Grammys 2014: Tig Notaro deserves to win comedy award

Critic Dominic Cavendish looks at the five Americans who are up for the Best Comedy Album at the 2014 Grammys and believes that Tig Notaro should be the runaway winner

Grammy-nominated comedian Tig Notaro Photo: tignation.com

Of the quintet of stand-ups vying for 'Best Comedy Album' at this Sunday’s Grammy Awards, there’s one real stand-out, one consistently enjoyable act, one worth-a-listen and two albums I struggled to get on with and which should ideally come with a special “load of junk” advisory. So here without further ado, drum-roll please, are the comedians from over the pond who are making waves this year and those unlikely to stir more than a ripple of interest on these shores.

Top of the pile – and deserving of the award, in my view – is Tig Notaro with an album simply called 'Live'. It’s not quite as bland a title as you’d think because the woman born Mathilde O'Callaghan Notaro in 1971 wasn’t sure how long she had got at the time of the show’s recording in 2012, when she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. She has since had a double mastectomy, and everything’s “OK”, but her life was completely up in the air at this point, with a legion of other personal disasters – another major illness, the sudden death of her mother and the break-up of a relationship – confronting her at the same time.

Some American comics might go raw and angsty about all this misfortune but the strange joy of Notaro’s set is not only that she confronts the dark stuff but that she does so in a manner that’s droll, dry and detached – almost amused. The repeated line “I have cancer” becomes akin to a running-gag, provoking uneasy laughter in the audience. It should be said that the most irritating aspect of all five recordings is the level of whooping and cheering in the crowd – are we Brits quite as fawning and easy to impress? But at least Notaro cuts against this irksome tendency – on stage, she’s happy to let pauses of almost Pinter-esque proportions creep in and she thrives on the anti-climax and awkward moment. “Sir,” she rebukes one belly-laugher early on, “this should not tickle you so much!” The album is only half an hour long but it’s cheaper to buy than any of the other nominees (a mere £3.49 for an iTunes download) – and is worth every penny.