Google it themselves, or better yet, use the time spent on this phonecall to ring Madame Tussauds instead. Given my own exhaustive and unsuccessful googling to investigate their current stock, I definitely think calling them directly is the way to go. They do appear to have a section called ‘Impossible Festival’ which feels the most likely place to see Vandross and the Pope together.
Specifics are sticky. The texter held this completely frivolous memory for 20+ years. It took this specific chain of human brains, and an uncle desperate to connect with their teenage nephew, to unlock this dormant memory two decades later.
Ending with ‘true story’. I have no reason to believe it’s not true. The specifics are so bizarre and the stakes so low that making them up seems unlikely. That’s one of the main reasons the most popular (unoriginal?) long-form improv format is some version of a true story from a guest monologist or audience member being used to inspire scenes. Your local theatre definitely has this show. The audience can see the mechanism of the format and exactly what the performers are using to improvise with. But it only works to spin comedy at it if it isn’t trying too hard in the first place. We need to believe the story is true.
Taking everything together, that text is surely a totally original sentence in the English language (more here). I had to be in that whatsapp group at that exact moment to experience it. The magic of improv crystallised.
Endnotes:
Marvel at the contents of Madame Tussauds knock-off - Louis Tussauds
I don’t know about the Pope, but Luther Vandross truly has an immaculate singing voice. Revel in this silky 10 minute display
Performing:
At the beautiful Machynlleth Comedy Festival with DNAYS’ Wunderkammer, 3rd May. Tickets
From the archive: