Can't Stand Up for Sitting Down (7 page)

I
remember once doing a phone interview for the
Manchester Evening News
to
promote the show. I could hear by the journalist’s tone of voice that he didn’t
like me. He was sarcastic and taking the piss at every opportunity I thought
no more about it, as I don’t voraciously follow up every interview I’ve done to
see if it’s positive. However, while I was in the hotel bar in Manchester with
Jeff and John and a couple of sound guys who were touring with us, one of the
sound guys, called Simon, happened to mention that he had seen the interview
although he hadn’t read it all. Normally, there were lots of free copies lying
around in this particular hotel, but I couldn’t see a single one. So I went to
the desk and asked if I could borrow one. The concierge handed his over and I
grew increasingly depressed as I read a complete demolition of my character.
Apparently I was vain, full of false modesty not funny but boring… and so it
went on. Our planned night out clubbing was replaced by me hiding in my room
with a bottle of vodka, getting rat-arsed and refusing to talk to anyone. Yes,
I know —self-pitying and childish … I just am sometimes. Poor Simon the sound
man felt very guilty. What had actually happened was that Jeff and John had
read the interview and, thinking it really unpleasant, had thrown all the free
copies of it in the bin while I was in the lay. Not knowing this, poor Simon
had mentioned it and led me right down the road to a dose of reality Still, by
the next morning I was over it.

On a
separate occasion, in Manchester, John took on an entire rugby team — and came
off worse, surprisingly — and I found one of our sound men asleep in the
corridor of the hotel when I got up in the morning. Those were the days, my
friend.

Middlesbrough

They don’t really laugh in
Middlesbrough, but go completely mental at the end of the show. I have checked
this out with other comics and they all say the same. Had a first there too.
Got a note from some bloke asking me to propose on his behalf. It was accepted
by said lady.

I did a
student gig there once and was told at the local poly which was about to become
a university that the students had requested it be named Central University
(of) Northern Tyneside. Yes, that acronym would certainly have been classy.

Also,
Middlesbrough is the place where I have been most off my head following a
drinking sesh and foolishly accepting a blue tablet from a bloke I didn’t
really know.

Nottingham

I have done Nottingham
quite a few times and every time 1 step out onto the stage and face the
audience, they appear to be completely pissed, even on a couple of Sunday
nights when I’ve been there. Also, they seem to be really keen to join in, and
a higher than average number of audience members just throw what appear to be
random thoughts into the ether. None of it is ever particularly malevolent;
they just want to join in.

I once
did a gig in Nottingham (I think it was Nottingham, forgive me, it may have
been Leicester) next to a roller-skating rink.

Rather
foolishly, as we had got there early and had a bit of time to spare, we decided
to go roller-skating. I have always been rubbish at that sort of thing, but got
stuck in with enthusiasm, and within a minute or so, having fallen several
times I found myself plunging towards the floor head first and gave myself a
really nasty crack on the skull. I didn’t get knocked out, but I did feel quite
weird. On top of that, ridiculously I had a few beers and by the time the show
was due to start I felt decidedly woozy and out of touch with reality It may
have been concussion, I don’t know.

The
show was delayed and because it was Nottingham (or Leicester) the audience weren’t
having it, and after five minutes, set up a chant of ‘Why are we waiting?’ —the
only time this has ever happened to me. As there was no back-stage area because
of the way the stage had been constructed, I had to go on stage to introduce
Andy — and given that I was a bit bonkers, I lambasted the audience in a far
more aggressive way than I would do normally It didn’t set the scene for a very
friendly night and poor old Andy had to go on after this and try to rein things
in. We got through it, but it was perhaps the strangest mental state I’ve ever
been in when faced with a performance.

Oxford

I was slightly on edge in
Oxford one night, having received a weird letter the night before in
Winchester, which made no sense whatsoever, apart from numerous, rather
unsettling mentions of Peter Sutcliffe. Off the Kerb kindly provided a big
scary guy called Tony, should the letter-writer turn up and try to do damage.
Thankfully he didn’t.

Sevenoaks

Sevenoaks should really be
renamed Oneoaks, having lost six of its famous oaks in the great storm of 1987.
I have worked there a number of times. On one occasion, Andy was completely
stuck on the M40 in one of those traffic jams that just doesn’t move for hours.
Eventually it seemed he wasn’t going to get there (thank the Lord for mobile
phones — at least I knew he wasn’t splatted against a tree), so I had to do the
whole show on my own.

You
might have guessed that I’m not one of those comics that has hours and hours of
spare material, so I had to quickly sit down with a pen and paper and drag up
some old material from the recesses of my rather badly functioning memory.
Success on these occasions also depends on whether the audience will play ball,
because one way of stretching things out is to muck about with them. If they
sit there in silence staring at you as if you are a disturbed impostor, this
doesn’t really work, but thankfully the God of Comedy was on my side and I
managed to do two forty-five-minute sets which they seemed perfectly satisfied
with.

On
another occasion I arrived at the same theatre in Sevenoaks to discover that
owing to popular demand, forty extra tickets had been sold and the excess
punters had been accommodated
on the stage.

So I
found myself performing, placed between four rows of audience, the ones toward
the back having a panoramic view of my arse. It wasn’t ideal (for them, I would
have thought) but again, having to deal with pretty much any eventuality, the
solution seemed to be relentlessly taking the piss out of the poor sods who’d
had the misfortune to be placed on the stage.

Warrington

I’ve been to Warrington a
few times and they are well lary there in a fun way especially the women. One
night after a very, very lively (for ‘lively’, read ‘very pissed’) gig, as we
left by the stage door, Andy the support act was pursued the few yards to the
car by a posse of big scary women shouting, ‘Show us yer helmet!’ I’ve never
seen him looking so terrified. Made me laugh, though.

Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton is one of
those places that people take the piss out of, for it being a bit shit.
Granted, it’s not the most attractive place in the universe, but I have a real
fondness for it. One night, doing the Wulfrun Hall, there was a fire alarm
right in the middle of my set. We all duly filed out to the side of the
building, where I did my best to carry on, bawling at the top of my voice, but it
wasn’t terribly successful, and eventually we were all let back in and carried
on as normal.

You might be wondering how
I remember all this stuff and it’s a good question to ask. I have the memory of
a pissed goldfish and therefore in my head it is the spectacular moments of my
life that tend to stick in the memory banks.

I have,
however, kept diaries, but they are not the well-written, lovingly cared for, intelligible
and insightful tomes that certain people have managed. No, I’m afraid they’re a
motley collection of books, notepads and random scraps of paper, written when I
was bored, depressed or slightly bonkers. Consequently you might assume they
are a bit rubbish and indeed you’d be right — a lot of them are. But
occasionally I come across bits which are quite interesting, not in a
QI,
Stephen
Fry sense, but hopefully they add to the whole.

The
following is the account of a short tour, spread out over three or four weeks
so I could get back home every night.

Northampton

Bloody awful
headache made worse by one or two drunken people shouting nonsense at me. Reasonable
gig in the circs. My friend Mel from college days turned up with some friends.
Had a drink after and slunk gratefully into the car.

Aberystwyth

Aberystwyth is
bloody miles away They seemed pleased to see us.

York

They loved all
local paper stuff. Lots of joining in.

Portsmouth

Terrible traffic,
got there late, very rushed, put make-up on like a five year old.

Grimsby

Grim by name …

Dartford

Felt pleased
could bring some joy to Dartford.

Barnstaple

Last time I did a
gig here, I cried. Not so this time. Warm and fairly bonkers audience who don’t
see women comics very often, I get the feeling. They were a bit squeamish about
the ruder material.

Halifax

They were
miserable; me too.

Oxford

Dreaming spires? Bloody
pissed, more like.

Derby

Can’t stop
thinking the base of the English KKK is near here. None in though, thankfully I
don’t think.

King’s Lynn

Why isn’t there a
motorway to King’s Lynn? Stuck behind lorries, tractors, caravans … you name
it, they were all on the road. Frazzled and grumpy but don’t think they
noticed.

Liverpool

Cheeky as ever,
ranging from quite drunk to virtually unconscious. Good gig.

Hayes

Hayes is near
Uxbridge.

Hull

Saw a sheet
attached to a house saying,
Happy 30th birthday, Nan.

Bradford

I love Bradford.

Yeovil

Good sandwiches
for a change, rather than the usual sweaty cheese. Local paper very sweet — all
dog poo and teenagers.

Newtown

Why don’t people
like the Welsh? I bloody love em.

Oh Gawd, where do I start?
Producing stand-up material is such a strange mercurial thing that it’s hard to
pin down. Besides, there are so many different types of stand-up that it’s
difficult to categorise them. You have, for example, stream of consciousness
stand-up, the sort Eddie izzard does brilliantly which I have always thought
was similar to the symptoms in individuals who suffer from bi-polar disorder and
who are in the manic phase of their illness.