Finlay Christie and school chat

 I posted a comment on Facebook that generated more responses than anything for a while...

Watched HIGNFY last night and had no idea who Finlay Christie was. Googling him I am not surprised to find he went to one of the posher private schools that I have worked at this year.

Kids, this is how you get on the telly. Have the presence of mind to be born to rich parents. Your own fault if you didn’t.

Update (after first comments had come in): I really wasn’t trying to wage class war on Finlay Christie, you know, I simply googled a comic cos I didn’t know them, and saw he’d been to a school that I worked at this year. Then made a snarky comment, obviously. But I’m glad to hear, from the people who know, that Finlay has done his time on the circuit, and I hope to catch him live.

Of course I then went down the rabbit hole, prompted by a question “how many comics went to private schools?”

Limiting myself to recent guests on HIGNFY, and skipping over next week’s Phil Wang (International School & Kingswood), last week’s Bella Hull (“All girls school”, possibly Godstowe), the previous weeks’ Nish Kumar (St Olave’s Grammar*), Julian Clary (St Benedicts), Helen Lewis (St Marys Worcester), Stephen Mangan (Lochinver House, and Haileybury & Imperial), and Miles Jupp (The Hall, St Georges, and Oakham), I was surprised to start scouring Maisie Adam’s background.

Relax kids, she’s a comic who went to a normal school (not unique in this season of HIGNFY, cos Ross Noble has also been on), but did you know her uncle (Mark Byford) was Deputy Director General of the BBC? That her mum founded the Louder Than Words Festival? And that her grandad led the inquiry into the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper?

Even our ordinary comedians aren't that ordinary!

* NB It has been pointed out that St Olaves is a state school, however selective it may be. I conflated “private” with “not comprehensive”. Sorry.

Some comments that followed...

Steve Lount

Finlay is an excellent and hugely original comedian. I've booked him a few times over the last couple of years. On YouTube he does brilliant renditions of Peep Show where he plays all the characters but set in 2025.

Meryl O'Rourke

Tbf he talks about this on stage a lot, I *think* did a whole show about it? He absolutely knows who he is. If anything it's the fact he started doing stand up at 6, was it? With Comedy 4 Kids? ... which got him to the level he's at at this age.

Meryl O'Rourke

See what you've done here Kev, is you've presumed we wouldn't all know him really well lolll... that's the other thing with Finlay...he works the clubs, very determinedly...

Paul Savage

Finlay’s been smashing it in the clubs for ages. His “boy” bit that was his set for so you think you’re funny is one of the tightest bits of stand up I’ve seen a student do.

Juliet Meyers

He’s great

Stephen Grant

Finlay is a brilliant comedian who is absolutely where he is through hard work and talent - I understand that privilege gives you the buffer to fall back on if your performing career doesn’t work out but I I’m pretty sure that’s a risk he would have taken anyway

Roger Monkhouse

Sucks that Ghetto Kids like you can't catch a break, man.

Steve Gribbin

He is a very funny fella, excellent

Charlie Ross MacKenzie

It really is a huge problem in the industry. Part of it isn’t necessarily the provided folks fault, where those who are under austerity have to quit or can’t quite give it their all. I had to teach in some capacity for most of my comedy career to make ends meet so subsequently when you do get a gig or audition, you’re knackered and not as sharp or prepared as you’d like to be. The well off don’t have to worry about that.

But conversely, the industry itself has to wonder why they’re giving hikes up the ladder to upper classes and not say, but where are the other people who went to state schools, generally have more interesting voices and better things to say!!

Very frustrating! Now I’ve had a bit of a comeback in fighting two prejudices… not privileged AND old!!! Lol

Spring Day-Comedian

Finlay is a good comedian and humble too. it’s not his fault where he went to school. I understand hating the system but don’t drag this kid, it’s a bad look.

Alush Pain

As a public school educated comedian, i get the disdain, and i get the fact that a lot of colleagues wont give two figs about any success i might achieve.

I'm also well aware thqt my first edinburgh show, which was a failure at every level, was easier because i had back up financially.

I also passionately believe that stand up comedy is a pure entertainment format where your background doesn't buy you a pass with the audience. Being funny does. As does authenticity. Finlay has both in spades.

Mitch Benn

I keep reading all these articles and think pieces about how it’s such a WEIRD COINCIDENCE that all the new young actors, pop stars and comedians were expensively privately educated? Weird, isn’t it?

No, it’s not weird, it’s fucking inevitable.

I don’t condemn these people exercising every advantage available to them - fuck it, I used every advantage *I* had, even if private school education wasn’t one of them - nor do I begrudge them their success (apart from a couple of utterly talentless nepo surfers who should be bloody ashamed of themselves), but the point is this:

If it becomes impossible to make a living at anything other than the highest levels of a profession - whatever that profession might be - then that profession will become the sole preserve of people WHO DON’T NEED TO MAKE A LIVING.

And however rankled or not one might be by the old fashioned social injustice of this, something undeniable is that it’s going to cost us in terms of lost talent. If nobody whose parents aren’t wealthy enough to subsidise them through years of nickel n’ diming it ever gets a chance to succeed, think of all the working class geniuses we’ll never even get to hear about, because they had to get jobs in call centres rather than build up their talents and develop their careers…

And if great art comes from struggle and adversity, what sort of world will we have when the only people able to make art are those who’ve never experienced either?

Benjamin Bankole Bello

Working class comedians should stop moaning, it’s not too late to get privately educated or get adopted by rich parents. Seriously nepotism exists in every walk of life, music, politics you name it , it’s who you know that’s the way of the world, some people have failed to use their connections to their advantage those who do deserve credit. Any working class comedian who had the opportunity would do the same. Private schools create an advantage it’s a fact of life, look at Mamdani. Let’s continue to stay funny

John Dorney

Seen him live and… yeah, thought he was great.

(On a similar note, I was around when Jack Whitehall started. He was very privileged… but he was also great. Can’t object there either)

Raymond Timpkins

He's got funny bones. It's all that matters really. x

Harry Brown

he's actually well funny not everyone who has rich parents is a nepo baby you know

Christopher Brown

There is not such thing as "self made"

Richard Fitchett

I'd never heard of him, found him likeable and smart enough not to try and upstage the old hands on HIGNFY - like some do and fail. Made me wonder how many stand-up comics did go to private school? (This was the reply that led to the update of my post)

Geoff Whiting

I have booked Finlay since he was an open spot and he is a genuinely good man with the right attitude, he did well for me and I moved him up to paid twenties quite quickly. He is a proper comic, not simply a social media influencer, and deserves success as much as anyone else that has been gigging for the past three or four years. I truly like him Kev!

Alicia Davison

Finlay is an excellent comedian. I’ve booked him a number of times. I’m so pleased that he was booked for HIGNFY. I’d say, arguably, because of his privileged upbringing he probably has to work harder than most to get a regular club audience onside. He never fails!

Please do look him up online! His material is very well written and delivered with finesse.

Steve Marchant

Personally, I've found that a working-class upbringing and state schools adequately prepared me for a lifetime of depression, anxiety, and self-doubt.

Dan Kchilds

Good to know he has done the circuits. They introduced him as just another Youtuber.

Edward Knight

Having a head start is (unsurprisingly) a great help in academia too. You can get a PhD and your first postdoctoral research post purely on academic ability, imagination, original thinking and proper hard work, but after that, you have to win the funding to pay your own salary (they only give teaching jobs to people who don't want them). The competition for research funding is skewed in favour of candidates who can afford to go unpaid for a year while they do the background reading and polish up a research proposal to secure the funding for their next research fellowship. It helps if they have a guarantor to pay their mortgage in the short term as well; they are also the only PhD students who have mortgages in the first place.

Carl Lee Tebbutt

Please explain the plethora of working class or state educated middle class comedians then?

Jamie Bates

You still need to y'know actually have some talent, private education can help get a leg up in the industry but it's not going to make a career

Tom Read

Everyone seems to be missing your point about how privilege works (and not about if Finlay is a nice and funny guy or not). This is sociologically interesting.

Mark Nicholas

Finlay Christie is an Excellent Comic who has worked incredibly hard to get to that level

Working Class Comics (Like Kev Myself and Many Others) still face way more barriers than comics who came from a more privilege background

Both those things can be true!

I think, and I hope, that was Kev Sutherland point?

Terri Allington

This is something Daniel Sloss regularly raises at his gigs...

There's a glass ceiling for non-rich comedy folk

George Wheatcroft

My wife went to that school and let me tell you, it isn't exactly Eton.

Clare Louise

I was gonna say - Ross Noble went to the same school as my husband. Essentially the local comp. Bog standard.

Dave Pain

Could it be linked to the fact that UK comprehensive education has devalued the arts and pushed the national curriculum 'core' subjects?

Gary Edgar

I'd always help my kids , wouldn't you ? I suppose he could have objected to being born ? Was he funny ? Interesting post about insecurity .

Ben McCabe

I just thought he wasn't very funny.

Chris Catterall

Don't worry, I've heard from people who know him and have worked with him. He is apparently an arse.

Rosie Wilby

Maisie’s mum (and her louder than words fest) are excellent. I think you’re probably right about posh schooling facilitating success. If anything, it’s about the mindset instilled in that kind of environment.

Julia Elmer

St Olaves isn’t a private school though?

Gavin Ansdell

For what it's worth, having Nish in there seems harsh. St Olaves isn't private.

It is selective on academic grounds, with entry exams to get, but there are no fees. If you can pass the test well enough, you're in.

At the point that I went there, my dad was a mini-cab driver and my mum worked for a hospice, and both came from working class families in Bermondsey. We weren't badly off by any metric, but definitely not posh.

Mark Bethell

Get over it. I found Finlay quite puzzling - loose and not actually funny (as if I was missing the joke, as the panel and audience seemed to love him - probably a case of comic charisma, so fair play to him). Of the others - just give Julian Clary a break. Did you know that the various members of Monty Python and the Goons / Young ones were privately educated? When do you outlive the shame of it? I found Bella Hull sweetly goofily funny, but now I know she’s privileged, I will try not to. In a world where arseholes roam (Farage etc) do we really need to attack people who aren’t arseholes? (Yes… I know the answer - we do.. because otherwise we well never make a better world…)

But, egalitarianism is an ideal, it just might not have the best jokes

Btw I have made various comments on this and I too am not trying to wage class war. It’s just a bit hard on the young man in question I think to personify him as symbolic privilege, so I’m glad at the generous spirited pushback from many of the comments below

Steve Smith

I judge comics solely upon whether they are funny or not. Sean Lock was, Nish Kumar isn’t.

Dee Pras

So you're against these schools, but you working for them is fine? OK.

Luke Turner

I'm surprised that anyone is surprised by this. And some commentors don't seem to realise that it's the paying customers who get the shitty end of the stick! What's also interesting, is how many of these 'comedians' quietly evolve into actors. They're like cuckoos pushing the real talent out of the nest. It's all so tiresome.

Ian Mackenzie

The only thing that matters is that he IS funny. The rest is puerile envy.

Neil O'Higgins

I've never heard of him until HIGNFY and all I remember is a nervous but polite young man, with a self deprecating wit and team player, good luck to him 

(Replies aren't in order, because Facebook shuffles them. I've tried to put the early posts at the top)

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