Wild fans and large audiences have incredulous arrow throwers asking 'where will it all end?'
I have been reading the autobiography of the comedian and actor Steve Martin, which fails to address the question of why such an exciting, funny performer chose to appear in so many dull films but is very interesting on the phenomenon of exponential growth.
At least, I think exponential is the word I am looking for, although I have had little involvement in mathematics since passing the O?level exam some 40-odd years ago and walking away, saying: "My work here is done."
Anyway, this sounds pretty exponential to me. For years Martin played to small and medium-sized venues with his quirky magic/banjo/comedy act but then a few appearances on Saturday Night Live, a glowing review of a gig in Miami and the apparent endorsement of America's leading arbiter of comedy Johnny Carson, combined to create the conditions for him to go boffo, or whatever it is they say in the United States. Martin is as mystified as anyone.
"How many people are out there?" he asks in Dallas. "Two thousand? How could there be two thousand?" Soon there are 18,695, at The Coliseum, Richfield, Ohio, Martin's life now passing in a whirl. Sixty cities in 63 days, subsisting on room service deep?fried breaded shrimp "with the texture of sandpaper, really just a ketchup delivery system". Forty-five thousand tickets sold in New York.
It is something of a leap from the US's first big concert-hall comedy star to darts player Raymond van Barneveld who nobody, even here at Screen Break headquarters, would describe as a wild and crazy guy but Barney's puzzlement, interviewed in front of eight thousand cheering fans in Belfast on Thursday, mirrored Martin's when his hundreds became thousands.
"Where is it going to end?" asked Barney, after his Premier League victory over Adrian Lewis. "Eight thousand here, 10,000 at the O2. After football, this is the second best televised sport ever." The credit for the success of the Premier League should probably be shared between Barry Hearn and the ready supply of alcohol which undoubtedly helps foster the wild enthusiasm of the fans.
We will come to Hearn shortly, but among those scrawled messages the spectators wave at the cameras going into the commercial break, my favourite in Belfast was one reading simply: "Tanya Doherty On The Cider Again." In the melee, it was not clear whether Tanya herself was holding up the banner, maybe celebrating the end of a period of abstinence, in which case, welcome back Tanya, from all those of us convinced of the benefits of a glass of wine with the evening meal and a small single malt before bedtime. Or could it have been an economic cri de coeur from Tanya, forced by circumstances in these difficult times to abandon her grown-up booze and return to her more competitively priced student tipple?
Perhaps the message was a warning from one of Ms Doherty's companions to those waiting at home, to prepare to greet a Tanya high on cider and tungsten. Or might it simply have been a plug for one of those Irish novels you never quite get round to reading, Tanya Doherty On The Cider Again?
As to Hearn, the darts Premier League he has cooked up with Sky is a brilliant construct, building on the success of the PDC World Championship at Alexandra Palace by taking the top eight players to decent-sized venues around the country, where they play each other in a league format, culminating in a top-four play?off.
I am with Hearn on the play-off system, believing it maintains interest for more clubs, as in Super League, and the Football League. He was on Gabby Logan's show on BBC 5 Live last week, talking about reviving sports through "short forms" ? snooker is his latest project ? without compromising the integrity of traditional competitions.
The inescapable conclusion was that the unnecessarily drawn out cricket World Cup would be a whole lot better if it were all handed over to Hearn.
With darts, of course, there is not a whole lot of tradition to be preserved, unless you count Freddie Trueman's pipe, pint of beer, and cheery "I'll si-thee" on Yorkshire Television's Indoor League in the 1970s, so Hearn has been free to build the entertainment around the characters whose roadshow round Britain is like one of Martin's coast-to-coast tours. While none yet has come up with a line quite as brilliant as Steve's: "I've learned in comedy never to alienate the audience. Otherwise I would be like Dimitri in La Condition Humaine", there is fun to be had.
I particularly enjoy Simon Whitlock's outrageous ponytail, and the work of James Wade, who does a little shuffle on stage and flirts slightly with the promotion girls hired to walk on with the players.
It is indecently entertaining for such a simple game, the only fear being that as it moves on to the next level it may become the sporting equivalent of Parenthood or Father Of The Bride II.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/feb/28/barry-hearn-darts-steve-martin
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