Alongside the confected days of Cool Britannia, there was the emergence of the peculiar, unexpected and relatively short-lived rise of men’s magazines. These were not the typical gentleman’s periodicals, with their tailorwear or tips on carp maintenance or steam engine modelling, but ones with a particular edge, flavour and attitude not normally found in the cologne-daubed world of GQ and Esquire. They were magazines for those whom Sean O’Hagan christened in Arena in 1991, ‘new lads’. These were the new lads’ lads’ mags.
It was against this thrilling, if slightly soiled, background that another magazine was born. Deadpan was the UK’s first magazine about comedy. Issue one appeared in April 1994, a month before Loaded. The circumstances and conditions which led to this phenomenon probably lie in the editorial freedom enjoyed by magazines such as Loaded and Viz and the publication of attitudes and content freed from the strait-jacket of traditional periodical publishing. Its birth also coincided with the emergence of what appeared to be a bumper decade of quality British comedy.
Every generation boasts its own ‘Golden Age of Comedy’, claiming that auriphrygiate crown as its own, whether it is the generation of The Marx Brothers, Phil Silvers, The Goons, Monty Python, Morecambe and Wise, The Young Ones, Alan Partridge or, yes, even Mrs Brown’s Boys.
But the milieu of comedy in 1990s seems to stand out, in retrospect, as more special than most. In his autobiography, Watching Neighbours Twice A Day, comedian Josh Widdecombe offers a list that is pretty much stuffed with some of the best examples of modern UK comedy. ‘One of the best things about the comedy of the 90s,’ he writes, ‘was just how endless it felt. This chapter could have been about one of at least 30 shows that I loved and can still recite jokes from 25 years later.’ He lists a formidable number of 90s comedies including The League Of Gentlemen, Father Ted, Mrs Merton, The Fast Show, Harry Enfield And Chums, The Royle Family, Red Dwarf, Smack The Pony, The Adam And Joe Show, Shooting Stars, They Think It’s All Over, I’m Alan Partridge and that’s only two-thirds of the cake. This was the decade of Newman and Baddiel and their 1993 Wembley show, of comedy as the new rock and roll, of spectacular Mark Thomas activist agit-prop, of Vic Reeves Big Night Out, of Fist of Fun, of Harry Hill’s Fruit Corners, of Men Behaving Badly, Have I Got News For You, Brass Eye, and Fantasy Football, and of Pub Internationale. Ben Thompson’s Sunshine On Putty spends a largely incoherent book making the same case.
In 1994, the Best TV Comedy Series at the British Comedy Awards was Drop The Dead Donkey, the Best New Television Comedy was Knowing Me, Knowing You…, the Best Comedy Film was Four Weddings And A Funeral, and the Best Stand Up was Phil Kay. This was also the ceremony celebrated for Milligan’s description of Prince Charles as ‘a grovelling little bastard’. The BAFTA for best comedy that year also went to Drop The Dead Donkey (against Desmonds, Rab C Nesbitt, and Chef) and Best Light Entertainment programme was Rory Bremner- Who Else? Later that year saw the arrival of The Vicar of Dibley and The Day Today, with Father Ted, Fist Of Fun and Mrs Merton to come the following year.
Against this backdrop, the stars probably augured well for a magazine dedicated to chronicling and celebrating British comedy. Deadpan was published monthly and its final edition, 14 issues later, appeared in May 1995. For a long while, it seemed, a lot of people wanted a magazine about comedy; they even wanted more magazines about comedy because two more began publishing shortly after (the one-hit wonder, Comedy, with its unfortunate cover star, and Comedy Review). Until they no longer wanted magazines about comedy anymore, and all three folded.
Deadpan was bankrolled by DMC publishing (which also published Mixmag) and edited by David Davies (who also edited Mixmag). If there was one thing DMC liked, it was getting value for money. Davies later went on to become editor-in-chief of Q Magazine and FHM, Editorial Director of Heat Magazine and Grazia, CEO of Phaidon Press and is currently Chief Content Officer of Ascential. ‘I was editor of Mixmag and it was going well,’ he says, ‘and we started to think: was there another magazine we could launch?’
It started small, but was very highly motivated. The magazine was ‘basically me and Dan Prince,’ says Davies, ‘We both had some Mixmag duties but our main focus was Deadpan. We liked the comedy scene – it was a hot time with lots of new comedians coming through. Looking back, I realise we were very UK-focused and I guess that’s because our horizon was really the live circuit. That probably limited our appeal but, on the other hand, we were quite pure and sincere in trying to capture the magic of this scene that seemed to be blowing up in front of our eyes. Reflecting on that now, I don’t know how much we were covering a great moment in British comedy or just whether it was all new and fresh to Dan and me.’
