29TH SEPTEMBER 2015 - XS MALARKEY

XS MALARKEY - 18TH BIRTHDAY GIG

David Cameron may or may not have had sex with a dead pig but there is no doubt that tonight he has inserted his metaphorical penis into my comedy set. I am at XS Malarkey in Manchester. It is their 18th Birthday celebration gig. I am delighted to have been asked to do it. I have a particular fondness for this club. Not only is it one of the best gigs in the country, it is also the place I did my first ever paid gig. The venue has changed over the years but its spirit transcends any individual location. I have changed over the years too. Indeed on a cellular level I am a completely different person to the person I was seven years ago. It is seven years since I played this gig. I haven’t actually played this gig before. It is good to be back. 

The room is large and deep but yet intimate. Many people stand, so that despite its size, it retains an over-subscribed feel. There appears to be around 400 people here. My mind maybe exaggerating that number, but that is how it seems. There is a raw energy, a real feeling of a happening, a raw energy than many comedy clubs no longer have.

In the last few weeks I have been attempting to insert material from my Edinburgh Fringe show into my club set. But it is not always easy to stick it in. The demands of club material and solo show material are not always the same. I can’t simply airdrop in whole routines from my solo show. There has to be a metamorphosis. I don’t fully understand this process myself. It involves a certain amount of re-jigging in my head and a certain amount of working it out on stage. I am at the “working it out on stage” stage. 

One of the routines I am currently working on is about bad drivers and at one point I discuss the possibility of pigs being allowed to drive cars. Now this is where David Cameron fits in. I usually eschew topicality but this Cameron/Pig story is too much to resist. It has all the prime ingredients: politics, sex, university high jinx, animals, privilege, meat.  (I am on Cameron’s side by the way, I feel that dead pig’s head was asking for it).

So when I mention the pig bit of my driving routine I then segue into the Cameron tangent. I have played with this story a couple of times on stage. It is a semi-improvised routine where I staunchly defend Cameron, in a sort of barrister mode, on the grounds of democratic freedom. I am supposed to return to the topic of bad drivers but I get so carried away with Cameron and pigs that I forget to return to bad drivers. So there is an odd asymmetric feel to it. I just end the Cameron bit and move onto to something else. And the audience are left wondering “What about the bad drivers?” They don’t consciously think that of course but they are slightly dissatisfied. That is the trouble with audiences they have seen films and TV and plays before. They have read books and heard people tell stories. On some subconscious level they understand narrative arc and they get disappointed when they don’t get it. 

So the gig takes a little hit for a few minutes. It is perceptible to me. I don’t know if the audience even notice? It probably takes me four minutes to get things back to where they were and all because of David Cameron and his penis.