Music and mirth make the perfect duet. Helene Parry talks to a local lady standing up for both...
Some of Britain’s best loved comedians are also singers. Peter Kay’s given us hits and giggles, while Victoria Wood tickled the ivories as well as the nation’s funny bone. But Kingston has possibly the only comic ever to have been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. After a career of over 15 years as a professional musician, singer-songwriter Janis Haves is now an award-winning stand-up who performs live all around the UK.
“I’m a comedian musician,” she explains. “But I’ve been a singer since I could breathe. Just purely singing is such an absolute joy, like being in heaven.”
Kent-born Janis lived in Whitton, near Twickenham, as a child, but moved to Kingston in 1995. She had family and friends here, she says, and it “felt like home”.
She took to music at a very young age.
“I was always fascinated by lyrics. Even aged five, I puzzled over what ‘a hard day’s night’ was about!”
Inspired by words that go together well, Janis started writing her own songs. Soon she was on the long and winding road to a full-time career in music.
“I got my first recording contract when I was 14 or 15, but I was neither folk enough for the folk scene nor pop enough for the pop world,” she recalls.
Today, many aspiring young performers regard TV talent shows as a promising shortcut to fame. Not Janis.
“A TV talent show’s a lottery. It’ll give you a jump – but you’ll get a lot of grief transitioning out to have a career.
“With the internet, young people sing live more now than ever. It’s easier for female singer-songwriters than it was back in the ‘60s and ‘70s – there’s a broader church.”
As a tribute to those earlier inspirational women, this year Janis has been performing a show, In Her Own Words, exploring the work of ‘60s and ‘70s female singer-songwriters. And the evening isn’t just a showcase for chart hits by Carole King and Joni Mitchell – Janis and her band (including husband Geoff on guitar) also shine a spotlight on less well-known artists like Buffy Sainte-Marie and Melanie Safka. Between songs, Janis recounts how each woman reached her own milestones on the road to success.
“I was keen to do a journey, so the songs flowed nicely – we didn’t want to have three slow songs together. It’s concise, informative and it flows, so you can see how the music was progressing.”
What exactly is it that makes a classic song?
“It gives voice to something people feel and speaks on their behalf. As well as having a great tune and wonderful lyrics!”
Janis helped other female composers express themselves when she set up her own record company, Angelic Records, in East Molesey in 2006.
“It was the UK’s first women-only label,” she says. “We ran a competition to find a new star, hoping to break the mould of the traditional pop princess – rather than age and waist size, it was all about talent.”
Ironically, the winner was the then 21-year-old Rosie Oddie, daughter of comedian and TV star Bill.
Despite her own recording success, which included a Mercury nomination for her 2005 album Big Front Door, Janis took a break from singing to manage Rosie for a while. But her career wasn’t all she suspended – she also started creating hand-made glass chandeliers. The hobby became a business, Lovers Lights Gallery, which opened on Twickenham Green in 2011 and later moved to Church Street, closing its doors in 2018. It still takes orders online.
Although not specialising in footlights, it was the gallery that prompted Janis to take up comedy.
“Closing on Twickenham Green was such a wrench that I decided to do a comedy course,” she explains. “I like to do things that scare me!”
Her musical background was an advantage.
“I’m used to being on stage, so I don’t feel threatened by hecklers. But it’s not like music – comedy is much more in the moment.”
Stand-up comedy is the most situationally demanding of all the performance arts, she says.
“The difference from singing is that, with comedy, every different thing you do has different parameters. One gig might be cracking, the next just OK. The skill is locking in with the audience in a visceral way. It’s like a rodeo – every audience is a new, untrained horse.”
In just over three years, she’s done no fewer than 550 comedy gigs.
“Comedy is fascinating, addictive, endlessly challenging. The journey’s about finding your route to being excellent. I think it’s worth it on a personal level – part of your training as a comedian is dealing with your own demons.”
Janis has been slaying her audiences as well, and was pleased to be “tipped to watch” by Funny Women, the online community supporting female comedians.
“I’ve always promoted female-led stuff,” says Janis. “But I have an issue with female-led comedy that ends up as anti-male. I don’t like blatantly sexist humour in female comedy nights – it wouldn’t be acceptable in a normal comedy night. It’s rare to have more than two female comedians on a bill.”
So Janis and her friends came up with the idea of the Token Man Comedy Show, to be held at The Exchange, Twickenham, on September 18. The show will star five female comedians – including Britain’s Got Talent semi-finalist Mandy Muden – and one man, Dave Thompson.
Janis, MC for the evening, says that her area of comedy is unlike much of what we see on TV.
“When I do my set, older women say it’s an under-represented area of comedy – talking about a relationship that’s 25 years old, and when your kids are grown up. The jokes about my parents and my husband aren’t strictly true – just true enough to make it funny!”
In the mainstream media, she notes, comedians tend to be men in their 30s.
“With the BBC, anyone over 40 is institutionally overlooked. There are rarely two older comedians, and never two older women. But we have to keep going. It’s about finding the right audience.”
This summer, Janis has been at the Edinburgh Fringe performing Evil Queen Rules, her imagined back story for the classic Disney villainess. In one song, she reveals the wicked sovereign to have been a typical Disney princess, whose happy ending went askew, leading to a reign of gleeful bloodshed: “I had a different kind of ball / Not fit for animation!”
A Token Man Christmas show is being planned, with the possibility of a regular Token Man comedy night in the Twickenham area. And Janis still makes chandeliers in what spare time she has.
“I don’t need to do things for relaxation, although I do like gardening, nature and walking. I like to have a life I don’t need a holiday from!”
Janis Haves is MC at the Token Man Comedy Show, The Exchange, Twickenham on Sept 18; tokenmancomedy.com
