Look who it is! (29 page)

As it happens, I had nothing to worry about as the rest of the gigs at the Festival went really well. In fact, there was so little to do in Montreal, I started looking forward to them. My last gig there was a gay night of comedy, and it deserves a mention just because it was so crazy and kitsch. It was hosted by a drag queen dressed as Peggy Lee – not Peggy in her heyday, but Peggy in her 80s when she had the shakes and a drink problem. The stage was set up like her front room: a settee, a minibar, pictures on the walls. Peggy would be in this ridiculous Purdy-style bob, slurring her way through ‘Fever’ or ‘Woman’, and then a doorbell would ring. She would answer the door (after crashing into a bookcase), I would have to come on and do my fifteen minutes of stand-up in her lounge, and then she would stagger back and finish her song.
It was an absolute scream, and the perfect end to a week that, if I’m honest, hadn’t started out as the best.

* * *

Once back in Great Britain, it was work as usual. I had to get my Edinburgh show ready, and it was looking quite good. As always, you go to these out-of-the-way places to try out the show, and I was turning up all over the country, the Aldeburgh Festival on the east coast, pubs on the outskirts of Manchester, art centres in Devon, anywhere I could run through the show without some snotty critic mauling it and ripping it to shreds. The constant driving and eating Ginsters pasties at service stations at two in the morning with a surly trucker is not only bad for your diet, but also dangerous. The number of times I’ve nearly fallen asleep on the way home – I have to put the blower on full force directed at my crotch just to keep my eyes open. It’s a bit drastic, I know, but it can be quite erotic at the right temperature.

Ask any comedian and they will tell you that it’s a lonely business. Travelling around by yourself in a car can be very isolating, and if you’re feeling a bit down or low, being on the actual stage can be lonely, too – even if there are a hundred people watching. You can sometimes feel a fraud telling these jokes on stage and acting out all these comic scenarios when on the inside you’re thinking, ‘God, I wish I was on my holidays.’ The audience can be bent double with laughter and I’m saying to myself, ‘I must pick those trousers up from the dry cleaners.’

I remember sitting with my family in a Chinese restaurant in Northampton when a man came in and said, ‘Table for one, please.’

Mum, being a mum, went, ‘Ahh! What a shame!’

‘Mum, that’s me!’ I said. ‘That’s me! Most weekends.’

I swear she nearly welled up. But it’s true. It was me asking for ‘a table for one, please’, quickly followed by ‘nowhere near the window’. It’s especially bad, if you are doing a weekend in Bristol or Glasgow or Birmingham, and you’ve got nothing to do in the day and you have to kill twelve hours, but still at the end of it be sober enough to get on stage and perform.

I’ve been known to pop into the Jorvic Centre in York, Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks in Blackpool or Stockport’s Hat Museum, just to make the time pass that little bit more quickly. God knows what kind of loser I looked like, as I walked around on my own, reading the little information cards to myself, or idly thumbing through the oversized pencils in the gift shop. I must have got some pitying looks, I can tell you.

Various distractions came along whilst I was writing my show, but I was soldiering on with rewriting it, so I turned most of them down. One show I just had to do, though, was
The World Stands Up
– not for the programme, but for the chance to go to Melbourne where it was being filmed. I had spent so much time in Sydney, but weirdly had always missed out going to Melbourne, which is, in Australian terms, relatively close by. As at Just for Laughs, the best comedians from the UK were asked to do a routine and ‘battle’ against the stand-ups from the other countries.

If I were offered it now, I wouldn’t take it, because it nearly killed me. Travelling to Melbourne on a twenty-four hour flight, only to turn round and come back again three days later once filming had finished, is devastating. But I was so desperate to go on what I thought was a free holiday that I foolishly stuck two fingers up to my body clock and went ahead with it. My body clock retaliated by making me fall asleep and also get impossibly drunk on the smallest amount of alcohol.

After filming had been completed, I was enjoying a little tipple with the comedian Lee Mack, who was also battling against the world for Britain. I seemed to be getting louder and more flamboyant. I like to think that I am like Dorothy Parker when I’m pissed, keeping my audience captive with my witty epigrams. But it’s more like Danny La Rue on poppers – believe me, I’ve seen the photos.

Before long I was trolleyed, and Lee and I decided to call it a night, in separate rooms, I might add. An older guy joined us in the lift and, seeing us both swaying and giggling, said, ‘You like parties?’

Well I never, it was Peter Fonda. Before we knew it, Lee and I were sitting around at Peter’s feet in his suite, singing protest songs while he accompanied us on guitar. I would usually avoid this situation like the plague, but it was one of the Fondas, for God’s sake. The only way I could trump this drunken anecdote would be if I did a cardiovascular workout paralytic with his sister Jane. Maybe you had to be there, but it was very funny, especially when Lee sat Peter down and said, ‘I know you must get this all the time, what with
Easy
Rider
and everything, but – what’s your favourite pie?’

Peter stared at us over his guitar but we were in bits. Anyway, the party fizzled out, and we retired graciously, after Lee distracted Peter and I took all the drinks out of his minibar.

Obviously, as I was staying in Melbourne for just three days – with one and a half of them filming and rehearsing, and the other one and a half falling asleep in restaurants – I didn’t get to see much of the place. But the bits I did see were charming, although no one told me about the wind from the Antarctic. The bright Melbourne sun would shine cheerfully through my hotel window, slyly luring me out of my room, only for me to step outside and get instant botox from the wind as it bit my face. I’d be glad to get back to Manchester where at least you knew what you were getting when you stepped outside your house – rain.

Back in England, all eyes were on Edinburgh. Everyone, including myself, was putting the final touches to their shows. After the miserable time I’d had last time in Edinburgh, I decided to throw myself into the whole Festival thing this time and share with another comedian – then at least I wouldn’t get lonely and could feel more a part of it. My agent said, ‘Why don’t you share with another Off the Kerb act?’

I thought ‘Why not?’ The only other act who was looking for a flatmate was Brendon Burns. Now anyone who’s seen Brendon will know that we are chalk and cheese. He is a loud, brash, bandana-wearing political firecracker, while I am – well, you know what I am. But even though the alarm bells were ringing so loud I thought I had tinnitus, I said ‘Yes’,
thinking that macho bravado was all an act. It wasn’t. Soon word got round that I was sharing with Brendon and overnight the nicknames ‘Poofy’ and ‘Shouty’ were born.

Brendon was great and considerate and always did his washing up, but his entourage was the problem. It would get bigger by the day, with more and more women joining the fold. During one riotous party, I came out of my bedroom in my dressing gown to tell them to turn it down, and I was instantly surrounded by scantily clad women – I must have looked like Hugh Hefner at the Playboy mansion.

Every morning I would be saying ‘Hello’ to another strange woman whilst eating my Coco Pops. One morning I was sitting opposite a woman who had given me a shit review two years ago. I gave her a sharp smile and took my bowl of chocolately goodness to my room. To be fair, that was just me being a party pooper – why shouldn’t everyone go a bit crazy? It’s a festival, for God’s sake.

We were there for a month, and everyone was saying, ‘Let your hair down!’ But I just couldn’t, and I never can – there always seems to be something to worry about. If I ever did trash a hotel room, I’d be throwing the television out the window with one hand and giving the sideboard the once over with a damp cloth with the other.

My show, simply called ‘Alan Carr’, was selling out every night and getting rave reviews. Typical, the only year I could not be arsed to come up with a title and I was getting some of the best reviews of my life. The
Scotsman
– five stars,
Independent
– five stars,
Three Weeks
– five stars. The good reviews kept coming into the press office, and they were put straight
on my posters. This time I didn’t have to steal them from Jimmy Carr. Because the show was doing so well, other comedians came to see it. I had some of Dad’s footballing mates in the audience, including the manager Gordon Strachan. Unknown to me, Channel 4’s head of entertainment, Andrew Newman, who would play such an integral part in my progression at Channel 4, also came to the show.

* * *

As the Fringe lurches towards its denouement, talk of Perrier rears its ugly head. Perrier, or whatever it’s called nowadays, is an award a panel of judges give out every year to the comedian they think has the best show. In the Eighties they bestowed it on Steve Coogan, Lee Evans and Frank Skinner. Sadly in the Nineties it became the kiss of death, and whoever won it was never heard of again. As you can imagine, I didn’t want anything to do with it and, besides, the two previous years I hadn’t even got on the long list, let alone the shortlist. Why would they bother with me this year? However, my agent started getting himself in a tizz about this damn Perrier and, against my wishes, must have asked the main judge, Nica Burns, to come along and see the show.

I really wish he hadn’t because, five minutes in, she’d fallen asleep in the front row. It was quite off-putting, I must say, to see that bulbous head resting on her chest with her legs wide open. At least with a heckle you can use a witty putdown, but to have this lethargic lump directly in my eyeline was proving a real distraction. Nevertheless, the rest of the audience had a
great time, and I got a wonderful cheer at the end, which warmed my cockles but woke Nica from her slumbers, disorientated. I knew at that moment I had absolutely no chance of winning that Perrier. As it happens, the fact that Andrew Newman was in the audience proved more useful to my career than any award, and later that week he invited my agent and me to dinner in Leith.

‘Have you heard of
The Friday Night Project?
’ Andrew asked.

‘No,’ I replied. I stopped myself from saying, ‘It’s on a Friday night, isn’t it?’

‘Well, we at Channel 4 would like you to co-host the show with Justin Lee Collins.’

‘But I hate that big hairy Bristolian!’

Obviously, I didn’t say that – I love him. I dithered instead and said, ‘Can I have a think about it?’

You’ve got to understand that I’d never seen the show. I knew the first series had been hosted by Jimmy Carr and Rob Rouse. But I’d been jet-setting all over the globe to Melbourne and Montreal, darling, so I’d never had the chance to see it and didn’t have a clue what the show was about. It could have been a programme about celebrity badger baiting, for all I knew. I don’t mind going on a satellite channel at one o’clock in the morning, but if I’m certain someone might actually be watching, then I don’t want to be saddled with a turkey.

I said I’d think it over once I’d returned to Stretford. Ahh! Beautiful Stretford. I didn’t think I’d miss it like I did. I only had to last a few more days and I would be leaving Edinburgh for home.

When the final day arrived, my heart sank. Brendon and I would have to clean the flat, as it had stated in the lease: ‘Leave it as you find it.’ Looking around, I hoped and prayed that we’d found it graffiti-ed, trashed, cigarette-burned and with a dislodged toilet seat, but it was a long shot. However, before I could slip on my Marigolds and drop to my knees, Brendon, in that wonderful rasping Australian voice of his, said, ‘Leave it to us lot, mate. We made the mess, so we’ll clean up the mess.’

I can’t remember what I said next. All I remember is running out of the flat with my suitcase, slamming the door, shouting, ‘Thanks, Brendon,’ out of the sunroof, and putting my foot to the pedal.

The Friday Night Project
played on my mind. What did Channel 4 want? Could I deliver what they wanted? Stand-up comedy is one thing, but reading from an autocue and interviewing someone famous and trying to look interested is another. And there’s that thing in your ear where you can hear the director talking in the gallery. I wasn’t sure I would cope with that interference, but little did I know I would be putting these skills to use sooner than I thought.

I was sitting at home in my flat when I got a phone call out of the blue.

‘Do you live near the Trafford Centre?’

‘Yes,’ I replied.

It was the producer of
Richard and Judy
asking if I would like to do an outside broadcast at the Trafford Centre – ‘Live!’

‘When do you want me?’

‘Five o’clock today.’

‘What? Live? You must be joking!’

That was two hours away. I didn’t even have time to feel sick at the thought.

I drove down to the Trafford Centre and found out what I had to do. I had to run up to shoppers, drag them back to a podium and in the studio. Trinny and Susannah would dish out fashion advice to them all – live.

I have never even seen the footage of that day because I dread to see how terrified I looked. Just before they counted me down I had this awful fear that Tourette’s would take over my body and I’d just shout out ‘Hello, motherfuckers’ instead of ‘Hello, Richard and Judy.’

It really was a baptism of fire – I had the director talking in my ear, I had Richard and Judy talking to me in the studio and I had to interact with the shoppers, and pretend to give a shit about their outfits. Listening to the cacophony of voices whizzing through my head was making me dizzy – I don’t know how Derek Acorah does it.

But I survived, and when I was back at my flat having a very large glass of wine Richard Madeley rang up and left a message on my mobile.