MARK WATSON


LUV - In case you didn’t know, Mark Watson is an unassuming but award-winning UK comedian and novelist. But, in order to fully appreciate his awesomeness, we must first examine his key constituents. These are they.

THE ADVERT
It’s a general rule that, if you’re a comedian and you do a TV advert, Guardian writers will slate you in the first page of the Guide and everyone will hate you forever. Just look at Peter Kay, or the Budweiser WATHAP chameleons. But Mark Watson can shamble his way through this unmemorable series of cider adverts  and it only adds to his considerable rambling charm.

THE FAKE ACCENT
As we have learned from Dexter Fletcher in Pressgang, there’s something a bit shifty about someone with a fake accent. But Mark Watson adopts a Welsh accent for all his stand-up, and it works for him:

The oddest thing about Watson’s act is that he delivers it all in a Welsh accent. He isn’t Welsh, although his family is. He’s from Bristol, and talks, by his own admission, like a “middle-class, well-educated, nicely spoken white boy”. But a Welsh accent, he argues, makes an instant impression in comedy clubs. And a positive impression, too - because it wrongfoots a British audience’s inverse snobbery.


And this is because Mark Watson, like Idris Elba from The Wire or Dominic West from the Wire, or Aidan Gillen from The Wire, knows that a fake accent can do a lot for your credibility.

THE YOUNG SOCIALLY-AWARE SCRUFFY PERSON
Look at you. You’re youngish, socially-awareish, and scruffy (sorry, but you are. It’s plain that you haven’t even ironed those jeans). And Mark Watson is like you - he wears crumpled T-shirts, eats sandwiches and, I dunno, probably uses public transport. But did you cut your teeth in the Cambridge Footlights? Have you written three novels and a television drama? Have you seriously attempted to halve your carbon footprint? Have you been nominated for a Perrier comedy award? Well, have you?

Mark Watson has. And he’s only four.

But you can’t hate him because he tells jokes like “Well, as my dad used to say, ‘money: you can’t take it with you.’ Which led to some pretty boring holidays”.


And if you don’t think that’s funny, just imagine it in a fake Welsh accent. Yeeeaaah. There you go.
- Robyn Wilder

HAT - I don’t know who Mark Watson is, but I hate him.

OK, now I’ve checked Wikipedia. And I still hate him. And here’s why:


Mark Watson is a leading expert on empirical macroeconomics, an area of economics so boring that I’ve had to staple my eyelids to my eyebrows and take East London horse amphetamines just to stay awake long enough to write this bit about it.


Oh, I think I’ve read about the wrong Mark Watson. Hang on.


OK, I’ve checked again. Here’s why I hate Mark Watson, the English Comedian:


Mark Watson, the child, won ‘Gabbler of the year’ at his grammar school. This is a made-up prize that smacks of unbearable liberal educational ideals. I thought they were supposed to still employ corporal punishment in grammar schools? Clearly not when Mark Watson is involved. The cocklantern.


Mark Watson went to Cambridge and got a First Class Degree. This means he completely wasted his time at University, probably never even auditioned for University Challenge because he was too busy applying himself even though he probably would have nailed it, effectively spitting in Jeremy Paxman’s face. The assmushroom.


Mark Watson has performed a show in Edinburgh that went on for 24 hours. James Franco has taught me that if anything is to be done for more than 4 hours consecutively, you have to saw off a body part to keep it entertaining. Based on the fact that 127 hours equals one arm, 24 hours must equal an ear, pointing finger or bottom lip.  Mark Watson still has all of these appendages. The dickchalice.


(Sorry for making you think about a face without a bottom lip)


Mark Watson proposed to his girlfriend at the end of this 24 hour show. FUCK. ME. WHATACUNT.


Mark Watson appeared in adverts for Magners Pear Cider, and whilst I have no objection to comedians selling their comedic soul for the promise of dirty, dirty money, I do object to Magners Pear Cider. This is generally acknowledged to be the very worst pear cider on the market, tasting rather more like the stuff dogs sometimes get leaking from their bums when they have intestinal issues than anything resembling pears. It should be called Dog Bum Cider.  


I suppose what we’ve learned here is Mark Watson: bad. Magners Pear Cider: worse.
- Susi Weaser