Rupert Robert Dadfield
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[edit] Introduction
R(upert) R(obert) Dadfield (born 1943) is a British comedian, active mainly in the 1970s. His comic routines functioned by developing an increasingly eccentric stage personality which highlighed the comedian's dual roles as an joke-teller (or comedic agent) and as an object (or target) of derision. Although he met with limited success at the time, he has recently enjoyed a revival in popularity thanks to the internet.
Crucial to Dadfield's comedy was the contruction of an elaborate personal mythology. Much of his original comic material, and subsequent comic activity, has been devoted to retelling the story of his 'life'. The way in which he blends fact with surrealism highlights the way in which all comedy must combine the mundane with the patently ridiculous. This means that, when writing about him, it is difficult to separate the actual man from the comedic persona he creates for himself - presumably part of the intended comic effect. The following autobiographical account of his own 'life', typifies his comedic strategies:[1]
[edit] Satirical Techinique
[edit] Early Life
"Dadfield, the writer and eccentric, was born on a British submarine at the height of World War Two. The reason for his mother's presence on the ship was never satisfactorily established; and sadly she died on the submarine after an incident involving the periscope and the emergency escape doors, so the identity of Dadfield's father remains a mystery. Adopted by the crew, the child was named after the popular Welsh folk singers 'Rupert', 'Robert' and 'Dadfield'.
"Dadfield quickly proved himself to be a child progidy, learning the flute by the age of seven. Contemporaries judged him to be of concert standard, but his musical ambition was curtailed by his irrational fear of public flute-playing. Later commentators argued that this instilled Dadfield with a life-long hatred of all wind instruments. The theory seemed most plausible when an oboist was found strangled in Dadfield's garden in 1987. Educated in a military school, Dadfield became fluent in many languages and rapidly forged a series of medieval High German religions poems, as well as a verse-epic 'Gonad the Barbarian'. The fraudulent nature of these works was not discovered until 1975, when Dadfield admitted to his deception on a televised programme entitled 'Is All World Literature Pornographic, Corrupting the Morals of Our Children?'. Aged eleven, Dadfield moved to Dover Grammar School, where he befriended Nick Slagger, teaching him to sing and dance. Later, he performed the same service for Frankie Mercury, who modelled his appearance on Dadfield's. Dadfield was never jealous of their subsequent success, arguing that he had no musical ambitions, other than to transcribe Mozart's requiems for the banjo.
[edit] Early 'Success'
"Dadfield was expelled in 1960 for cheating in an examination. But he struck back from academic disgrace by writing his 1966 masterpiece The Key to all Mythologies which attempted to investigate the meaning of the universe. The work was ingenious, but no-one who has read it has made sense of its argument. The book was never published, and today only one copy exists in a private collection. Using his new-found notoriety, Dadfield now forged a career as a minor celebrity, appearing on stage 250 times between 1966 and 1975. Sadly, the quality of these appearances is very poor: Dadfield was often drunk, and regularly attacked people for perceived slights against him. It was also during this period that Dadfield perfected his image as a tweed-wearing, moustachioed, latter-day Victorian cad. This public persona was disasterously misguided, and Dadfield became an object of derision for the rest of his life.
[edit] The Wilderness Years
"His public career was brought to a grim conclusion in 1976, when, as part of a bizarre self-publicity stunt, Dadfield ruptured his spleen attempting to vault the Houses of Parliament. Rumours began to circulate that he has perished; in fact, he spent the next ten years living in Devon sponging money from the government and pretending to be ill with a series of tropical diseases. Dadfield's life during this period was extraordinarily unproductive, although, in 1985 he returned to public life with the publication of From Primates to Genesis, a treatise which explored melodic interpretations of great works of literature. The work was universally declared a disgrace to human learning, but managed to sell 300,000 copies due to a controversial advertising campaign that associated Dadfield with the Second Coming. Now a rich man, Dadfield drew attention to himself in 1987 during the celebrated 'Trial of the Dead Oboist'. Accused of murder, his defence was astonishingly weak, and seven members of the jury died in motoring accidents during the trial. Eventually acquitted, Dadfield then sued the Criminal Courts for libel, winning �7.2 million and causing a temporary collapse of the legal system.
"Dadfield then disappeared from view, and records of his life become difficult to trace. Rumours again abounded that he had died; whilst others claimed he was travelling the world under assumed identities. 'Geoffrey Pigeon', 'Professor von Schlisstenbasten' and 'L. Mullins', were cited as probable pseudonyms. One apparent sighting reports Dadfield teaching Modern Dance in Japan in 1995, using qualifications purchased over the internet. Moreover, in 1996, someone claiming to be Dadfield declared that iron could be turned into gold using a technique based on hair replacement technology. By 1999, the same source confirmed that Dadfield's millions had been lost in a misguided attempt to construct a time-travelling device. The mystery of Dadfield's 'death' had not been solved when he apparently re-surfaced as a French teacher in Burkina Faso. It was here, in 2000, that Dadfield vanished after a merciless inferno that claimed no other lives. Dadfield's body was never recovered - investigators found only a charred tweed jacket - and he was officially declared deceased. Nevertheless, the curious and the insane still insisted that he faked his death to escape proceedings for bankruptcy.
[edit] Recent Revivals
"For a five year period, it was though that Dadfield had, at last, expired. But in 2005 the world once again learned of his existence when it emerged that he had fathered a child in the United States. Dadfield released a statement declaring that he had spent the previous five years re-writing The Key to All Mythologies, whilst hiding in South America. In 2003 he also found time to release a single in Bolivia entitled 'Funk Me Up Real Good' - but the record sold only seventeen copies, and Dadfield abandoned his pop career in disgrace. Having re-discovered his taste for self-publicity, Dadfield began a weblog to record his adventures, and also attempted to publish the Key. Sadly, however, this dream has produced nothing but unmitigated failure."
NB: This is an example of Dadfield's own biographical comedy, not an accurate account of his life (!)
[edit] Recent Satire
Having slipped into obscurity, Dadfield's comic 'career' was re-launched by his discovery of the internet in the late 1990s. This allowed him to pursue his new forms of satire more freely than traditional stage comedy would permit. His present project is a weblog which satrises the practice of blogging itself[2]. Typically, the authorial persona, attacks both himself and his readers, epitomising the self-reflexive comedy that Dadfield has pusued throughout his career. Although never a successful comedian - and in some respects a failure, since he never became well-known - new technologies have enabled Dadfield to continue with innovatory comedy, long after his career appeared to have finished.
[edit] External Links
- A Popular Fansite. This site purports to preserve satirical material from his previous websites. However, it is not fully archived, and is sparce in the use of dates.
- Dadfield's weblog. Dadfield's most recent satire can be found here.
[edit] References
1Taken from a fansite which preserves some material from Dadfield's earlier, and now defunct, satirical websites.
2This weblog now seems to be the principle outlet for Dadfield's satire.
