'Why should I be censored?'

10 April 2012

Reginald D Hunter is in trouble for using the N-word. The problem is, it's part of the title of his stand-up show, Pride and Prejudice and Niggas, which comes to London next week, and he wants to advertise it.

But his posters have been banned from the Underground for fear of offending commuters, and some newspapers have only agreed to print ads for it without the title.

Hunter is perplexed. "I thought you people were all cool," he observes, in a laidback, Deep-South drawl. He was born in Atlanta but moved to London in the late Nineties and, now 37, lives in Islington, where we have arranged to meet in a local café.

What he's most surprised about is that this objection should have arisen now, four months after he premiered the show - and title - in Edinburgh, where it won a Writers' Guild Award without raising an eyebrow.

"I can only speculate that this is a time where race is more of a heightened issue, because of war, immigration and a sense of 'let's not rock the boat; let's call people by their proper names so that nobody will bomb us'," he says.

"In an ideal world I'd get up, do my show, people make me mayor for a week then I go home. Instead I wake up five months after I wrote the motherf***** and people are mad."

Naturally, he hasn't missed the irony that, by banning his posters, Viacom, the company that owns London Underground advertising sites, has given him even better publicity. And it's all good material for his two-and-a-half week run at the Arts Theatre - "Now I won't get on to the actual show until the second half."

Hunter never meant to be a comedian. When he came to England nine years ago, it was to study drama at Rada. But after leaving he couldn't get any acting work and was sidetracked into standup - first in Birmingham, where he started out in the local club where Frank Skinner was the compere, then, back in London where there was more opportunity.

After that, he never looked back. He has twice been nominated for a Perrier Award, the comedy world's greatest endorsement, but the provocative nature of his act, particularly the way he would single out women in the audience and talk directly to them about their sexual fantasies, divided the judges.

While some accused him of misogyny, others championed his charm and effortless performance skills, which have led to him being lazily dubbed the Samuel L Jackson of stand-up.

Onstage he is one of the most mesmerising storytellers you'll encounter, drawing together the best elements of confrontational stand-up while tackling issues such as tolerance and the need for honesty. Now, having teetered on the brink of mainstream success for some years, he finds himself thrust into the spotlight.

The N-word issue is inescapable at the moment. Days after I meet Hunter, Michael Richards, the white comic actor who played Kramer in the sitcom Seinfeld, hit the headlines for using the word to silence black hecklers in his audience in the United States.

There is no denying that such behaviour is offensive. But what about Hunter? Would he argue that he's reclaiming the word from racists?

"The idea of reclaiming it is bullshit because we never owned that word. It's not like eight centuries ago we used to go around calling each other 'nigger', then slavery came and we gotta get it back. It's just that where I grew up we used that word all the time. It's the way I speak."

But would he use it in the presence of white people? "If I'm with white folks and I want the evening to go smoothly I won't call nobody nigger, but I won't not say the word. I get annoyed with people who want to embrace the word but not let it evolve with the rest of the English language.

"Look at phrases such as 'Go girl' or 'Keeping it real' - they come from the black community but are used by everyone now. My question is what if I don't feel bad about the word? Should I train myself to feel bad just so you'll feel better about me saying it?"

What he clearly resents is the idea that he should make himself more acceptable to a politically correct white audience. "The greatest trick of racism is to convince us to sectionalise our own human pain. Divide and conquer - the idea that the black community has got to be like white folks to be just as good as white folks as if white folks are the template, the Manchester United of people."

Hunter's background suggests he's willing to define his own values An upbringing in America's Deep South as the youngest of nine children didn't hint at a future spent in the stand-up clubs of the UK.

"I had a strict church education - in the way that working-class blacks are expected to become middle-class blacks." His oldest brother, Oliver is a top district attorney and two of his sisters joined the clergy. There is more than the touch of the preacher to Hunter's deep, thoughtful delivery, but he insists that he doesn't want to tell his audiences what to think.

Earlier this year he returned to Georgia and performed in his home town for the first time in front of family members. Were his sisters offended? "You could say they have their ministries and I have mine. Oliver had real trouble with the word 'nigger', but he is 52 and grew up in a different time when you had to drink from one water fountain, so segregation is burned into his brain."

Hunter is adamant that he doesn't set out to offend; he just likes to say things as he sees them. This might go some way towards explaining why this tall, good-looking, quietly charismatic man is single at the moment. He has been in and out of relationships and was with the same woman for 12 years - nine in America then three in London when they first came to the UK together, before they split up for good.

"I guess coming to England was my dream but not hers," he says, with a hint of melancholy.

In London, he formed a close friendship with fellow stand-up John Gordillo, and they now share a flat. Both are obsessed by comedy - when Hunter is not gigging incessantly, he is bouncing ideas off Gordillo, who directed his Edinburgh shows.

"I just talk about what is bugging me, John makes notes, then we work out where the laughs are and try to focus." When not writing he spends his evenings going out to comedy clubs. The stand-up circuit is a tight-knit group, often socialising together backstage, staying up late and rising late.

"One of the things about stand-up is the work is quite isolated," he admits. "What you forget is while you talk in a rough way with your friends, everybody else might not be on that level. My exgirlfriend would take me out to dinner, I'd say something and silence the table.

"I'm like an uncivilised man in a civilised world - like Tarzan. Other people have a lot more presentation to them. I cut to the chase. I fear there may be some disconnection going on which helps the work but I don't know if it is good for my life."

This refusal to compromise has meant it has taken Hunter longer to break into the mainstream. After turning down endless roles as a "cool-talking pimp", he agreed to appear on the C4 panel game, 8 Out Of 10 Cats. He looked uncomfortable, slouched in his seat, but the camera loves him and he made his mark.

"TV has found a wonderful way of showcasing comics on these bullshit panel shows, but a lot of them are banal, empty and stupid. I end up sitting for long stretches without saying anything because I don't work that side of the street. But after doing it I noticed a lot more young people in my audience, so maybe those 30-second soundbites work."

Has he finally come round to the idea that he has to play the game to get on? "I don't know of a human being on this earth who interacts with other human beings who doesn't have to compromise. But I'm not married and I've no mortgage so I won't be compromised that way. I see lots of comics who are just paying the bills. I don't have a big car or a big house but I am in charge of my goals."

Reginald D Hunter is at the Arts Theatre, WC2 (0870 060 1742), 4 to 23 December. Read Bruce Dessau's comedy blog at http://dessau.thisislondon.co.uk.

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