Friday, Jan. 16, 2004 | 8:20 a.m.
"If you can't make comedy work for you in America, you're in the wrong business," contends Scott Angrave, who knows all too well of which he speaks.
In 1985, after performing only one professional stand-up gig in his native England, he flew across the pond to give comedy a try stateside. That he never made it to the show -- New York City, Angrave says, "intimidated" him, so he hopped a bus and headed to North Carolina instead -- is beside the point.
Once down South, he waited tables for a while before embarking on a three-month comedy tour of the United States.
"I came to America and saw that there was a comedy club in every town that I went through and it really opened my eyes," he recalls. "Once I got back to the U.K., I went with gusto and really worked on my comedy, knowing that someday I would be able to come back to America and perform here."
"Someday" arrived 15 years ago and Angrave -- who performs through Sunday at The Comedy Stop at the Trop -- has been scoring professionally ever since, performing in clubs and at corporate gigs around the country.
"Very few people in England know a comedian," Angrave said during a recent call from his home in Greensboro, N.C. "They see a few on television, maybe the odd one in a club now and again, but they don't know any."
He even recalls having to explain the gist of his occupation to his own father.
"People think it's just about telling jokes, but there's a science to telling a joke, and there's a business to becoming a good comedian," he theorizes. "You can be very, very funny, but if you're a bad businessman, you're probably not going to do very well."
That's why 41-year-old Angrave -- who holds a business degree and formerly worked in England as a banker -- also helps other comics get their financial futures in order.
"I'm giving them advice on their Roth IRAs, their 401(k)s ... and investments," he explains. "I'm just trying to help them get to a point where there is a retirement at the end of the road for a comedian."
Two of his 50-something comic friends have died while performing on the road. They were forced to work because "They'd saved nothing over the years. It's my goal to just help a lot of those entertainers out there get to the point where they can slow down."
Angrave also spreads fiscal smarts via "Funny Money," a comedic/informational seminar he hosts to show people the errors of their saving and spending ways.
One important financial aspect that is "totally underestimated is the value of your credit score," he says. "People are tardy on their payments. They open all these credit cards and just go overboard and ... what they're doing is putting a black mark on their credit report." As a result, difficulties are often encountered when people attempt to obtain mortgage loans and the like. "It comes back and bites them in the bum."
For corporate engagements, Liverpool-born Angrave often performs his "favorite" seminar, "How to Speak Proper English," posing as a big-business executive and keynote speaker.
"I'll slowly ease into all the advertising faux pas that people have done over the years," he says, such as when Chevrolet attempted to market its Nova car model in South America. " 'Nova' in Spanish means 'no go.' You can't sell that."
Then Angrave discusses the way Americans speak English versus how it's spoken in his homeland.
"I know that any American listening to that one is just going to be amazed," he says of the seminar.
"How to Speak Proper English" was also the title of a book Angrave penned "many, many moons ago," which has been out of print for years. In 2000 he recorded his comedy first CD, "Stud English Muffin." Its follow-up, "No (Expletive), Sherlock," inspired by a bit from his act about Americans' usage of the excrement obscenity, is due out next month.
Also in February, Angrave will head to the American International Toy Fair in New York City, where he hopes to regenerate interest in a revamped version of a board game he invented and marketed in 1996.
The object of Sagarian (as the game was formerly called) was to move "around the universe trying to answer a universe of different questions," he explains. Some 10,000 copies of the game were sold during its first publishing, followed by an additional 10,000 in '98, when the game also earned several awards.
Its latest incarnation, called HeadCase, is "set in a sanitarium, and all of the players are inmates and they have to escape" by proving that they're geniuses -- and not insane -- and tackling "tongue twisters, trick questions" and physical antics while moving around the board.
Angrave calls HeadCase "a really, really fun version of Trivial Pursuit," adding that he hopes it will hit store shelves "with a vengeance at the end of the year" and generate the cash required for him to create prototypes for the other four board games he's already invented.
Here's hoping his next trip to the Big Apple goes better than his first.
"To come over here with a backpack and $200 in your pocket, it did take some guts," he says reflectively of his stand-up career's beginnings. "It could have backfired horribly, and I could have gone back to England and I'd be working in the bank right now."
Out for laughs
George Wallace will likely remember this night for years to come: His show is set to debut in its regular 10 p.m. slot at Flamingo Las Vegas. Wallace, a 1995 American Comedy Award winner who has also appeared in a slew of films -- "Little Nicky," "A Rage in Harlem," "Punchline" and "Batman Forever" among them -- will perform Tuesday through Saturdays. Tickets are $40 and $50 plus tax; call 733-3333.
At 10:30 p.m. on Jan. 30, Comedy Central (Cox cable channel 56) is scheduled to air a half-hour comedy special starring Dat Phan. It's a prize the rags-to-riches comedian earned last summer by winning the NBC reality series "Last Comic Standing." Also look for Phan, who headlines through Sunday at The Improv at Harrah's, to guest star on "The West Wing," in an episode that likely will air in February.
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