Can't Stand Up for Sitting Down (4 page)

The Red Rose

The Red Rose Labour Club
in Finsbury Park in North London always felt to me like a spiritual home of
some sort. Compered by Ivor Dembina, who was my flatmate for a while, it had a
left-wing feel. Although it’s possible with hindsight that I have imposed such
a trait, and that the audience didn’t give a toss — they just wanted some good
entertainment. It was run by Joe, a lovely Irishman who was into comedy and
very happy to have us all there.

I had
some great nights and some fairly appalling nights there, which is par for the
course.

We also
tried to start up a Comics’ Union there. The fundamental problem, of course,
with doing that is that comics tend to be loners who don’t naturally fit into a
unionised environment However, Ivor and I sent out a message and were hugely
impressed that more than 150 people turned up at the first meeting. We had
called it mainly because we felt that some clubs were discriminating against
less experienced comics and paying them much less than other comics.

As you
can imagine, a room full of that many comics was quite something to behold and
there was much heckling (well, how often did
we
get the chance?) and
pissing about.

At the
initial meeting, various issues were discussed and it was agreed that we would
meet a month later, and that Ivor and I would do some groundwork to start
sorting some of the problems.

Of
course at the next meeting there were only thirty comics and at the following
about twelve, so the Comics’ Union I’m afraid went the way of many altruistic
projects, under the heading of Just Can’t Be Arsed.

The
other disappointment I had at the Red Rose was one Christmas Eve when I parked
right outside, intending to do a gig and then drive straight on to my parents’
for Christmas in Shropshire. During the gig someone smashed the car window and
nicked all my presents which I’D VERY STUPIDLY LEFT ON THE BACK SEAT Christmas
cheer evaporated out of me immediately and I did hold it against the Red Rose
for quite some time. Although I hope they liked the satin thong I’d got my dad
for Christmas.

CAST Comedy Clubs

CAST was a left-wing
organisation which ran comedy gigs at various venues round London including the
Hackney Empire. They put on an eclectic mix of performers, ranging from a South
African woman in her sixties called Terri who did paper-tearing, to hard-nosed
old lefties who slagged the government with every last fibre of their being.
The main reason I liked them was because of the couple who ran them, Claire and
Roland Muldoon. Roland was a bearded Cap’n Birdseye-type, full of bonhomie and
humour, and Claire, a witty, straight-talking feminist.

I still
try to keep in touch with them and do gigs for them when I can. In fact, I
recently went to the small village in which they live in the wilds of Buckinghamshire
to do some stand-up in the village hall. I had been dubious about it because
the weather forecast predicted very heavy snow, and I didn’t particularly want
to get stuck on the motorway and have to eat my own leg while I froze to death.
I mooted this idea with Claire, who sounded so bereft that I was considering
not coming, that I steeled myself and got in the car.

The gig
itself was a laugh, a lot of pissed villagers shouting, heckling and enjoying
themselves. My dressing room was the disabled toilet, which was perfectly all
right and even had a chair if I put the lid down.

I came
out of the show to face bitter cold and thought I’d better get back to London
as quickly as I could. I hit the motorway twenty minutes later and within
seconds it had started to snow. Because it was so cold the heavy snow settled
immediately and I was forced to slow down to ten miles an hour because I
couldn’t see a bloody thing, owing to what I think is called a white-out. One’s
driving skills go out of the window on these occasions and I immediately
started driving very badly I’m sure I was straddling two lanes as I couldn’t
see the road.

Eventually
I settled in behind a massive lorry and kept on his tail, limping into London
where the snow had melted immediately, due probably to the fact that London is
such an evil place, and arrived home four hours later. Yes, cheers, Claire.

New Material Nights

New material nights were a
good example of comics cooperating and working together. Originally they
started in a pub just off Tottenham Court Road and were an opportunity for
comics to try out new stuff they had written. It’s hard because on its first
outing, new material is so obviously new that if you do it at a booked show
you have fifteen minutes of polished, funny, well-tested stuff with five
minutes of absolute crap in the middle.

The new
material nights gave us a chance to socialise, try stuff and hopefully give the
audience what they wanted. We always employed a proper compere and paid them,
so that at least if all our bits were really shit, the audience got some good
jokes out of them.

Comics
who did new material nights were Jim Tavaré, James Macabre, Hattie Hayridge,
Simon Munnery, Stewart Lee, Mark Thomas, Alan Davies, Ivor Dembina, Patrick
Marber and many others. We eventually moved to a more permanent home in
Islington and would do the gig then all drift along the road to Pizza Express
for some laughs, arguments and occasional bad behaviour.

Screaming Blue Murder
at the Leather Bottle

The Leather Bottle is in
South-West London, and Screaming Blue Murder was run by two delightful brothers
called Pete and Phil. The regular compere was Eddie Izzard, who had come into
his own after what some people on the comedy circuit considered to be a shaky
start. But here he was in his element, and his surreal flights of fancy lifted
the audience to dizzy heights of laughter. Those of us who were waiting to go
on split our thoughts between marvelling at Eddie’s skill and hoping the
determinedly pro-Eddie audience would like us too.

Worst
Comedy Clubs

The Bearcat

James and Graham, the
lovely guys who run the Bearcat Club, which was housed in a lovely little pub
in Twickenham, will kill me for putting their club into my least favourite
league. It has absolutely nothing to do with them: I was, and still am, very
fond of them. They never had a compere as such. James would stand in front of a
record deck playing seventies disco hits between the acts while people went to
the bar, and one would either step on stage just after ‘It’s Raining Men’ or ‘I
Will Survive’. Sometimes I felt I myself only very narrowly survived.

It had
to do with the audience who went there. I have no idea why this should be, but
I can’t remember ever having a gig that I truly enjoyed at the Bearcat. There
always seemed to be someone in the audience who
really
didn’t like me.
Fair enough — I accept that the whole world can’t like me or find me funny —
but when the abuse came, as it did from time to time, I never felt the rest of
the audience were that bothered. All right then, let the narky cow have it, was
what I imagined them to be thinking.

My
worst night there was a New Year’s Eve gig. I’ve never been that keen on the
forced jollity-cum-psychopissedness of New Year’s Eve when we’re all supposed to
be having a brilliant time despite the fact that at least half of us aren’t.

It
should have been a great night, but there had been some industrial-strength
drinking going on, and by the time I stepped on stage, the atmosphere wasn’t
great. Alcohol-induced possibilities filled the air and they’d already been
having a right old heckle at the other acts. There was quite a lot of ‘Fuck
off, you fat lesbian’ which, to be honest, had become so familiar over the
years that it didn’t bother me any more. Then someone shouted out something
along the lines of, ‘Piss off, you’re shit.’ I did one of my put-downs,
probably about halfway along the continuum strength-wise. Normally it would get
a laugh, but they just looked at me like I was a really horrible person.

At that
point I knew I had lost them. Although not many people who perform take a huge
amount of notice of where they appear on the bill, if you are on last, the
audience tends to think you are the headline act and therefore the best. Well,
I was dying on my arse and everything I tried to do to counteract it seemed to
have the effect of a funeral bell tolling. Absolutely nothing worked. I managed
to stagger through to the end of my set without the audience actually dealing
the final blow, but came off feeling deflated, angry with myself and really
pissed off. And A Happy New Year to me.

The Cartoon in Clapham

The Cartoon was a rowdy
pub in Clapham where there was a comedy club for a while. Perhaps it was just
bad luck, but every time I went there, it seemed someone was either vomiting
over their table, or there was a fight, or a group of stag-night types who
wanted to fire a heat-seeking missile of abuse at me. I tried not to perform
there too often.

It would be morally wrong
to finish this chapter without including a short-list of my own ill-judged
remarks while on stage:

1. At
a pro-abortion benefit, I made a (made up!) joke about my boyfriend coming to
see me, just after I’d had a termination and to cheer me up, bringing a bag of
jelly babies.

2. I
told a twelve-year-old boy in the front row of a gig, who was heckling me, to
fuck off. Which obviously didn’t go down a treat with his mum and dad.

3. I
berated a guy walking across in front of me who subsequently went to the bar,
bought a pint of lager and came back and chucked it over me.

4. I
told a room full of businessmen that they were all wankers (they were), but it
finished my evening pretty sharpish.

5. At
a student gig I threw a bun, which had been thrown at me, back in the direction
of the thrower and it hit some poor innocent woman in the eye.

For these, and the
thousand other dodgy pieces of behaviour I have indulged in and subsequently
repressed, I am well and truly regretful.

Many comedians believe
touring to be a necessary evil, but I really love it. It’s self-contained,
straightforward, and when a night’s finished it’s finished and there’s no
hangover from it unless you have died on your arse — but a few drinks soon
sorts that out.

I have
toured many times over the last twenty years, and each town seems to have its
own particular characteristics. Rather than laboriously detail each tour, it’s
perhaps best to give you an overall impression of touring and then list towns
I’ve been to which have had a major impression.

My
touring life is divided into two sections: pre-children and after-children.
Before I got married and had kids I was free to tour wherever I wanted and for
however long I wanted to, which meant that I could be away for several days and
do a tour that progressed in a logical way round the country. Well I say that,
but Off the Kerb, which is the company I tour with, are famous for throwing you
the occasional googly by putting you on in Aberdeen one night, Southampton the
next and then Glasgow the next. This means you criss-cross the country quite a
few times, and if you don’t like sitting in cars you’re in trouble.

For me,
the most important requirements of sitting in a car for ages are good
companions, a good driver, good radio and/or music, and lots of sweets. Once
all these are in place, on the whole things are OK. The only problem after that
is the motorways. These grind to a halt with alarming regularity but I have to
say that not once have 1 arrived late for a show, so we have obviously always
been sensibly grown up in setting off in plenty of time, although there have
been a few skin-of-our-teeth moments.

Support Acts

I toured firstly with my
friend Jeff Green for a number of years until he became worthy of tours in his
own right, and I was sad to see him go. I then toured for a while with Richard
Morton, who was always great to be with. Richard is such a lovable guy, so
helpful, friendly and sweet-natured, he almost makes me feel guilty for
existing. He’s a Geordie, but an atypical one given that he is small and slim
and unmacho. He was unerringly cheerful when we toured briefly, and believe you
me, unerringly cheerful isn’t the default position of most comedians.