Can't Stand Up for Sitting Down (12 page)

The
Assembly Rooms attract the more upmarket, lazier comedy audience who only ever
go there and nowhere else, figuring that eventually every good comic worth
their salt will appear there. The Assembly Rooms is presided over by one
William Burdett-Coutts. Yes, just as patrician as he sounds, but a softly
spoken, quietly humorous individual who I liked immensely and with whom I never
had cause to fall out.

The
second of the three best venues, the Pleasance, is exactly what it’s called — a
pleasant cluster of venues grouped round a central courtyard where people can
breeze in and out and watch absent-minded or terrified comics drift through
their line of vision on their way to and from shows. On a sunny day it’s lovely
to sit at a table with a beer and witness a few impromptu performances of the
juggling/street theatre variety (It has to be said though, that a sunny day in
Edinburgh is quite a rare phenomenon.)

The
inimitable ‘father’ of the Pleasance, Christopher Richardson in my day could
often be seen striding round the courtyard, his ample frame clad in an ancient
linen suit and straw hat, holding forth about some irritation or other.

The
Pleasance had a lovely buzz about it. Studenty arty sociable, it was always a
pleasure to be at.

The
Gilded Balloon can be found in what appears to be a street running underneath
the rest of Edinburgh. Epicentre of drunken socialising for most comics, apart
from some of the older ones who like a sit-down in the Assembly Rooms, it was
the scene of much alcohol- and drug-fuelled shenanigans, and drew a crowd of
ne’er-do-wells, both from among the comics and the audience.

I
remember once heading towards the place and bumping into Steve Coogan, who
informed me that the Pleasance staff had gone on strike and I was to immediately
go there and show my solidarity with them. When I said that I’d like to know
about the genesis of the dispute, before I made up my mind whether to support
them, he said, ‘Oh Jo, you’re such a liberal.’ I think that is the only time
I’ve ever been called a liberal.

The
Gilded Balloon was run and managed by one Karen Koren, as feisty a Scotswoman
as you could hope to meet. Everyone seemed terrified of her. I thought she was
a good laugh. She made sure that the atmosphere of the Gilded Balloon was
always slightly edgy and difficult to predict. One way she did this was to put
on a late-night show called
Late and Live
which didn’t start until after
midnight. There was always an interesting combination of mainly English acts
and a predominantly Scots audience. The added factor of the late hour also
helped to ensure that much heckling of a not entirely complimentary nature
went on. My approach was to try and make sure I was as drunk as the audience —
which was very, very, very, very, very drunk. I could then respond to them on
the level at which they had pitched their alcohol-fuelled comments about my appearance
and the content of my material. Also, being this pissed meant the following
morning I couldn’t remember a bloody thing about how the show had gone which,
nine times out of ten, was a blessing.

Having filled you in on
the venues I have spent most of my time in, there now follows a brief history
of my Edinburgh experiences. It is surprising in some ways that I can remember
anything about them at all, given that Edinburgh for me has always been a
distant bacchanalian country which is not in any way connected to reality apart
from the wreckage of one’s physical and mental state on returning home.

First Edinburgh, 1988

My first trip to Edinburgh
was your standard cabaret show with a compere and two other stand-ups. The
compere was Ivor Dembina, a lovable character who I’ve mentioned before, and
with whom I became good friends; at one point we even shared a flat. Ivor ran
the comedy venue, the Red Rose in Finsbury Park in North (yuk) London. He was
the regular compere there and, like myself, didn’t turn over new material at
the speed of light like some of the newer, keener comics did. This meant that
over the years I came to know his set very well, and jokes of his would be
bandied about by most of us in a fond kind of way Ivor’s act was occasionally inconsistent
so it has to be said we saw him dying some spectacular deaths on stage from
time to time — but that only endeared him more to people.

Ivor
was also like your favourite uncle. Bespectacled, sardonic and easygoing, he
was always good fun to be with. When we shared a flat, things were pretty
amicable between us as for a few months we played ‘Who Is the Laziest
Flatmate?’ We had one huge row once that started over who put a bottle of
tomato ketchup away and it escalated into a massive shouting match, but apart
from that it was very hard to fall out with Ivor, who had been a teacher before
he’d become a comedian, and we rubbed along pretty well together until we moved
on.

At an
out-of-town club, as compere, Ivor once called the interval and remarked to
some guy in the front row, All right mate, you start the dancing,’ only to
discover that the guy in question was ‘dancing’ because he had a serious
physical disability Much embarrassment ensued, including some audience
indignation because they assumed he was taking the piss out of a disabled
person.

Also on
the bill for my first Edinburgh jaunt were Mark Thomas and James Macabre. Mark
Thomas, as I’m sure you will know, is what the London listings magazine
City
Limits
used to call a ‘polemical’ comedian. Fiery, in your face and full of
energy, he used to force his way into the consciousness of the audience and
held the stage almost as if he was under siege. James Macabre (real name Jim
Miller) was altogether different. More understated performance-wise, he was
equally powerful as a stand-up. His material was pretty dark and very silly at
times, and I think as a trio we were a good balance, each offering a contrast
to the others.

We
appeared in the Pleasance bar, which was the perfect venue for us as it was the
most like the cabaret clubs in London that we were used to, and not
theatre-like at all. This did mean that the audience could get quite pissed, as
the bar was open all night. Still, we were used to this too, so it suited us.

And get
pissed they did.

One of
the characteristics of Edinburgh was the unspoken antipathy between the Scots
and the English. I say unspoken, but on a number of occasions I was abused for
my English accent. However, this was more than made up for by the jocular
nature of the vast majority of Scots I met.

My
abiding memory of this first Edinburgh was a fight which started at the show. A
group of locals, having imbibed a fair bit, got stuck into some heckling during
our show. It wasn’t particularly nasty, just irritatingly constant, like an
itch, and every form of put-down, clever retort, desperate plea that they were
ruining the show, went unheard. So we just put our heads down and got through
the show as best we could. So far so good.

However,
after the show, on our way out to the courtyard to have a well-earned drink,
we encountered our hecklers face to face — two young men and a very lary woman.
She and I began a rather foolish argument involving a lot of swearing, and at
one point, pissed as she was and probably not really aware of what she was
doing (to give her the benefit of the doubt), the charming woman stubbed a fag
out on my arm. This was more than I could cope with and, calling for
reinforcements, the argument spilled out into the courtyard and became a bit of
a fight.

Drunken
fists were flying. All of us were crap at fighting, and I suspect to an
onlooker it was quite good comedy Eventually people were dragged off other
people with the usual clichés of, ‘It’s not worth it!’ and, ‘Leave it out!’ and
the whole thing was over as quickly as it had started. It was a baptism of fire
for me as I usually manage to contain myself and get no further than just
verbals.

The
other baptism of fire one encounters at Edinburgh is, of course, reviews. These
are hard to take, unless they’re brilliant obviously which in the early days
for me they often weren’t. I convince myself that if reviews are bad yet
constructive and not personal, that is fair enough. (However, I don’t really
believe that.) But it is much worse if they are personal.

In that
first year, I remember getting a review that took the piss out of the way I
delivered my material in my football-scores style. Unused to this sort of
criticism, I saw red. A fantasy developed in my head that when I saw the
critic—can’t even remember his name now—I would cause him some sort of physical
damage. I nursed this fantasy in the evil, black part of my heart until I
actually saw the man in question in the Gilded Balloon bar later on in the
Festival. By this point, however, the heat had gone out of my anger and I just
gave him my hardest stare and moved on.