Doug Stanhope
Doug Stanhope |
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Doug Stanhope (born March 25, 1967) is an American stand-up comedian.
Career
Stanhope's career began in 1990 in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was the host of Comedy Central's The Man Show for the two final seasons and has appeared on ABC's The View. He has also produced and starred in "Invasion of the Hidden Cameras" (a project for the Fox Broadcasting network). Stanhope has made appearances at several major comedy festivals, including the Montreal Just For Laughs, US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, the Chicago Comedy Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, where he won the Strathmore Press Award in 2002. Stanhope was the winner of the San Francisco Comedy Competition. He has released several CDs. He claims that his appearance on the BBC television show, "Live Floor Show" , was fueled by "ecstacy". According to Stanhope “TV is just for the money; live performance is where it’s at.”
He is currently working to establish a tour of little-known but talented, socially relevant and edgy comics called The Unbookables featuring artists such as Andy Andrist, Sean Rouse, Brett Erickson, Travis Lipski, and Norman Wilkerson. The Unbookables' first CD, "Morbid Obscenity," also featuring Andrist, Rouse and Lynn Shawcroft, was released July 4, 2006, on Stand Up! Records.
He is appearing in August, 2006, alongside Rouse at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, and later will join fellow Unbookable Norman Wilkerson and Mancuinan comedian Dave Bishop at the Manchester Comedy Festival 2006.
In 2005, frontally nude photos of Stanhope at a bachelor party were posted on the gay website Campfire Video. They were originally posted on Stanhope's own website.
Material and criticisms
Stanhope's material is often described as offensive, yet critics also note that Stanhope's continually invoked dedication to personal freedom and libertarian politics set him apart from mere entertainers. He is a self-confident drug user and agnostic, and his humor can border on nihilism, despite an evident life-celebrating enthusiasm. With his irate opposition to American puritanical hysteria, Stanhope's work frequently invites comparison with the late Bill Hicks. He frankly describes 'deviant' sexual activity and sometimes gruesome personal stories gleefully, blurring the lines between an "adventurous spirit" and full-blown "sicko". Stanhope violently opposes the gradual erosion of American civil liberties, particularly in his recent performances such as Deadbeat Hero.
Often subject to large-scale walk-outs by his American audiences, Stanhope admits "People will leave. I go on stage, it's like I'm leading you into battle -- you're not all going to be here at the end."
Critics of Stanhope say that his on-stage persona conflicts with his side-projects like Girls Gone Wild and The Man Show. These mainstream "jock" products play to the horny everyman, while Stanhope on-stage defines himself not just as the "crazy" drunk, but a full-blown social outsider. Stanhope himself has claimed that the shows attract the wrong audiences for his comic fare. In a show in Houston, Texas, Stanhope described one of the Juggies on the Man Show as a transvestite and not caring if she was really a man because he would just "want to poon her in the ass anyway." This was followed by a stereotypical reaction by jocks in the audience.
Others suggest his comedy is base at best, or even self-justifyingly iconoclastic for shock effect -- similar to charges against Bill Hicks and many other comedians and writers, whose work was initially considered less for meaning and value than for superficial "offensiveness."
Presidential Campaign
Stanhope has announced he will run for president in 2008 as a Libertarian on July 9, 2006 on his website. [1]
- Great White Stanhope, CD, 1998
- Sicko, CD, 1999
- Something to Take the Edge Off, CD, 2000
- Die Laughing, CD, 2002
- Word of Mouth, DVD, 2003
- Deadbeat Hero, DVD/CD, 2004
- Morbid Obscenity, The Unbookables, CD 2006
To co-incide with Stanhope’s visit to the Edinburgh and Manchester Comedy Festival's Best Medicine (Ventura International’s new comedy imprint) release ‘Deadbeat Hero’ on DVD on the 21st August.
This 2004 performance perfectly demonstrates Stanhope’s delight in exploring taboo topics and proves, whilst serving up everything from graphic perversion to stinging social criticism, that he is one of the few comedians around with a gift for making the ugly truths of modern life downright hilarious.